As America grapples with the most serious pandemic in decades, experts recommend social distancing as a way to limit the spread of the coronavirus. That means canceling events, closing schools, and working from home if possible. The fewer people who come into contact, the slower the virus will spread, and the less likely our health care system will get overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases.

Yet Meetup, a website devoted to facilitating meetings among strangers, is continuing to help its users organize face-to-face meetings.

Ordinarily, that's a laudable mission. Over the last 18 years, the site has helped organize thousands of social, professional, and educational events. But in the middle of a pandemic, a website devoted to encouraging people to have face-to-face meetings seems more than a little counterproductive.

Here in my own Washington, DC, backyard, 22 people are planning to attend a book club Meetup this evening for the book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. On Sunday, one of the attendees posted to Meetup that he was going to have to miss it due to coronavirus concerns. Another chimed in "Why not push the meeting and others back one month?"

But others disagreed. "I don't think it would be fair to reschedule this close to the meeting," one member wrote. As I write this on Monday morning, the listing remains active.

Contacted by email, Meetup told Ars that the company is taking steps to encourage groups to shift from face-to-face to virtual meetings. The company pointed to a blog post by CEO David Siegel promoting online meetings as an alternative to the face-to-face kind.

"Meetup is unwavering when it comes to hosting events in person instead of online," Siegel wrote last week. "But in light of the circumstances, we're temporarily encouraging communities to stay connected in any way they can. That includes hosting virtual events."

Many Meetup event organizers seem to have gotten the message. A number of educational Meetup events have been converted into remote events via online streaming software. Others have been canceled outright.

Meetup says that it is "exploring making fundamental changes to the nature of our product" to promote virtual gatherings. Meetup also says that it's been advising meeting organizers to follow CDC guidelines about large groups.

These are worthwhile steps. But the reality is that any event that brings strangers together face-to-face increases the risk of coronavirus transmission.