Many inventions have emerged following the outbreak of the deadly virus and Grigore Lup, a Transylvanian cobbler thought it necessary to contribute his quota to the fight against its onslaught too by developing long-nosed shoes.

The largest pairs go up to a European size 75.

The motivation behind Lup’s invention is that when two persons are wearing the shoes and facing each other, there will be 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) of distance between them, so it can limit unnecessary body contact.

Reports say each pair uses one square meter of leather — they can be fabricated in a number of colorways, with either rubber or leather soles — and it takes Lup two days to craft each style.

“You can see it on the street, people are not respecting social distancing rules. I went to the market to buy seedlings for my garden. There weren’t many people there but they kept getting closer and closer.

“If two people wearing these shoes were facing each other, there would be almost one-and-a-half metres between them,” he is quoted as saying.

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A Reuters report said Lup has been crafting leather shoes for nearly four decades and opened his own shop in 2001, but depends largely on orders from theaters and operas to keep his business going. However, with live events cancelled because of coronavirus, he has seen orders significantly reduced.

Grigore Lup’s social distancing shoes made news headlines in June last year but it appears to have gotten further publicity recently as a result of the continuous devastation being caused by the coronavirus across the globe.