Sign up for our special edition newsletter to get a daily update on the coronavirus pandemic.

Maybe some British kids will get the message about social distancing with the finger-wagging warning of “don’t kill granny.”

Public health officials in the city of Preston, population 4.5 million, adopted the slogan after they noticed a spike in COVID-19 among young adults.

City Council leaders hammered home the point after they saw video footage of hundreds of partiers in a nightclub — standing shoulder to shoulder, Britain’s The Sun newspaper reported.

The council’s chief executive, Adrian Phillips, told the BBC: “I know our director of public health has said ‘don’t kill granny’ to young people to try and focus the message.”

More and more young adults are being infected with the coronavirus, but are likely to be asymptomatic or have fewer symptoms than older patients, Phillips said.

“They do take it back to their household,” he said, “and the community spread we are seeing we believe in many cases are young people taking it home and catching the virus.”