You know me; I am thinking all the time.
I have several thoughts on where we are in the pandemic and what we should be doing going forward. Those thoughts are generally going to be well-reasoned and sympathetic, and divided into three different days.
Before I do that, there is just a touch of rage accumulated that I believe it will be helpful to clear out first.
There have been many contributors to the rage, but I think what most crystallized it was some complaining about tips for stopping the spread. Although vaccinations were increasing, the message advised continuing wearing masks, social distancing, and washing hands.
Someone took exception to the continued need for hand washing, since we now know that COVID-19 is airborne, and washing hands has nothing to do with it.
The burden of hand washing is just too much for you, huh?
Do you know that the last flu season was practically non-existent?
https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/03/30/flu-season
There was just one pediatric flu death; the year before was 196.
The hospitalization rate for influenza was lower than it has been since they started tracking it, which was good because the hospitals were pretty busy with COVID patients.
There is a whole slew of things that contributed to that. People working from home and schools being closed was a big factor in people not getting close enough to each other to spread as much disease as we usually do. However, it seems really likely that the improved hygiene some of us practiced when we did come into contact with each other was also a factor.
Did some businesses go overboard with disinfectant spray? Probably, but hand washing is so easy and so effective, that if you have a problem with it I can only wonder what is wrong with you.
Do you want more dead children? Is that your goal?
Do you want hospital staff and space stretched out past capacity? Does that seem like a good thing?
Look, I know right wing radio personalities like to talk about how everything is too clean and that's bad for your immune system; but they're just doing that so corporations can roll back health and safety standards.
There is even a point to it -- not the salmonella corporations want to give you -- but that anti-bacterial everything and overuse of antibiotics is a bad thing. That is totally true.
But how do some people deal with that? They stop washing their legs!
Then, even though the doctor who is okay with not washing them daily specifies that you should at least wash your legs when they are visibly soiled, you start seeing really dirty legs everywhere.
This is why we have a nation full of poop beards!
https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/poo-beard-faecal-bacteria-how-14959212
Yes, you will find quibbling over whether there is actually fecal matter or it is just identical bacteria, but surveys show that 60% of men don't wash their hands after using the bathroom.
(Was the first hint that Michael Shannon's character in The Shape of Water was evil when he gave his bathroom philosophy?)
Look, even if it is really just a pee beard, that's still disgusting. Also, maybe it's good that the pandemic is moving us away from shaking hands.
(As long as we are talking about this, https://safespaceco.com/germs-on-shoes-if-only-you-knew-whats-living-on-the-bottom-of-your-shoes/.)
Humanity, quit being disgusting! Wash your hands!
If we ever want to move forward into a better, healthier world, we are not going to get there by listening to the anti-hand washing filthy-legged poop beards.
This I know.
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