... to convince ourselves and others that we are more in control than we actually are.
Back in March we were all urged to scrub our hands frequently and thoroughly, singing songs as we did so. This didn’t stop Covid from increasing exponentially....
More and more studies seem to confirm that Covid is overwhelmingly via breathing in droplets or aerosols containing the virus, with very little, if any, evidence, for mouth-to-surface-to-surface-to mouth transmission. Even the vulnerable weren’t advised to clean down their shopping after the initial couple of weeks of lockdown!
And yet, there seems still to be so much emphasis of hand sanitising, with this seemingly a central part of many Covid response plans.
I’m not saying that keeping hands clean isn’t a good thing - it is, but the focus doesn’t seem to be so much about actual Covid prevention, but being seen to do something, and the sense of control and confidence this brings.... but with the consequence that people have an exaggerated sense of its importance, either:
a) leading to unnecessary neurotic, compulsive behaviours or;
b) engaging in other far more “risky” social activity because you’ve done “what matters” and sanitised, or even;
c) arguing that masks (whose purpose is to prevent the primary mode of transmission via breath) are rendered useless by the mere touch to the face (despite this would be a highly unusual mode of virus transmission).
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Covid
Is hand sanitising largely a pointless displacement activity...
69 replies
Derbygerbil · 02/09/2020 23:25
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