What I see locally (deep red, southern US state) as Hygiene Theater is businesses and schools and facilities that are open to the public are promoting all the surface cleaning they are doing “to keep you safe,” that cleaning of surfaces is what will prevent all the kids going back to school and people going to restaurants and bars and salons and gyms from being infected.
But the evidence is that transmission is overwhelmingly person-to-person via the air. (Not getting into the details of droplets vs aerosols.) So what are they doing about their climate control systems? Is there even anything they can do to increase the amount of outside air these systems use or improve the filtration of tiny particles or retrofit UV disinfection units to them? And the silence on that in this heavily climate controlled part of the world scares the hell out of me.
I like cleanliness. I wash and/or quarantine what I buy and have a couple sets of clothes reserved for errands that go straight into the washer when I come home. I will continue doing that. I’m glad businesses are taking cleanliness seriously. But the emphasis on cleaning surfaces addresses the least risky transmission possibility. Hygiene Theater is presenting cleaning surfaces as the key to “safety,” which does nothing about the more significant risk of airborne transmission.
Here in Germany you’re technically not allowed to cover your face while you’re driving. The intention behind this is that you’re supposed to be recognisable in traffic camera images.
The police has said, however, that they’re perfectly capable of identifying people who wear the popular types of face mask and that as long as drivers don’t wear sunglasses or floppy hats with their masks they will refrain from issuing citations. When I have to make a choice, I personally prefer sunglasses in the interest of general road safety to a mask in the interest of COVID-19 safety.
I agree with the person who said that when you’re running errands it’s often better to leave your mask on all the time instead of taking it off and on. Having said that, I also have a large bottle of hand sanitizer in my car.
Disourse needs to add more kinds of reactions than just a heart. I want to acknowledge your post for making a great point about overreaction and hygiene theater, but a heart reaction for post where you mention that horror show of bleaching a beach just doesn’t seem quite right.
I applaud better information and focussing our efforts on what matters vs what doesn’t matter that much or at all.
But in the early days of all this, an antimasker was already on about masks as “hygiene theatre” to me. Please keep that in mind if you decide to use that phrase again.
I sometimes do this because I know I’m going to be wearing a mask for an extended period of time and I want to already be used to it by the time I get to work, or because I’m on the way to a store or drive-in where I know I’ll need it. Don’t assume anyone wearing a mask when alone is doing so out of unreasonable fear.
I’ve been hearing that surfaces are a negligible risk for transmitting COVID for months, and I would dearly like to not have to use gloves every time I work- they rip, they chafe, they’re hard to put on, they trap heat, they stick to packaging tape. But until there’s a strong, public, consistent scientific consensus that surfaces are nothing to be concerned about and not this shyly-mumbled “it might be okay, unless it kills you possibly” stuff, the gloves stay on and the groceries get wiped down.
It makes me wonder if there is some German word for lightly amused but not being judgmental. That is sort of the reaction I have to the mask in car for those that appear to have no reason (but may well have one).
Locally we have a large Asian population and mask use existed well before Covid. A year or two ago I saw a group of friends wearing masks and one was not Asian. I was amused to see the cultural mask use spreading sideways.
I’m considering relaxing my soap-wipe of the groceries a bit because everyone has to wear a mask in the store now. (Good, except that now they’ve forgotten social distancing.)
I know that the variety of options might not be available and that you may have employer supplied gloves but: if you can try some different styles, sizes and materials for gloves. Also have dry hands when you put them on (if possible). If you are or should be changing them a lot you could try double gloving. However I have no advice for the packing tape - that is just a problem.
They’re employer provided, and frankly, about as comfortable as disposable gloves can be- but wearing them for hours every day is not something I want to do forever, especially if they’re not actually protecting from anything.
I used isopropyl or peroxide and a folded up paper towel. They both have good contact/kill times and aren’t nearly as messy. In fact, they sell peroxide in spray bottles now. In April & May I was volunteering to deliver meals to families and probably used a gallon of peroxide.
That’s the meat of it, right there. Negligible, but still a risk. Unfortunately, if you’re in a high-contact job or living space, I’d keep doing exactly what you are doing.
As far as the packing tape goes, a dispenser is invaluable, but if it’s not a good one it’s more trouble than they’re worth. This one is the best I’ve ever used. Well worth the cost if it’s something that is a daily burden.
They sound like Dream Theater, but super tucked-in. Like they picked their synthesizers and are just need to talk it out for 3 hours before slurring or pitch bending anything.
As I recall, soap and detergent break it down as effectively as sanitizing agents. So I use some dish soap on a damp J-cloth, and then wipe them down with a towel.
Yes, but something like 30% of the population is (self reported) as not wearing any face covering, and I think, but am not sure that the data indicates this is by choice, not because no covering is available.
You can currently buy KN95 masks for something like a dollar or two (at least in packs of 50) from Amazon, and good but not even claiming to be N95 in a not-FDA lab mask for less elsewhere. The problem is no longer lack of access, but lack of will.
That isn’t to say we should have had more masks earlier when the supply was so short doctors and nurses couldn’t get what they needed. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t have had a supply early enough that we didn’t lean into advice like “the general public shouldn’t wear masks (so that doctors and nurses can have more, but still not enough)”.
I will readily admit that much-if not most of the mask - wearing, feels like theater. But if it makes it easier for people around me to wear the masks, do their own theater, and make mask-wearing more normal, then its not a huge burden.
I have depreciated the surface threat, it seems far more important to manage my time in public to present as small an attack surface as poasible. And that was true before Covid.
All I’m going to say is that if you hear Trump calling masks “hygiene theater” in the next few days then basically this turn of phrase is going to kill hundreds of people
