Covid has brought a lot of changes to our day-to-day life both at home and out in public. Much of this we've just gotten used to, like giving people space. Much is bearable but annoying, like masks, at least to people like me who don't work out of the home and only infrequently have to wear them. And then there's all the cleaning happening everywhere you go. Hopefully you're not one of the people who's been sanitizing your food.
I won't forget the tour at the preschool our son's been attending since March. The Director made sure to point out the toys in each class are rotated and periodically thoroughly cleaned, specifically for Covid reasons. They had totes in the classrooms for kids supplies, supposedly again due to Covid. Meanwhile the kids are all running around and playing (which I'm fine with!) in close proximity and maskless, because they're toddlers after all. All I could do was nod along and later laugh, sure fine whatever.
Many businesses still make a point to, for example, sterilize shopping carts or make everyone uses hand sanitizer on entry. Everyone has a procedure and it's being stuck to, almost religiously at times.
The problem, and the reason I'm more-or-less poking fun, is this: we know Covid isn't in reality being passed person to person via surfaces. Everything we've learned shows the virus passes through the air by people in close proximity for a chunk of time. The CDC finally updated their guidance to reflect this and I feel, that while there were news stories about it (here's one from the NYT, another from ABC News), that information just passed largely unnoticed and everyone just kept doing what they're doing all along.
"The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus. It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low."
The exception:
"In situations when there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 indoors within the last 24 hours, the presence of infectious virus on surfaces is more likely and therefore high-touch surfaces should be disinfected."
Basically if there's been a confirmed case within 24 hours, like in a school classroom, then disinfecting surfaces and other things makes sense. Otherwise it's unnecessary and (in my words) largely a waste of time, effort and supplies, especially if you continue to do common sense things like washing your hands.
At this point I don't know if this is ignorance or people and places feel the need to show they're doing *something* and that show is more important than anything else. Either way it's foolishness, if we're listening to what the science tells us, and perhaps even counterproductive to our health. We should still want strong immune systems overall and there are other sicknesses beside Covid. Constantly sterilizing everything in our lives will almost certainly lessen immunity to anything else going around.
I'll get off my soapbox in a sec. My main gist is I'm going to keep hand sanitizer in my car for when I have to change diapers out and about. But I'm not going to use it every time I go anywhere or generally worry about Covid on surfaces, whether its at home or elsewhere, and you shouldn't either. Maybe we can even share this information. There's more than enough prevalent silliness and fear as it is and any focus should be on actually helpful things. With rapidly rising vaccination rates this hopefully all ends naturally, though I'm a little concerned widespread uninformed neuroticism will (or has) become the norm. People like to talk about following the science, so let's do it.
/fin
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