17 ms·

Has the era of overzealous cleaning finally come to an end?

95 points by prostoalex 6y ago

standardUser 6y ago
"The admission is long overdue, scientists say." This has been a theme of the pandemic and I hope we have all learned the lesson well. Government agencies and officials will usually be the last ones to update their messaging. Maybe it's an attempt at self-preservation by being overly-cautious, or maybe it's done to compel compliance and basically keep people scared. But the message is clear: the government is not the place to get the most accurate and up-to-date facts in the middle of a crisis. Unfortunately, the media hasn't done a great job either, which really leaves us with a problem.
- ghaff 6y ago
  In the case of cleaning specifically though, I'd probably argue that, for a long time, the expert opinion was probably something along the lines of "Although there is some theoretical evidence that the virus can spread by contact, we don't believe it's much of a factor in practice." And, given that, I can see leaving a lot of cleaning practices in place even if they're not believed to help much. The reality I observe is that people have loosened up a lot about obsessively sanitizing and avoiding touching things as much as possible.
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    This time last year I was washing every item that came from the grocery store, and putting my mail in the oven at 170F for about 10 minutes. Stopped doing all that back in about June 2020.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Institutions and insititutional practices are powerful and essential to functioning in a modern and complex society. Even marginal or ineffective practices, and quite probably overtly harmful ones, can have some value and significance. That said, yes, a key weakness of insitutionalised practices is that they often far outlive their actual usefulness, and are difficult to change. In part because of reasons discussed elsewhere in this thread (see my earlier longer comment), but also out of sheer inertia and the difficulty in coming to a collective agreement on a new standard course of action. Additive rather than subtractive problem solving bias being a recently discussed case in point as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26727878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26727878
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  I feel so stuck because of this. My government previously said anyone outside has to wear a mask. Even if you're standing in a middle of a field, by yourself, with no one within a mile of you - you need to wear a mask. This is clearly theater, but society is so polarized that if I don't see value in this kind of theater, then I must be some insane anti-masker who thinks COVID is a government hoax. So there I go, wearing my mask out, hating every minute of it, but hating even more what people might think if I don't. The government has clearly intentionally lied about things (e.g. government telling us early on that masks don't work, maybe to prevent masks from getting sold out for first responders), but I'm not sure what anyone can do about this situation.
  - llampx 6y ago
    Meanwhile our government in Germany first told us that masks are useless (paraphrased), then later reversed their stance, and now require FFP2 masks to enter any shop, bus, train and so on. Meanwhile multiple government officials and ministers have been linked to Mask-scandals so they are likely profiting from each FFP2 mask that is sold.
    - elric 6y ago
      The Belgian government said the same, but I think the message isn't quite as black & white, and should be seen through two pairs of eyes: 1. There's the individual, in which case wearing a mask is not super useful. Wearing a mask isn't very effective at preventing the wearer from getting sick, especially if the wearer is a typical human being who is constantly picking at their face and generally doesn't wear the mask properly. This was oft repeated near the start of the pandemic, mostly by doctors and virologists who deal with infection on the individual level. 2. There's the collective, where reducing the spread even a little bit, can have a definite impact on many people in the long run. Masks mandates are definitely useful there, at least in crowded places. Even if they're not being worn properly by a large fraction of the population, spread will still slow. This may not be useful for any given individual, but it can help "flatten the curve" of hospitalizations, which is sort of what the management of the pandemic is all about. This wasn't really elaborated on in the media, but it's the message that biostatisticians and epidemiologists have been bringing all along. I think there's been some serious communication issues throughout this whole pandemic. Not just in our respective countries, but pretty much globally. Covering your nose and mouth is super low effort and super low risk for almost everyone. And while staying at home and away from people is even more effective, going about your business with a mask is much easier for many people. I don't know why more effort hasn't gone into trying to convince people of that. Instead we're chasing pipe dreams of cheap respirators and tracking apps. Techno-fetishism at its worst.
- pibechorro 6y ago
  Mainstream media is the gov.
ghaff 6y ago
At non-obsessive levels there are worse things people could have done (and did do). But it was mostly harmful to the degree it took time and energy away from more effective responses. (And some people I know were indeed obsessive.)
everyone 6y ago
I thought it was going to be about an actual era. Basically the modern era, in which our environment may be too clean, and potentially do weird things to our immune system, cus its an environment radically different from the one our immune system was designed to work in.
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  Quite like the effect of microgravity on the skeletal system, or the effect of rarely exercising on the muscular system, or the effect of rarely elevating your heart rate on the cardiovascular system. Periodic small shocks are necessary for any biological system to remain in good shape, because those small shocks are a form of information about what needs reinforcing. Without those small shocks, the system atrophies and is unprepared for large shocks. True of the immune system as well, I think.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Nassim Taleb wrote a book on this concept called "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder"
- elric 6y ago
  I was just reading up on "The Hygiene Hypothesis", and it seems like there's little evidence to back up the claim that our environment is "too clean". If anything, I suspect our environment is more likely to be too polluted than to clean. Think lead poisoning up until a few decades ago, or BPA and its ilk currently.
  - patrickk 6y ago
    Not to mention VOCs off gassing from all kinds of things we commonly have in our homes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we look back on this era in horror at the chemicals we put in furniture etc
  - nradov 6y ago
    The hygiene hypothesis is about infectious agents, not toxic chemicals.
throwawayboise 6y ago
So much of our early thinking and statements about COVID were wrong. And it was pushed by hysterical media and governments as the truth and you better not think anything else. This is what leads to skepticism and resentment by the public.
- weaksauce 6y ago
  At the other end of it there is a rationale for it. 1. it gives people agency to not freak out because they can be proactive about something. the reason nuclear energy is a boogieman is that you can't see it and it can kill you and there's is little you can do as an individual to protect yourself against it. 2. they truly didn't know how the spread of the disease is since it was a novel virus. you do however know that the lipid barrier of it makes it susceptible to soap and 70% isopropyl alcohol. 3. saying "there is no evidence that masks are effective" is true in the scientific sense. they didn't do studies so to talk about the effectiveness would have been backwards (also considering at the time they didn't know if it would actually increase the spread due to touching/collection/whatever) scientific illiteracy is a problem. the words and processes have precise meanings and those ignorant to it will glom onto certain words out of context and use that as evidence for their conspiracy theories. (see isolation of the virus et al)
  - standardUser 6y ago
    1. Do you like to be manipulated? I don't. 2. It was't just a novel virus, it was a novel coronavirus and we know all about how those spread. 3. It's the job of government agencies and officials to use communications skills to avoid these issues. If they talk like pedantic scientists then their messaging will fail, and if they don't know that they are in the wrong job.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Rhetorial questions being, of course, one of the very oldest manipulation techniques. https://people.uwplatt.edu/~ciesield/platovsoph.htm https://people.uwplatt.edu/~ciesield/platovsoph.htm
xscott 6y ago
So, is it a 1 in 10,000 chance from touching a contaminated surface and then rubbing your eyes (or picking your nose)?
Freak_NL 6y ago
The image of the spraying of some kind of chemical by people in biohazard suits with a tank on their backs has constantly struck me as very other-worldly this past year. It was (and is) seen often in news footage from many countries though (mostly Asian, African, and South American I think), but it was never adopted here in the Netherlands. Was this all (intended or accidental) theatre or did this actually make sense in some climates? I can imagine it looks reassuring.
- jobu 6y ago
  It depends on how it's done. A neighbor of mine works for a golf course owned by the city and said they started out spraying a mix of bleach in water on everything. Unfortunately they found out a few months into the pandemic that it's only active for something like 12-24 hours after mixing with water, and they had been mixing it in big batches to use over the course of several days. They switched to hydrogen peroxide instead, which isn't as broadly effective against bacteria or viruses as bleach, but is effective against coronavirus and has an indefinite shelf-life.
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  I was in China during the initial outbreak, and those guys in biohazard suits were definitely performative in my part of town. They walked through the neighborhood with a "reporter" in tow, who made sure that every squirt of their magical anti-COVID pixie dust could be captured on film for posterity. In the China case, I'm not sure if it was to reassure the public (who are used to seeing this sort of performative busywork) or if it was more a kind of political one-upmanship amongst local officials who all wanted to give their superiors the impression that they were the hardest-working or most serious cadre in the area.
dredmorbius 6y ago
An intrinsic characteristic of novel threats is that their characteristics are not fully known and understood. Understanding evolves. Other factors include various forms of denial and seeking of agency, amongst both experts and authorities, and the public. The fomite hypothesis --- that small viral fragments on surfaces might be transmitted to individuals --- was plausible and had some initial credibility. It's been observed elsewhere. The alternative hypothesis, that the SARS-COV-2 virus was predominantly airborne and spread readily ... was also plausible and had initial credibility, but also meant that the potential threat and consequences of the disease were far greater, a possibility that numerous entities early in the pandemic seemed eager to play down (and many still do). Notably the first official responses in China, the previous administration's response in the US, and both official and lay/media resposnes elsewhere in the US, Brazil, the Phillippines, throughout Europe, and more. When faced with a novel, difficult-to-perceive threat, one that does not manifest clearly, whose behaviour and characteristics are unknown, people's first response is often to seek the comfort of some degree of control or agency. Cleaning, or hygiene theatre, is just that. Mind: it's all but certainly not harmful. It may detract from other interventions, though for the most part (and after some early bobbles that were a mixture of good intentions, poor understanding, and supply shortages), the general public health advice was the triad of "wear a mask, wash your hands, stay home." All sensible and still highy recommended. Cleaning is also a manifest and tangible signifier of a heightened infection risk environment, and one which might have positive carry-overs to other preventive measures and general awareness. (Lacquering your premises frequently with Lysol not so much, though again, in a potential benefits vs. potential risks calculus, not an entirely bad call.) So the frequent cleaning recommendation arose from: - Initial ignorance of transmission mechanisms. - An unwarranted hope for contract rather than airborne transmission. - A general advisability for the measure regardless. - A sense of agency in the face of an unknown and invisible threat. You can take those circumstances and responses and see them in many other areas. "Hygiene theatre" has obvious connotations with anti-terrorism air travel "security theatre", and I suspect that various technologists will find that their own development and use practices involve various aspects of development theatre, risk theatre, management theatre, etc. These are inherent to any complex phenomena in which relevant and crucial aspects are not overtly evident, and are what give rise to cargo culting and fad-driven practices.
user_50123890 6y ago
A 100% effective "behavioural" covid vaccine (which also works for ALL other respitory diseases): Don't be indoors with other people.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- muricula 6y ago
  Buddy, that's not a vaccine.
lower 6y ago
> She added, “There’s really no evidence that anyone has ever gotten Covid-19 by touching a contaminated surface.” This reminds me of "Rubbish bin the likely source of Covid infection": https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427446/rubbish-bin-the-likely-source-of-covid-infection https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427446/rubbish-bin-the-l...
- blyes 6y ago
  It’s now assumed to be via air rather than the bin. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/new-zealand-zero-covid-transmission https://www.wired.co.uk/article/new-zealand-zero-covid-trans...
kgin 6y ago
Of course nobody wants overzealous cleaning, but the correct level of zeal for a novel disease is not possible to pinpoint exactly from the outset. It makes sense for people to risk having too much zeal than too little until all the information is available.
- ghaff 6y ago
  And, honestly, the recommendations that various governments actually made were things like handwashing, use of hand sanitizer, cleaning surfaces that multiple people are touching, etc.--none of which seem unreasonable even at this point. The "overzealous" cleaning that some people were doing was mostly not the response to government guidelines.
- jobu 6y ago
  And the CDC changed their recommendations and guidelines as knowledge about the virus evolved. Unfortunately too many people interpret these changing messages as: "The CDC was wrong before so they're probably wrong now, so I'm not going to listen to anything they say." So frustrating!
lukifer 6y ago
Learning about Terror Management Theory [0] has definitely been an eye-opener. Anecdotally, it seems to me that most people cope with fears of mortal threats either with self-delusion and denial; or, with extreme over-correction and self-soothing "rain dances" that may or may not have any correlation with increased survival odds. With COVID, we've seen the former play out with anti-maskers and conspiracy denialists, and the latter with over-cleaning and somewhat arbitrary/inconsistent safety precautions, often with little empirical basis. From WW2 isolationism, to McCarthyism, to the Terrorism Panic of the Bush era, I dare say we've seen patterns of simultaneous under- and over-reaction play out repeatedly in history. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  The evidence that masks work at a community level (outside of medical institutions) is very questionable as well so that could fall into the 'rain dance' category. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
  - bluefirebrand 6y ago
    This kind of reminds me of an infographic at my doctors office about birth control. It shows stats on how many unwanted pregnancies happen when using each form of birth control. It's split into two-columns: How many pregnancies when it is used perfectly, vs how many pregnancies when it used typically. One could look at it and conclude that most birth control isn't very effective at a community level, which is more like the "typical use" column. The stat that's missing is the rate of pregnancies caused by not using any birth control at all. I imagine that compared to that stat, even the worst of the typical use stats look pretty good. Then you would conclude that you should probably wear a condom. Same goes for a mask, in my opinion.
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      A condom is the perfect example. A condom is typically used once and has pores small enough to block designated particles. This is how medical masks in a medical establishment is used. Cloth masks at a community level are basically wearing the same condom everyday and the condom is full of holes. Its a 'rain dance', and just makes people feel better, which does have it's benefits, like religion or nationalism. That's why Fauci is saying to double or triple up on cloth masks, because cloth masks reused daily are minimally effective, which is what the vast majority of the population does. Here's a real actual scientific article about it. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
VectorLock 6y ago
Remember when news organization said they weren't going to paywall their coronavirus related content? Did that come to an end?
libraryatnight 6y ago
Am I the only one here not finding anything nefarious about this? Seems like they didn't know, advised caution, and now they know. If anyone was hysterical about this, I feel like that has more to do with where they got the information.
- mapme 6y ago
  I wouldn’t say nefarious but just extremely delayed which leads to bad outcomes. This was known for at least the last 6 months and it then let places hide behind this as being safe (we follow cdc guidelines!). Restaurants saying they clean the tables vs. having a hepa air purifier.. buses cleaning seats vs. mandating windows be open etc. etc.
  - aeternum 6y ago
    Yes, people have a limited amount of focus so it's very important to focus on the right things. Unnecessary cleaning guidelines really do cause problems. I've seen a huge spike in public-facing device RMAs due to cleaning with improper chemicals. General human exposure is likely up significantly as well. We would all be better off if we focused on airflow and proper air purification.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  They also had good reason to think it _might_ be a vector, because it _is_ a vector for some other viruses, notably the flu.
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Just makes you wonder what else the government and medical establishment were wrong about in justifying massive extreme restrictions on the population.
  - libraryatnight 6y ago
    I feel like you're trying to get at something, out with it if you want to have a conversation about it.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/UDpG8 https://archive.is/UDpG8
Animats 6y ago
The controversy around how AIDS was transmitted lasted years. There are still arguments around that.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Or even whether it exists at all.[1] From Nobel-laureate scientists.[2] ________________________________ Notes: 1. It does. 2. Not, as it turns out, in medicine. Expertise has domain-specificity. Intelligence may not be general, at least in some cases.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hilbert42 6y ago
Even if or when the era of overzealous cleaning finally come to an end for Coronavirus, it's not an excuse to ignore good hygiene as there are many nasty diseases that are spread by contact (door knobs, etc.). Frankly, it's madness to suggest otherwise. Viruses such as measles, and viral gastroenteritis—norovirus and rotavirus are very highly contagious and can be spread by contact (these viruses are so virulent and contagious that just touching something handled by someone with the disease is enough to catch them). In fact, long before COVID-19, norovirus was the scourge of cruise ships—often dozens of people would succumb to the disease in the confined quarters of a ship. A quick look at the graph in the New York Times article shows that when it comes to contagiousness, COVID-19 is almost a beginner: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/learning/whats-going-on-in-this-graph-coronavirus-outbreak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/learning/whats-going-on-i.... Even though rotavirus and norovirus are not shown on this graph, when it comes to infectiousness and contagiousness they are up there along with measles. In fact, some studies show norovirus to be one of the most contagious viruses that we know of (i.e.: one person can infect in excess of 15 others). This Wiki articles further demonstrates the point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number And do does this excellent presentation (PDF): https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/fracp_resources/2006_ID_-_Acute_Gastroenteritis_by_Jim_Buttery.pdf https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/fracp_reso... One of the noticeable and significant observations to arise from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and when many people started being hyper-vigilant with respect to their hygiene—using sanitizer and washing their hands, etc.—is the fact that gastroenteritis virus numbers have been way down. This clearly shows that hygiene really matters. Even bringing the matter into question is stupid as it undermines long-held public hygiene messages.
- nradov 6y ago
  Hygiene doesn't matter that much. Humans evolved in environments full of pathogens, and most people survived. You'll probably be fine even without obsessive cleaning. There is some evidence that living in overly sterile environments is a risk factor for autoimmune diseases.
blub 6y ago
Given that many people didn't bother washing their hands after using the toilet, didn't wash their fruits and vegetables and considering how e.g. restaurant tables are "cleaned", such overzealous cleaning was long overdue. Once the Coronavirus danger's over we'll be back to being our filthy old selves, if such articles don't already accelerate the transition :-) That being said, I looked at the resources [#] which the CDC brief is using to make its 1 in 10000 claim and the evidence is pretty thin. One source which claimed a similar number (less than 5 in 10000) swabbed "high-touch surfaces" between March and June 2020 in Massachusets and then correlated that to community infections. Another source was looking at how to reduce risk to 1 in 1.000.000 by using biocidals. Finally, the Pitol and Julian study uses a model to estimate the risk. This is probably the source of the stat - "The overwhelming majority of interactions with fomites modeled (sic) were associated with risks less than 10^–4". Here are some details: * the probability of infection was estimated based on a model built on SARS and MHV-1 infections in mice. * the SARS-CoV-2 concentration on surfaces was taken from a study in Brazil and the already mentioned Massachusets study. * "Contamination of SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces in public spaces (e.g., traffic light buttons, train buttons) was modeled as a function of disease prevalence in the community and frequency of contact with the surface" I really wish that the people writing these articles would make an effort, look at the studies and highlight the main assertions and conditions of the experiments instead of being so smug. Based on what I've ready myself, the 1 on 10.000 number is dubious. [#] https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/ten-points-to-remember/2020/09/28/16/27/transmission-of-sars-cov2 https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/ten-points-to-remem... [#] https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30437-0/fulltext#bib110 https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-670... [#] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605577/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605577/ [#] https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(20)30997-4/fulltext https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(20)30997-4/fu... [#] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00966 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00966*
ohiovr 6y ago
No reason to panic while we milk this crisis.
ciconia 6y ago
The way I see it, the problem is not the so-called "hygiene theater". It's rather the fact that a large part of humanity (mostly in developed countries) are: - Living in an artificial urban setting with a disrupted and unbalanced ecosystem. - Eating mass-produced industrial food, both lacking in pro-biotics and a vector for viruses and bacteria. - Getting regularly vaccinated and consume antibiotics. - Leading a physically inactive lifestyle. - Being exposed to pollutants with grave consequences to our digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular and reproductive systems. It seems to me that had we been leading a healthier way of life, one that is integrated with our ecosystem, an active life that pollutes less, based on healthy, local food production and consumption, the current sanitary crisis would have looked much different.
bandana 6y ago
I'm sure bleaching that beach in Spain helped tremendously.

95 points by prostoalex 6y ago

"The admission is long overdue, scientists say." This has been a theme of the pandemic and I hope we have all learned the lesson well. Government agencies and officials will usually be the last ones to update their messaging. Maybe it's an attempt at self-preservation by being overly-cautious, or maybe it's done to compel compliance and basically keep people scared. But the message is clear: the government is not the place to get the most accurate and up-to-date facts in the middle of a crisis. Unfortunately, the media hasn't done a great job either, which really leaves us with a problem.

ghaff 6y ago
In the case of cleaning specifically though, I'd probably argue that, for a long time, the expert opinion was probably something along the lines of "Although there is some theoretical evidence that the virus can spread by contact, we don't believe it's much of a factor in practice." And, given that, I can see leaving a lot of cleaning practices in place even if they're not believed to help much. The reality I observe is that people have loosened up a lot about obsessively sanitizing and avoiding touching things as much as possible.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  This time last year I was washing every item that came from the grocery store, and putting my mail in the oven at 170F for about 10 minutes. Stopped doing all that back in about June 2020.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Institutions and insititutional practices are powerful and essential to functioning in a modern and complex society. Even marginal or ineffective practices, and quite probably overtly harmful ones, can have some value and significance. That said, yes, a key weakness of insitutionalised practices is that they often far outlive their actual usefulness, and are difficult to change. In part because of reasons discussed elsewhere in this thread (see my earlier longer comment), but also out of sheer inertia and the difficulty in coming to a collective agreement on a new standard course of action. Additive rather than subtractive problem solving bias being a recently discussed case in point as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26727878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26727878
oh_sigh 6y ago
I feel so stuck because of this. My government previously said anyone outside has to wear a mask. Even if you're standing in a middle of a field, by yourself, with no one within a mile of you - you need to wear a mask. This is clearly theater, but society is so polarized that if I don't see value in this kind of theater, then I must be some insane anti-masker who thinks COVID is a government hoax. So there I go, wearing my mask out, hating every minute of it, but hating even more what people might think if I don't. The government has clearly intentionally lied about things (e.g. government telling us early on that masks don't work, maybe to prevent masks from getting sold out for first responders), but I'm not sure what anyone can do about this situation.
- llampx 6y ago
  Meanwhile our government in Germany first told us that masks are useless (paraphrased), then later reversed their stance, and now require FFP2 masks to enter any shop, bus, train and so on. Meanwhile multiple government officials and ministers have been linked to Mask-scandals so they are likely profiting from each FFP2 mask that is sold.
  - elric 6y ago
    The Belgian government said the same, but I think the message isn't quite as black & white, and should be seen through two pairs of eyes: 1. There's the individual, in which case wearing a mask is not super useful. Wearing a mask isn't very effective at preventing the wearer from getting sick, especially if the wearer is a typical human being who is constantly picking at their face and generally doesn't wear the mask properly. This was oft repeated near the start of the pandemic, mostly by doctors and virologists who deal with infection on the individual level. 2. There's the collective, where reducing the spread even a little bit, can have a definite impact on many people in the long run. Masks mandates are definitely useful there, at least in crowded places. Even if they're not being worn properly by a large fraction of the population, spread will still slow. This may not be useful for any given individual, but it can help "flatten the curve" of hospitalizations, which is sort of what the management of the pandemic is all about. This wasn't really elaborated on in the media, but it's the message that biostatisticians and epidemiologists have been bringing all along. I think there's been some serious communication issues throughout this whole pandemic. Not just in our respective countries, but pretty much globally. Covering your nose and mouth is super low effort and super low risk for almost everyone. And while staying at home and away from people is even more effective, going about your business with a mask is much easier for many people. I don't know why more effort hasn't gone into trying to convince people of that. Instead we're chasing pipe dreams of cheap respirators and tracking apps. Techno-fetishism at its worst.
pibechorro 6y ago
Mainstream media is the gov.

ghaff 6y ago

At non-obsessive levels there are worse things people could have done (and did do). But it was mostly harmful to the degree it took time and energy away from more effective responses. (And some people I know were indeed obsessive.)

everyone 6y ago

I thought it was going to be about an actual era. Basically the modern era, in which our environment may be too clean, and potentially do weird things to our immune system, cus its an environment radically different from the one our immune system was designed to work in.

rossdavidh 6y ago
Quite like the effect of microgravity on the skeletal system, or the effect of rarely exercising on the muscular system, or the effect of rarely elevating your heart rate on the cardiovascular system. Periodic small shocks are necessary for any biological system to remain in good shape, because those small shocks are a form of information about what needs reinforcing. Without those small shocks, the system atrophies and is unprepared for large shocks. True of the immune system as well, I think.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Nassim Taleb wrote a book on this concept called "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder"
elric 6y ago
I was just reading up on "The Hygiene Hypothesis", and it seems like there's little evidence to back up the claim that our environment is "too clean". If anything, I suspect our environment is more likely to be too polluted than to clean. Think lead poisoning up until a few decades ago, or BPA and its ilk currently.
- patrickk 6y ago
  Not to mention VOCs off gassing from all kinds of things we commonly have in our homes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we look back on this era in horror at the chemicals we put in furniture etc
- nradov 6y ago
  The hygiene hypothesis is about infectious agents, not toxic chemicals.

throwawayboise 6y ago

So much of our early thinking and statements about COVID were wrong. And it was pushed by hysterical media and governments as the truth and you better not think anything else. This is what leads to skepticism and resentment by the public.

weaksauce 6y ago
At the other end of it there is a rationale for it. 1. it gives people agency to not freak out because they can be proactive about something. the reason nuclear energy is a boogieman is that you can't see it and it can kill you and there's is little you can do as an individual to protect yourself against it. 2. they truly didn't know how the spread of the disease is since it was a novel virus. you do however know that the lipid barrier of it makes it susceptible to soap and 70% isopropyl alcohol. 3. saying "there is no evidence that masks are effective" is true in the scientific sense. they didn't do studies so to talk about the effectiveness would have been backwards (also considering at the time they didn't know if it would actually increase the spread due to touching/collection/whatever) scientific illiteracy is a problem. the words and processes have precise meanings and those ignorant to it will glom onto certain words out of context and use that as evidence for their conspiracy theories. (see isolation of the virus et al)
- standardUser 6y ago
  1. Do you like to be manipulated? I don't. 2. It was't just a novel virus, it was a novel coronavirus and we know all about how those spread. 3. It's the job of government agencies and officials to use communications skills to avoid these issues. If they talk like pedantic scientists then their messaging will fail, and if they don't know that they are in the wrong job.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Rhetorial questions being, of course, one of the very oldest manipulation techniques. https://people.uwplatt.edu/~ciesield/platovsoph.htm https://people.uwplatt.edu/~ciesield/platovsoph.htm

xscott 6y ago

So, is it a 1 in 10,000 chance from touching a contaminated surface and then rubbing your eyes (or picking your nose)?

Freak_NL 6y ago

The image of the spraying of some kind of chemical by people in biohazard suits with a tank on their backs has constantly struck me as very other-worldly this past year. It was (and is) seen often in news footage from many countries though (mostly Asian, African, and South American I think), but it was never adopted here in the Netherlands. Was this all (intended or accidental) theatre or did this actually make sense in some climates? I can imagine it looks reassuring.

jobu 6y ago
It depends on how it's done. A neighbor of mine works for a golf course owned by the city and said they started out spraying a mix of bleach in water on everything. Unfortunately they found out a few months into the pandemic that it's only active for something like 12-24 hours after mixing with water, and they had been mixing it in big batches to use over the course of several days. They switched to hydrogen peroxide instead, which isn't as broadly effective against bacteria or viruses as bleach, but is effective against coronavirus and has an indefinite shelf-life.
alisonatwork 6y ago
I was in China during the initial outbreak, and those guys in biohazard suits were definitely performative in my part of town. They walked through the neighborhood with a "reporter" in tow, who made sure that every squirt of their magical anti-COVID pixie dust could be captured on film for posterity. In the China case, I'm not sure if it was to reassure the public (who are used to seeing this sort of performative busywork) or if it was more a kind of political one-upmanship amongst local officials who all wanted to give their superiors the impression that they were the hardest-working or most serious cadre in the area.

dredmorbius 6y ago

An intrinsic characteristic of novel threats is that their characteristics are not fully known and understood. Understanding evolves. Other factors include various forms of denial and seeking of agency, amongst both experts and authorities, and the public. The fomite hypothesis --- that small viral fragments on surfaces might be transmitted to individuals --- was plausible and had some initial credibility. It's been observed elsewhere. The alternative hypothesis, that the SARS-COV-2 virus was predominantly airborne and spread readily ... was also plausible and had initial credibility, but also meant that the potential threat and consequences of the disease were far greater, a possibility that numerous entities early in the pandemic seemed eager to play down (and many still do). Notably the first official responses in China, the previous administration's response in the US, and both official and lay/media resposnes elsewhere in the US, Brazil, the Phillippines, throughout Europe, and more. When faced with a novel, difficult-to-perceive threat, one that does not manifest clearly, whose behaviour and characteristics are unknown, people's first response is often to seek the comfort of some degree of control or agency. Cleaning, or hygiene theatre, is just that. Mind: it's all but certainly not harmful. It may detract from other interventions, though for the most part (and after some early bobbles that were a mixture of good intentions, poor understanding, and supply shortages), the general public health advice was the triad of "wear a mask, wash your hands, stay home." All sensible and still highy recommended. Cleaning is also a manifest and tangible signifier of a heightened infection risk environment, and one which might have positive carry-overs to other preventive measures and general awareness. (Lacquering your premises frequently with Lysol not so much, though again, in a potential benefits vs. potential risks calculus, not an entirely bad call.) So the frequent cleaning recommendation arose from: - Initial ignorance of transmission mechanisms. - An unwarranted hope for contract rather than airborne transmission. - A general advisability for the measure regardless. - A sense of agency in the face of an unknown and invisible threat. You can take those circumstances and responses and see them in many other areas. "Hygiene theatre" has obvious connotations with anti-terrorism air travel "security theatre", and I suspect that various technologists will find that their own development and use practices involve various aspects of development theatre, risk theatre, management theatre, etc. These are inherent to any complex phenomena in which relevant and crucial aspects are not overtly evident, and are what give rise to cargo culting and fad-driven practices.

user_50123890 6y ago

A 100% effective "behavioural" covid vaccine (which also works for ALL other respitory diseases): Don't be indoors with other people.

deleted 6y ago
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muricula 6y ago
Buddy, that's not a vaccine.

lower 6y ago

> She added, “There’s really no evidence that anyone has ever gotten Covid-19 by touching a contaminated surface.” This reminds me of "Rubbish bin the likely source of Covid infection": https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427446/rubbish-bin-the-likely-source-of-covid-infection https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/427446/rubbish-bin-the-l...

blyes 6y ago
It’s now assumed to be via air rather than the bin. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/new-zealand-zero-covid-transmission https://www.wired.co.uk/article/new-zealand-zero-covid-trans...

kgin 6y ago

Of course nobody wants overzealous cleaning, but the correct level of zeal for a novel disease is not possible to pinpoint exactly from the outset. It makes sense for people to risk having too much zeal than too little until all the information is available.

ghaff 6y ago
And, honestly, the recommendations that various governments actually made were things like handwashing, use of hand sanitizer, cleaning surfaces that multiple people are touching, etc.--none of which seem unreasonable even at this point. The "overzealous" cleaning that some people were doing was mostly not the response to government guidelines.
jobu 6y ago
And the CDC changed their recommendations and guidelines as knowledge about the virus evolved. Unfortunately too many people interpret these changing messages as: "The CDC was wrong before so they're probably wrong now, so I'm not going to listen to anything they say." So frustrating!

lukifer 6y ago

Learning about Terror Management Theory [0] has definitely been an eye-opener. Anecdotally, it seems to me that most people cope with fears of mortal threats either with self-delusion and denial; or, with extreme over-correction and self-soothing "rain dances" that may or may not have any correlation with increased survival odds. With COVID, we've seen the former play out with anti-maskers and conspiracy denialists, and the latter with over-cleaning and somewhat arbitrary/inconsistent safety precautions, often with little empirical basis. From WW2 isolationism, to McCarthyism, to the Terrorism Panic of the Bush era, I dare say we've seen patterns of simultaneous under- and over-reaction play out repeatedly in history. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

nickthemagicman 6y ago
The evidence that masks work at a community level (outside of medical institutions) is very questionable as well so that could fall into the 'rain dance' category. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/ https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  This kind of reminds me of an infographic at my doctors office about birth control. It shows stats on how many unwanted pregnancies happen when using each form of birth control. It's split into two-columns: How many pregnancies when it is used perfectly, vs how many pregnancies when it used typically. One could look at it and conclude that most birth control isn't very effective at a community level, which is more like the "typical use" column. The stat that's missing is the rate of pregnancies caused by not using any birth control at all. I imagine that compared to that stat, even the worst of the typical use stats look pretty good. Then you would conclude that you should probably wear a condom. Same goes for a mask, in my opinion.
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    A condom is the perfect example. A condom is typically used once and has pores small enough to block designated particles. This is how medical masks in a medical establishment is used. Cloth masks at a community level are basically wearing the same condom everyday and the condom is full of holes. Its a 'rain dance', and just makes people feel better, which does have it's benefits, like religion or nationalism. That's why Fauci is saying to double or triple up on cloth masks, because cloth masks reused daily are minimally effective, which is what the vast majority of the population does. Here's a real actual scientific article about it. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577 https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

VectorLock 6y ago

Remember when news organization said they weren't going to paywall their coronavirus related content? Did that come to an end?

libraryatnight 6y ago

Am I the only one here not finding anything nefarious about this? Seems like they didn't know, advised caution, and now they know. If anyone was hysterical about this, I feel like that has more to do with where they got the information.

mapme 6y ago
I wouldn’t say nefarious but just extremely delayed which leads to bad outcomes. This was known for at least the last 6 months and it then let places hide behind this as being safe (we follow cdc guidelines!). Restaurants saying they clean the tables vs. having a hepa air purifier.. buses cleaning seats vs. mandating windows be open etc. etc.
- aeternum 6y ago
  Yes, people have a limited amount of focus so it's very important to focus on the right things. Unnecessary cleaning guidelines really do cause problems. I've seen a huge spike in public-facing device RMAs due to cleaning with improper chemicals. General human exposure is likely up significantly as well. We would all be better off if we focused on airflow and proper air purification.
rsynnott 6y ago
They also had good reason to think it _might_ be a vector, because it _is_ a vector for some other viruses, notably the flu.
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Just makes you wonder what else the government and medical establishment were wrong about in justifying massive extreme restrictions on the population.
- libraryatnight 6y ago
  I feel like you're trying to get at something, out with it if you want to have a conversation about it.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/UDpG8 https://archive.is/UDpG8

Animats 6y ago

The controversy around how AIDS was transmitted lasted years. There are still arguments around that.

dredmorbius 6y ago
Or even whether it exists at all.[1] From Nobel-laureate scientists.[2] ________________________________ Notes: 1. It does. 2. Not, as it turns out, in medicine. Expertise has domain-specificity. Intelligence may not be general, at least in some cases.

deleted 6y ago

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hilbert42 6y ago

Even if or when the era of overzealous cleaning finally come to an end for Coronavirus, it's not an excuse to ignore good hygiene as there are many nasty diseases that are spread by contact (door knobs, etc.). Frankly, it's madness to suggest otherwise. Viruses such as measles, and viral gastroenteritis—norovirus and rotavirus are very highly contagious and can be spread by contact (these viruses are so virulent and contagious that just touching something handled by someone with the disease is enough to catch them). In fact, long before COVID-19, norovirus was the scourge of cruise ships—often dozens of people would succumb to the disease in the confined quarters of a ship. A quick look at the graph in the New York Times article shows that when it comes to contagiousness, COVID-19 is almost a beginner: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/learning/whats-going-on-in-this-graph-coronavirus-outbreak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/learning/whats-going-on-i.... Even though rotavirus and norovirus are not shown on this graph, when it comes to infectiousness and contagiousness they are up there along with measles. In fact, some studies show norovirus to be one of the most contagious viruses that we know of (i.e.: one person can infect in excess of 15 others). This Wiki articles further demonstrates the point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number And do does this excellent presentation (PDF): https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/fracp_resources/2006_ID_-_Acute_Gastroenteritis_by_Jim_Buttery.pdf https://www.rch.org.au/uploadedFiles/Main/Content/fracp_reso... One of the noticeable and significant observations to arise from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and when many people started being hyper-vigilant with respect to their hygiene—using sanitizer and washing their hands, etc.—is the fact that gastroenteritis virus numbers have been way down. This clearly shows that hygiene really matters. Even bringing the matter into question is stupid as it undermines long-held public hygiene messages.

nradov 6y ago
Hygiene doesn't matter that much. Humans evolved in environments full of pathogens, and most people survived. You'll probably be fine even without obsessive cleaning. There is some evidence that living in overly sterile environments is a risk factor for autoimmune diseases.

blub 6y ago

Given that many people didn't bother washing their hands after using the toilet, didn't wash their fruits and vegetables and considering how e.g. restaurant tables are "cleaned", such overzealous cleaning was long overdue. Once the Coronavirus danger's over we'll be back to being our filthy old selves, if such articles don't already accelerate the transition :-) That being said, I looked at the resources [#] which the CDC brief is using to make its 1 in 10000 claim and the evidence is pretty thin. One source which claimed a similar number (less than 5 in 10000) swabbed "high-touch surfaces" between March and June 2020 in Massachusets and then correlated that to community infections. Another source was looking at how to reduce risk to 1 in 1.000.000 by using biocidals. Finally, the Pitol and Julian study uses a model to estimate the risk. This is probably the source of the stat - "The overwhelming majority of interactions with fomites modeled (sic) were associated with risks less than 10^–4". Here are some details: * the probability of infection was estimated based on a model built on SARS and MHV-1 infections in mice. * the SARS-CoV-2 concentration on surfaces was taken from a study in Brazil and the already mentioned Massachusets study. * "Contamination of SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces in public spaces (e.g., traffic light buttons, train buttons) was modeled as a function of disease prevalence in the community and frequency of contact with the surface" I really wish that the people writing these articles would make an effort, look at the studies and highlight the main assertions and conditions of the experiments instead of being so smug. Based on what I've ready myself, the 1 on 10.000 number is dubious. [#] https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/ten-points-to-remember/2020/09/28/16/27/transmission-of-sars-cov2 https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/ten-points-to-remem... [#] https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30437-0/fulltext#bib110 https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-670... [#] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605577/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605577/ [#] https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(20)30997-4/fulltext https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(20)30997-4/fu... [#] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00966 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00966*

ohiovr 6y ago

No reason to panic while we milk this crisis.

ciconia 6y ago

The way I see it, the problem is not the so-called "hygiene theater". It's rather the fact that a large part of humanity (mostly in developed countries) are: - Living in an artificial urban setting with a disrupted and unbalanced ecosystem. - Eating mass-produced industrial food, both lacking in pro-biotics and a vector for viruses and bacteria. - Getting regularly vaccinated and consume antibiotics. - Leading a physically inactive lifestyle. - Being exposed to pollutants with grave consequences to our digestive, respiratory, cardiovascular and reproductive systems. It seems to me that had we been leading a healthier way of life, one that is integrated with our ecosystem, an active life that pollutes less, based on healthy, local food production and consumption, the current sanitary crisis would have looked much different.

bandana 6y ago

I'm sure bleaching that beach in Spain helped tremendously.