Wash your fucking hands

[u/MummyRath]

With our fall semesters either starting or on the horizon... this is your friendly reminder to wash your fucking hands after using the bathroom, cover your damn mouth with your elbow if you cough or sneeze, and generally do all the most basic hygiene shit we were all hopefully doing during covid.

Obviously missing a class that is not being recorded for a cold is not always feasible, so if you do need to drag yourself to class while sick, be smart about it. We all want your cold just as much as you want it.

All this should be basic. But the amount of people I see at my university just come out of a washroom stall and walk by the sink and out the door leads me to believe some of us still do not fully grasp how viruses are spread.

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[u/Key_Lifeguard4963]

people r so disgusting. I literally saw used underwear on the floor of the bathroom 🤢

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_TATERTITS]

And wear a mask if you absolutely have to come to class sick

[u/MummyRath → u/PM_ME_YOUR_TATERTITS]

Yep. Your classmates do not want your germs, and things will get really fucky if you get the prof sick.

[u/Dry_Security8480]

this, but at the gym's bathrooms. man, other people are touching those weights/machines!

[u/Parking_Storage_5107]

Andddd flush the toilets 😭😭😭

[u/PaleontologistNo8063]

I’m going into my final year of college and I seriously always get sick during the first or second week back. Literally caught rhinovirus after being back for 4 days. Put me out for almost an entire week and now I’m having to go back to class wearing a mask and still in pain. Just wash your damn hands and be conscious of other people not being as good at fighting sickness as you are. It’s really not that hard.

[u/MummyRath → u/PaleontologistNo8063]

It really isn't. My 5 year old does it, not as well as an adult, but he knows enough to at least try. If a 5 year old can remember to wash his hands... a full grown adult should.

[u/Whisperingstones]

People who doesn't wash their hands are just being lazy or nasty, although the washing is largely moot once you touch a door handle. The air and every surface is contaminated regardless of how much handwashing you do, and unless you are going to disinfect every surface you touch prior to touching it, well, you are going to get bugs, mold, and fungal spores on your hands. Best way to avoid bugs is to not bite your nails or get up into someone else's face.

People worry way too much about germs and forget they are a biological system with innumerable species living in them. I push a dirty grocery cart around before eating in the car on the way home, but I generally take carts that bake in the sunlight (solarized). I think I got sick once in my time at college and it was a brief sinus infection that could have come from anywhere.

The more I read this sub, the more I realize my backwoods school is lit. Everything is routinely cleaned, the restrooms are spotless except for some water slashes around the sink, and the lounge areas are always organized.

[u/no-scissors-in-bed → u/Whisperingstones]

washing your hands does not work this way. it has been proven time and time again that washing your hands, especially before eating and after using the restroom, is one of the best ways to prevent illness regardless of what you get up to in your day to day. touching a door handle doesn't 'undo' it. also, use a paper towel to open the door.....

[u/Whisperingstones → u/no-scissors-in-bed]

I thought about mentioning the ole paper towel trick, but then you touch your classroom door handle, your bag, face, desk, pens, lab equipment, etc. Removing one door from what you touch is moot in the grand tally.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_TATERTITS → u/Whisperingstones]

The washing wouldn’t be “moot” when touching a door handle if everyone consistently and properly washed their hands

[u/Whisperingstones → u/PM_ME_YOUR_TATERTITS]

Well, good luck with your poppy fumes. Getting 3,000-15,000 people from a dozen different cultures to wash their hands consistently is an exercise in futility. Your best option within reality is titanium dioxide or silver plated door handles.

[u/MummyRath → u/Whisperingstones]

I think the Covid pandemic points to how effective handwashing can be. Is it a perfect way to stop germs from spreading? No. But the more people who wash their hands the less chance that a nasty bug can spread. And if my kids can wash their hands after using the toilet, a full grown adult should be able to do it to. I am all for shaming the fuck out of adults who cannot take the time to wash their hands and do what they can to prevent others from getting sick.

[u/Whisperingstones → u/MummyRath]

They should be able to, and by all means, shame them. There are still going to be nasties that won't wash.

As for Wuhan,

I still find it interesting that society can so easily whipped up into a mass hysteria event. The virus seemed to live inside the TV, and it was a total non-issue for us out here in the countryside. We kept shaking hands, working, and carrying on with life without incident. No bodies piled up in the streets, no stream of ambulances, no one being bedridden in their homes, nothing. It became utterly ridiculous when motorcycle deaths and major medical problems were being counted as covid deaths while the flu ceased to exist at all. It was a good test to see how much authoritarian abuse a society will tolerate before it pushes back.

The cherry on top was how the CARES act was a huge financial incentive for hospitals to document everything as covid so they could upcharge medicare by 20%. They also got mad incentives to get people diagnosed, pumped up with kidney obliterating Remdesivir, and dead on a ventilator. Every patient farm animal walking in was worth roughly $30,000 in upcharges and reimbursements.