Germophobes and Germophiles

Am I a germophobe? I didn't think so, but there is some way in which this is not very different.

Before there was anything more than a flu flying around out there, I would wash my hands when I came in. Yes, about 20 seconds, though who was counting or singing "Happy Birthday"? I would grab subway poles at the elbow joint and push revolving doors with my knuckles, assuming I couldn't get some visitor ahead of me to do all the work.

I would gladly shake the hand of a new acquaintance or an old friend I hadn't seen for a while. And discreetly run to the bathroom to wash my hands.

As the waiter was reading out the specials I would gently move my glass of water to the other side of the table, particularly if the selections included things like PoTaToes, or PoT roasT (which I don't even eat). If I failed to move it in time I would ask myself why I didn't bring one of those tablets you use when you're backpacking, to kill the bacteria from beaver poop and the like. Probably I would not drink the water. Or I'd say a prayer when I did.

Work in the basement? Wash hands. Clean up after visitors? Wash hands. Take out the garbage, or bring the cans back from curbside? Wash hands. Put the dirty laundry into the washing machine? Put my hands into the sink next to it. What's so different?

One thing I can think of: now, when I put the laundry in and wash my hands, it's because of the coronavirus, not the stains on the underwear or the smudge of unknown origin on my pants cuff. That all seems like such casual, friendly dirt, who cares anymore? The unseen menace, sitting on a plastic bag, floating in the window on a warm breeze, tracked in on the bottom of my shoes after a trip to the fruit and vegetable store. Wash it! Kill it! Throw everything in the microwave for two minutes! And then wash your hands because you touched the microwave!

I go out for a walk and come back without hands or face coming into contact with another person or physical object. That is now an obvious reason to take a Clorox wipe to the four or five door handles.

Is it possible to be a germophobe in coronaland? Yes! And only the germophobes will survive!

Wipe down the pizza box with a Clorox wipe, because an unpublished research paper says the virus can last for 24 hours on cardboard, and as far as I could tell, the delivery person was still breathing.

I'm touching my keyboard; better wash my hands. In the two hours since I've been up, you never know, it could have come in through the bathroom vent.

Maybe your left hand can contaminate your right hand even when you're doing nothing at all? Better at least wash one of them! But how many hands do you need to wash just one hand? Three, right? Two to wash the hand and the other hand to stay six feet away.

I recall that just before this began, President Trump was being described in the media as a germophobe. Now I understand why he thinks the media is full of fake news. He is obviously nothing of the sort, but rather a germophile, having steadfastly resisted efforts to prevent germs from spreading, except as it supported his efforts to keep racial and religious minorities from entering the country. He has shared microphones without wiping them down, stood within inches of his coterie of germophiles, and played down the risk of contagion while playing up his own vanishingly thin efforts to deal with the crisis.

But he is not, strangely enough, a Germanophile, even though his pure, redblooded American family hearkens from that foreign country. I have to admit that I myself am a bit of a Germanophile. Not just because I have a very good German friend who regularly risks his life to report on things like coronaviruses - and germophile Presidents, and Latin American drug gangs, and the like - but because Germany has ironically become a bastion of democracy and good sense in a wacked-out world full of xenophobic strongmen.

And by no coincidence, Germany has an extremely low death rate from COVID-19: currently less than 100 fatalities out of some 24,000 infections. There is no doubt a reason for this, and it is easy to discover. As stated in Wikipedia:

"According to the Euro health consumer index, which placed it in seventh position in its 2015 survey, Germany has long had the most restriction-free and consumer-oriented healthcare system in Europe. Patients are allowed to seek almost any type of care they wish whenever they want it.^[10] The governmental health system in Germany is currently keeping a record reserve of more than €18 billion which makes it one of the healthiest healthcare systems in the world."

Germans, apparently, are not germophiles. And I am just going to venture a guess that they wash their hands fairly often. Not like President Pontius Pilate, but under one of those $400 Grohe faucets, with soap and water.