69% of Men Don't Practice Our Best Defense Against Coronavirus
In case you haven’t gathered by now, we’re in a little bit of a situation when it comes to coronavirus. Internationally, schools are closing, large-scale public events are up in the air, and rumors are swirling of an eventual delay or outright cancelation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Stateside, the rate of new infections is rising, as is the death toll. Meanwhile, Twitter is chock-full of jokes—memes about white women and their essential oils, office workers fantasizing about being “forced” to work from home for weeks on end. But the gallows humor seems like a coping mechanism: As hand sanitizer sells out on Amazon, you can’t help but realize that the fear surrounding the virus is very, very real.
Medical professionals are trying to strike the right balance between inducing more panic and issuing good, measured advice about prevention. Their message to us? Wash your damn hands—wash them more frequently than usual, and wash them for longer and more thoroughly than you ever have before. You may have heard this already, but the doctors are right to be repeating this advice ad nauseam. The CDC has cited a study indicating that only 31 percent of men wash their hands. So I am asking you all this from the bottom of my heart, with my eyes open wide, in earnest: Men, what the hell is wrong with us?
The idea that it's a problem that we aren’t washing our hands after wiping or touching our junk and then toggling the flush of a public urinal seems self-evident. But allow me to explain how much fear about coronavirus is appropriate, and why it's necessary for everyone to work to fight the spread of the virus.
A cursory scan of your push alerts might have you believe that coronavirus is a disease that’s causing fatalities among broad swaths of the population. And while we should all be aware and vigilant, not everybody needs to be immediately panicked about their personal health.
“It all depends on who you are,” says Celine Gounder, MD, a professor at NYU and a specialist in infectious diseases. “If you’re the average young or middle-aged, healthy person, you should probably not be too concerned. If you have underlying medical issues, that’s a very different story,” she says.
Closer investigation of the coronavirus-related deaths so far reveal that the illness has mostly impacted the elderly. Children have, so far, not exhibited any severe disease or deaths—there’s little medical explanation why. This is one thing that sets coronavirus apart from influenza, for example, which can be fatal to kids and the elderly alike. This is why getting your flu shot every season is so urgent: to help avoid the spread of the virus to vulnerable people who could face severe consequences from contracting an illness.
The same dynamic is at play when it comes to hand-washing. “I’m not worried about myself, but I am worried about my patients. I’m worried about the nurses in emergency rooms. Those are different kinds of worries.” Dr. Gounder says. “I think when you ask something like, ‘Is this something we should be worried about?’ there’s also the question of, well, Are you just worrying about yourself? Or are you worrying about other people?”
In other words, coronavirus is an emergency because—even if it doesn’t majorly impact the majority of our population—it is possible (and growing increasingly likely) that it will impact vulnerable people worldwide. This is included but not limited to: health-care workers, airport and transportation workers, the elderly, the uninsured, and so forth. And even if, say, you get the disease or think you may have it but aren’t exhibiting any concerning symptoms, that doesn’t mean you should be—oh, I don’t know—attending a party or business conference.
That’s because coronavirus is highly contagious. “We now know that coronavirus is spread human to human through sneezing and coughing, and it can also be spread through contaminated surfaces,” says Ofole Mgbako, MD, an internal medicine doctor and infectious-disease fellow.
As with the common cold or flu, says Dr. Gounder, transmission can happen through the air. “When you cough, sneeze, or talk, there’s a fine mist of droplets that you spray into the air. They don’t travel that far—if you’re standing two meters from somebody, for example, it wouldn’t go that far. But if you touch somebody and you have those viral particles on your hands—maybe because you touched your nose, or used a tissue when you sneezed, or cough into your hands, and then you shake hands with somebody or touch them? That’s a way you’d either get infected or infect somebody else.”
This is precisely why the doctors are united in asking all of us to diligently wash our hands—soap and water will help rid your skin of those microbes. Dr. Mgbako points to a 1:20 video from Johns Hopkins Institute that demonstrates the World Health Organization’s approved method for hand-washing.
“It’s not enough to just run your hands under water,” warns Dr. Gounder. “You really need to use soap and water and make sure you hit all the surfaces—your thumbs, between your fingers, the backs of your hands, the bottoms, the bases of your hands. Nails are also something you should be careful with—I always have had my nails cut short.”
There’s been some chatter that the hand-sanitizer hysteria is misplaced—that because coronavirus is a virus and not bacteria, sanitizer won’t be effective. “That’s not correct,” Dr. Gounder insists—sanitizer is effective against coronavirus. (Though, all things being equal, the CDC recommends hand-washing.)
Ultimately, the doctor's orders are pretty uniform: Be considerate and don’t be an asshole. That means carry hand sanitizer if you can find it, stay home if you’re feeling even remotely sick, and don’t hoard supplies, like surgical masks, that should be used by people actually treating and fighting this illness on the front lines until we figure out what the hell is really going on here.
Oh, and wash your goddamn hands, and when you do so, spend a good 20 seconds scrubbing. The not nice 69 percent of men not doing so? We were ashamed of you before coronavirus, but we’re spectacularly disappointed in you now.
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