Government Covid Reponse part 4. Hand Washing

 This one, along with facemasks is actually part of the CDC's recommendations for flu outbreaks in nursing homes.  Though the CDC also wants staff to wear gloves.  That's obviously not practical in an everyday setting, so for the coronavirus, it was recommended to wash your hands frequently (including videos to show you how) and use hand sanitizer even more frequently.  

I never did.

I'm unaware of a single person who studiously followed all the recommendations.  Partially (but only partially) it's not my fault.  Hand sanitizer sold out in many stores and the FDA, living up to it's goal to keep life-saving products away from Americans at all costs, put numerous roadblocks in the way of liquor companies hoping to repurpose their unsold booze as hand sanitizer.  Until they were stopped.  Partially.

But mostly it's just laziness.  I simply didn't feel like carrying hand sanitizer around with me (when I could find it).

But the nonsense over masks was at least partially due to the fear of contagion from dirty hands.  Early on, mask wearing was discouraged because it was feared that people would be constantly adjusting an uncomfortable mask which would bring their germ-laden hands closer to their eyes, nose and throat.  All of which are good entry points for viruses.  Even Anthony Fauci himself -- the main advocate of masks --  was caught on video repeatedly fiddling with his mask.

So there's a chance that the continued spread of the virus was not only due to the poor-quality or ill-fitting masks that people chose to wear but because people like me couldn't be bothered to keep their hands clean.

Or maybe not.

Later on in the pandemic, it became clear that the virus didn't spread via contact.  Even the CDC acknowledged the fact.  But no one ever said "OK, you don't have to wash your hands every half hour now".  I've been on teams at work like that.  We'd have a cross-functional team with different departments meeting once or twice a week and after a few months I'd look around a realize I was the only one from my group still at the meetings.  No one ever told me to quit going but apparently other people got the memo.  

In any case, despite data showing limited spread via surfaces, many places still to this day have signs saying that the area is frequently sanitized and therefore it might still be damp and slippery.  It's unclear if that is actually being done, however.

I don't have much else to say about this.  It was, by far, the most ignored guidance of the whole pandemic.  I suppose there were some OCD-sufferers out there that had a bad relapse due to the CDC guidelines, but for most other people, it was politely ignored if not outright mocked.