At the beginning of the pandemic, I was careful not to touch the handrail at the post office. When I got home, I washed my hands. I only followed this regimen one time. I just couldn’t get into it, mostly because I’m not a fearful person but also because the rate of infection in our area was low. (I also bought no bleach, hand sanitizer, or toilet paper.) Lucky for me, researchers have now learned that the risk of infection by touching contaminated surfaces is also low: a 1 in 10,000 chance.
Nevertheless, people are still madly sanitizing everything, which is probably not a good thing. Some health experts fear that many of the sanitizing efforts may pose a threat to a threat to human health if they continue. The problem is that excessive hygiene practices—including social distancing and inappropriate antibiotic use—will affect our microbiome, the trillions of bacteria that live on and inside our bodies. Such effects include promoting sickness and imperiling our immune systems. As one scientist remarked, “We’re starting to realize that there’s collateral damage when we get rid of good microbes, and that has major consequences for our health.”
Another scientist
likens our immune systems to a computer: the microbes around us are the data
that our immune system relies on to program and regulate its operations. In
fact, in addition to training our immune systems, our bacteria produce
molecules that affect the workings of every cell and organ, including our
brains, spinal cords, and joints. To counteract this threat to our immune
systems and nourish our microbial communities, we’ll need to go back to our old
ways, learning to live with germs again.
Incidentally, my casual attitude
toward hygiene doesn’t mean I’m an antivaxxer. I’m vaccinated and believe
others should be also.
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
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