cover story
Hygiene Theater :
Obsessing Over SARS-CoV-2 While Ignoring Other Pathogens at Our Peril ?
By Kelly M . Pyrek
E
• arly in the COVID-19 pandemic , members of the general public were instructed about the
The great importance of robust cleaning and disinfection of everything in their surroundings to prevent SARS-CoV-2 hygiene frenzy of 2020 transmission . Cleaning commodities disappeared off store shelves as Americans scrubbed and sprayed , morphed into frightened further by the study that indicated the what has been persistence of the virus on everything from paper described by and cardboard to glass and metals . One of the first the buzzwords widely reported studies on fomites and SARS-CoV-2
“ hygiene that was released as a pre-print paper by researchers at UCLA , the National Institutes of Health , and Princeton theater ,” a
University , examined the persistence of the novel term used to coronavirus on different kinds of surfaces . Depending describe the on the material , the researchers said they could still practice of detect the virus after a few hours on cardboard , and after several days on plastic and steel . Choosing their taking hygiene words carefully , the researchers emphasized that measures they conducted their work in a laboratory setting , to extreme not whether it could still infect an individual or was measures a likely mode of transmission . to give the
The headlines in the lay press generated by this study only served to fuel the fire . As Barber ( 2020 ) impression reports , “ Dylan Morris , a mathematical biologist at of improved Princeton who coauthored the paper , recalls watching health and what he calls ‘ the great fomite freakout ’ with
safety without frustration . The number of days the virus remained detectable on a surface in a lab wasn ’ t useful for actually assessing personal risk , he says , because in the real lowering risk world , that amount would depend on how much of contracting there had been to start with and on environmental illness and conditions that they did not test . Plus , the amount of disease . remaining virus doesn ’ t tell us much about whether it could reasonably get into someone ’ s airways and
cause an infection . ‘ People really picked up on those absolute times to detectability ,’ he says . ‘ Everyone wants to know the magical time when something becomes safe .’ In subsequent research , he says he ’ s avoided giving hard temporal cutoffs .”
The great hygiene frenzy of 2020 morphed into what has been described by the buzzwords “ hygiene theater ,” a term used to describe the practice of taking hygiene measures to extreme measures to give the impression of improved health and safety without actually lowering risk of contracting illness and disease . Just how ubiquitous was the term ? Conduct an online search and nearly 13,000 hits pop up .
Rosenberg ( 2020 ) summarizes the conundrum that members of the medical and public health communities face when confronting acts of so-called hygiene theater : “… there have been more and more articles written about ‘ hygiene theater .’ The concept is based off ‘ security theater ,’ a term which was used post-9 / 11 to describe the increased TSA measures that , arguably , did little to prevent future attacks . The comparison is founded on the notion that all the pandemic-induced cleaning , sanitizing and disinfecting may be completely unwarranted and even wasteful in terms of time and money … As a public health professional , I cannot help but pause to contemplate this perspective . On one hand , the CDC confirms that ‘ COVID-19 is thought to spread mainly through close contact from person-to-person , including between people who are physically near each other ( within about 6 feet ).’ Though guidance still encourages ‘ routinely clean [ ing ] and disinfect [ ing ] frequently touched surfaces ,’ on the other hand , I have been advocating for better disinfection practices in both healthcare and private settings for my entire career . I see this new world mindset as an incredible public health achievement . Infection prevention is no longer a term isolated to the four walls of the hospital — we , now more than ever , are all more aware of the need for disinfection within our businesses as employees ( or owners ), as consumers , and even in our own homes .”
Rosenberg ( 2020 ) continues , “ Not only are these practices what we should have been doing all along , it is evident that the public is now looking for consistent displays of safety and cleanliness to trust businesses moving forward . However , it is important to develop a plan for using disinfectants efficiently and effectively . There is undoubtedly a balance that businesses need to find , and ‘ hygiene theater ’ cannot be the only public health protocol put into practice . Any cleaning and