Stop touching your face!
You heard me. Don’t make me tell you again. And furthermore, if I have to come over there and slap those grimy, COVID-19-carrying fingers away from your mouth, nose or eyes, there’s going to be big trouble.
Stop touching your face!
Think back on your life. Can you remember a public health directive that’s ever been more simple, clear and science-based, yet more difficult to execute? I can’t. Is the human desire to touch our faces genetically programmed into our subconscious? Why are we powerless, even when presented with incontrovertible evidence that it’s going to kill us? I don’t know. Let me put my chin in my palm and my fingers on my lips and think about it.
Stop touching your face!
Of all the habit changes we could implement to prevent the spread of this novel coronavirus, it’s the one thing proven effective. Our counters, doorknobs and faucets could be smeared with virus, but as long as we didn’t insist on rubbing our hands all over them and then poking those grubby fingers of death into our cranial orifices, we’d probably be fine. Will we stop doing it? Nope.
Stop touching your face!
When fighting the irresistible temptation to touch your face, you may find it awfully tempting to touch someone else’s face instead. You should not do this.
Stop touching your face!
Just so you know I’m weak and human, while writing this article about not touching your face, I touched my own face at least a dozen times. Barring duct taping myself to my chair or self-administering an elephant tranquilizer, this dirty little habit is apparently impossible to break.
Stop touching your face!
Are you familiar with the Bible? If so, perhaps you recall an ancient king named Naaman who contracted leprosy, an even more deadly disease than the dreaded COVID-19. Desperate for a cure, he went to the home of the renowned prophet Elisha, who told him to go dip in the local river seven times.
Naturally, the king thought this was stupid, and refused, until a staff member dared to point out that if he’d been told to do something ridiculously hard and complicated, he would have done it eagerly. So why not try this very easy thing? The king finally agreed, and after duly dipping himself as instructed, was instantly healed.
The moral of this fable should be obvious. Not everything that works has to be complicated. In the absence of a coronavirus vaccine, medication or treatment, at least do the simple thing:
Stop touching your face!
Or just go jump in the river — and stay there until it’s safe.
Things I Think is written by Gary Tetz, a national Silver Medalist and regional Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Association of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) awards program. He’s been amusing, inspiring, informing and sometimes befuddling long-term care readers worldwide since the end of a previous century. He is a multimedia consultant for Consonus Healthcare Services in Portland, OR.
