The Straight Dope on Fake-Handwashing: You Can't Fake-out a Coronavirus

The Wuhan coronavirus is making its way out of China and spreading throughout the world. And my friends aren't helping matters. Last night I learned that several close compadres of mine, when they go to the bathroom, occasionally engage in "fake hand-washing."

After flushing the toilet, they run the sink for the appropriate amount of time that it would take to wash your hands . . . but they don't actually wash their hands. No soap. They don't even put their hands under the water.

I will preserve the anonymity of these folks, in case they wish to someday go into food service.

The male fake hand-washer does it out of laziness and social pressure to leave a wet sink.

The female fake hand-washer does it for more complicated and contradictory (and crazy) reasons. Just like a woman.

Here are her four reasons:

#1 Laziness.

#2 Dry Skin.

#3 The belief that germ exposure builds tolerance.

#4 The tactic that not washing your hands reduces your contact with bathroom fixtures-- faucets, soap dispensers, towels, blowers-- and thus lowers your chance of getting sick. Though contradictory with reason #3, logic is reasonable. Especially in winter, when viruses live longer because of low humidity.

Now I don't want to come off as a hypocrite.  I don't wash my hands every single time I go to the bathroom. Most of the time I do. This might be because I work in a giant filthy overcrowded bacteria-laden high school, and if I'm around a sink, I recognize that it's a good time to engage in some hand-washing. But there are the times when I'm in and out. I pee, nothing splatters, and I've got to get to class. So I leave without washing. It's rare, but I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't happen.

But when it happens, I don't pretend to wash my hands. I either do it-- the whole hog: soap, hot water, and singing "Happy Birthday"-- or I don't.

Hand-washing is such a simple way to prevent illness that it seems insane not to wash your hands when you have the chance. But that's how people are. They smoke cigarettes, do opiates, drive drunk, and watch The Bachelor. There have been numerous campaigns to get doctors to wash their hands. Doctors! They've always been a bit reluctant to wash up, and they work with sick people. Humans-- even highly educated humans-- are bizarre.

In 1846, Ignatz Semmelweis realized that his staff was dissecting cadavers and then delivering babies-- without washing their hands in between-- and this was killing both mothers and children. He launched a crusade to get doctors and nurses to wash their hands with soap and a chlorine solution. It worked. But Semmelweis got too angry when folks didn't comply with his rules, and he berated them. Eventually, he got fired, and the staff stopped washing their hands. Things went back to normal. Dirty stupid normal.

The CDC is STILL trying to get doctors and nurses to wash their hands. Apparently, emotional pleas work-- you can point out that patients are vulnerable and this might motivate doctors to scrub up. And they wash their hands when they are being watched (and hopefully they aren't faking it). And they wash their hands if they are shown pictures of gross bacteria. 

But they don't wash their hands because it's scientifically proven to help prevent infections. So we might as well welcome the Wuhan coronavirus with open arms.

And open (grubby and unwashed) hands.