OP: so I am a nurse at a hospital and I worked in the Covid unit for a couple nights to help out when we were filled to the brim with Covid back in March/April. I fully understand the risks of the disease. I also understand how important it is for new treatments to go through full trials to fully understand side effects and unintended consequences. The vaccines currently have emergency FDA approval. I am not an antivaxxer by any means but I don’t want to take any treatments that haven’t been through the full testing protocol. i’m 40 years old and don’t have any kids, I might want to have a child or two if I find the right lady. we don’t know if there’s any effects on offspring from this delivery system. we don’t know what the effects are years down the road either. so I am being hesitant in taking this vaccine. Granted I smoke ciggs and cigars and i vape, and I am type O+ blood. so according to some preliminary research I am somewhat protected from getting Covid for those two reasons. again we don’t know this fully yet, this is all speculation. I also don’t work on a covid unit, and rarely, if ever, have work related exposure to covid, and when we do have exposure we have plenty of PPE. I fully understand when people want to get it because because they are older, have chronic disease that places them at risk, or just because they want to. This is largely a personal decision for each of us. The radical left would immediately have everyone take the mandated vaccines to protect everyone else, and the radical right would say do what the fuck you want (including not wearing a mask nor taking the vaccine). I do not fall into either camp here. I think vaccines overall are a good thing but until there are long term studies on it’s effects I wont be lining up to take it.
As for handwashing and restroom use: well just handwashing in general... my microbiology teacher pointed out that the system of washing our hands after going to the bathroom fails because not everyone does it. For that system to work everyone needs to do it. Everyone needs to wash their hands after they sneeze touch their face or go to the bathroom, and that’s just not gonna happen. It’s a great idea but it doesn’t work. So he said he washes his hands when he first gets into the bathroom after touching whatever else in the world he has touched, he cleans his hands before touching other parts of his body, and doesn’t wash after. This was kind of a shocking revelation to me but it made a lot of sense because that’s when our hands are contaminated. so I make sure my hands are washed or at least sanitized with alcohol-based hand rub before I touch my face or go to the bathroom. And yes it is possible not to touch anything in the restroom, but the biggest point in breaking sterility is our awareness… No matter how much we focus on it mistakes happen and you have to be very vigilant, which I myself know I am not, and i work with sterile fields at work, so i do the best I can. after I leave the store, and before touching the steering wheel or controls in my car, I sanitize my hands. grocery cart handles, doorhandles, payment terminals, gas pumps, car keys, cell phones... these are all vectors. vectors are objects which can carry pathogens. be mindful about what you touch and how clean your hands are. the outside of our masks are considered dirty too, that is where the floating pathogens are sucked to, think of it like the dirty side of an air filter on our bikes... so remove your mask after cleaning your hands and only by the earloops/ties. I have to say I have not been sick since taking that microbiology course (6yrs ago) and keeping hand sanitizer in my car. back in April I used to do the whole sanitizing of my groceries routine... but now that just seems unnecessary and honestly it’s too annoying for me to keep it up. when I’m grabbing containers from the grocery store I usually reach to the back without trying to touch the box in the front… I don’t know how much difference it makes but it helps me feel better about having those items in my living room and kitchen.
i’m not sure if this helped anybody but that’s how I feel about it
