Hygiene Theater Is Still a Huge Waste of Time
Six months ago, I wrote that Americans had embraced a backwards view of the coronavirus. Too many people imagined the fight against COVID-19 as a land war to be waged with sudsy hand-to-hand combat against grimy surfaces. Meanwhile, the science suggested we should be focused on an aerial strategy. The virus spreads most efficiently through the air via the spittle spray that we emit when we exhale—especially when we cough, talk loudly, sing, or exercise. I called this conceptual error, and the bonanza of pointless power-scrubbing that it had inspired, “hygiene theater.”
My chief inspiration was an in the medical journal called “Exaggerated Risk of Transmission of COVID-19 by Fomites.” ( is a medical term for objects and surfaces that can pass along an infectious pathogen.) Its
