Interfectorum manus

I can’t tell you how much it disgusts me to see a woman leave a bathroom without making use of soap and water. I cringe, biting my tongue, wanting desperately to scream didn’t your mother teach you to wash your hands after you go to the bathroom? But, clearly, she didn’t, so what is the point of insulting a stranger’s mother, incurring her (embarrassed) anger and suffering the wrath of a woman scorned?

But, in this day and age, at such a critical time in global history, you would think that we would be advanced enough to understand the importance of handwashing. Not because you peed on your hand, simply because you’ve been out in the world, touched unclean surfaces like door knobs and such and probably picked up a germ or two. Why not take the opportunity being in a bathroom offers and wash your hands? Seriously, you can’t take thirty seconds to possibly save a life? Perhaps, your own?

I mean, come on! The news is rife with the rapid spread of the virus, interfectorum manus. Social media is blowing up with news about the latest cases, the rising number of deaths. More people have died in the last week from interfectorum manus, than died all of last year of cancer, HIV and malaria combined! No one can figure out how to stop it from spreading. The only thing that has been made clear worldwide is that washing your hands helps. Apparently, soap and water can eliminate it from your hands. But, if the virus gets on your hands and you don’t wash them within four hours, by the fifth hour you might as well buy your coffin, you’ll be dead within a week, maybe two if you’re not lucky.

The pictures on Facebook, Instagram and even the evening news of the dying and deceased are horrific. Horror flick-like videos have been plastered on Vimeo, Dailymotion, Snapchat and YouTube. (Why?? I ask myself.) The stories are rampant of the agony people suffer as they watch their loved ones’ bodies shrivel and melt away. They are helpless, shocked...terrified and repulsed. So many have been left to die alone as people try to escape the possibility of contagion. Can you imagine being left alone to die, unable to do anything to help yourself? The first body part to wither away? The hands.

On a more positive note, the fact that the disease is not confined to developing countries, or the poor and marginalized in more developed countries has made its containment and eradication a number one priority for pharmaceutical companies who see a windfall in the making if their researchers can only find the cause and then a cure. Research for every other major disease (including cancer and HIV) has been paused so that all efforts can be focused on interfectorum manus. The most respected scientists in the world have been cloistered in labs across the globe to decrease their chances of succumbing to the disease before a cure can be found. They are working around the clock...as is interfectorum manus. Last year, approximately two million people total died of HIV, cancer and malaria. Fifteen million died of heart disease. According to every news source I read this morning, the death toll due to interfectorum manus has reached 50 million. The first case was reported six months ago.

People, please: Wash your hands!!