From the PI (and everywhere else):

They repeated the best-known strategies for staying healthy: Stay home if sick, cover coughs, stay informed, and wash hands constantly and for a long enough period of time.

Are pandemics like this especially bad for recovering OCD hand-washers? Does it trigger backsliding?

Is there even such a thing as OCD backsliding?

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

23 replies on “Deep Thought”

  1. Covering coughs is a way to help other people stay healthy. The best way to help other people stay healthy is for people to stop eating pig and bird carcasses. The demand for harvested corpses caused this pig flu, and it will cause future deadly pig and bird flus unless these people’s horrifying eating habits stop.

  2. They can switch with nail-chewing. That’s what I’m going to do. When the fagdemic is over and done with, I’ll switch back to nail-chewing, or muster-up a terrific combo.

  3. Washing your hands regularly and a person with OCD washing their hands raw is the difference between washing your hands 5-15x a day versus 100-200x a day.

    Either way, use a moisturizing/nondrying soap, and you can buy the Purell stuff with moisturizer in it. That’s what your doctor’s office probably uses.

  5. When I read this on the PI’s website, I felt like the last part of the instructions was really vague. “Constantly” is not clear, and neither is “for a long period of time.” Saying “several times a day” and/or “for about 20 seconds” would have been so much better, and not any longer word count-wise.

  6. http://www.latimes.com/features/health/l…

    scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

    In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

    —————-

  8. If you buy “Purell” or other alcohol-based hand cleanser, make sure it is 60% alcohol or better .. That comes per your own Dr. Science (“remember, he has a degree… in Science!“)
    Oh, and wash your fucking hands, slackers!! Like thoroughly, for 20-40 seconds, warm water, soap, and clean under your fingernails too.
    Jesus, how many times I gotta…. ;>)

  9. @4 – only as much as you’re immune to the flu. You would be immune to this strain, but the flu evolves enough that there could be a different strain next season or it could disappear altogether.

  10. Theory: public health officials are all closet OCD washers. The crazy handwashing advice is really just the vocalization of their own obsession.

  11. @6 – bear in mind that flu pandemics tend to come in waves. The first wave of the 1918 flu was quite mild, causing very few fatalities. The second wave was extremely lethal. The third wave was fairly mild. We seem to be only seeing the first wave here so far; Mexico may be seeing the start of the second wave.

  14. there is such a thing, and the fact that i’m wearing latex gloves and a blue face mask are proof. Next thing I know i’ll be twisting loose door knobs and flipping light switches on and off for no reason at all. Not to mention the problem created now by brushing my teeth, in which tiny specks of toothpaste seem to now magically appear on the faucet whereas before they had not.

    yeah.

  19. Nobody was saying constantly.

    Just wash them whenever you sneeze, and every time you go for a drink of water or coffee/tea or go to the washroom.

    That will work fine.

    And stay away from the anti-biotic soap or gel if you have NON-antibiotic soap (e.g. Ivory or Dove as I recall). Anti-biotic soaps breed superbugs.

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