‘Antiseptic society in a Covid world’

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on Sunday evening that the country has been moved to adjusted level 4 Covid-19 protocol has prompted residents to take a fresh look at their responses to the third wave. A local educational specialist, Bruce Phillips shared some of his views on this topic.

“As we sat down at the table mother’s first words were always: ‘Have you washed your hands, let me see them’- and invariably one of us would be sent unceremoniously back to wash them again, or perhaps to wash them for the first time! That was in the 1950s and the basics of good hygiene were being inculcated in a way in which they were and have been ever since, at the feet of mom or grandmother.

I would posit that it did not matter which country one visited but that fairly similar procedures were in place. My colleagues remind me that levels of what may be called acceptable differed widely and certainly the coal miner in the early days of the century whether he hailed from Ireland or South Africa might not have been as squeaky clean at the supper table as his contemporaries who frequented the hallowed halls of the New York Stock Exchange.

Without doubt too, schoolyard playgrounds, might well have been swept clear of papers and debris, but the marbles that shot across the well- used sand came from fingers that had probably been used for reasonably unsanitary purposes prior to playing marbles.

I am no medical doctor and I therefore make no pretense at all to offering scientific responses to the pandemic which now stretches its effects across the whole world. I merely wish to echo my own thoughts along with the echoing concerns of the unvaccinated millions.

I opened with some thoughts directed at some sanitary practices of the 1950s… I started in these years because strangely enough I can not remember the years prior to being born, but I mention them simply because very little has actually changed in the past almost 70 years and if one ventures into historical context, apart from the invention and mass production of detergents and soaps in more recent times, mankind survived the ages. One may ask would we have done better in terms of survival during the plagues, flu epidemics and a myriad of other illnesses, had we had better, or more available medicines and the answer would probably be in the affirmative. How much better one can only but guess, for perhaps fewer would have died but in essence it might simply be a numbers game and little else.

Where though, in this short piece am I going with respect to the world we now occupy?

The question I raise does not speak to yesterday or even today, but rather to the tomorrows.

The tomorrows which we are filling with human beings who are unable to meet the challenges of minor illnesses as their immune systems have been so anaesthetised by the continued sanitising processes, wearing of masks and avoidance of any real contact with each other, quarantining ourselves if we even suspect ourselves of possibly being in contact with another who may possibly have had contact with a Covid-19 infected human being. We avoid hugging, kissing, and making any visible contact with members of our community, living in sterile, antiseptic bubbles.

All this, while the older, more vulnerable- (really? Have we not built up an immune system capable to withstanding the plethora of diseases we have been exposed to over the years?

Have we not absorbed a myriad of viruses as we danced and jived our way through the cigarette smoke filled noisy dance floors of our youth and later life?) members of our society are entreated to become vaccinated by a vaccine which is not a vaccine and the youth, who are now sanitised beyond recognition are invisible and untouchable, crying out to be held and comforted in their vacuum-packed worlds.

It is an antiseptic society we are creating, and unless the medical world stays a step or two ahead of the viruses which are becoming more and more resistant to our detergent world, our immune impoverished sanitised bodies will wilt and succumb to viruses far less virulent than Covid-19 or whatever strain lurks out there.”

• The opinions and views in this article are that of the author and are not necessary shared by the publication. – Ed