[usrusr]

> The basic theory is that if you catch the virus, you want to have it in your nose first so your body has time to start a response before it reaches your lungs.

That's a thought that has crossed my mind before: if it's better the farther up in the respiratory system the initial infection happens, then all that hand washing might be a bad idea, at least for the personal outcome. It depends a lot on wether you expect the full wave to eventually roll through until herd immunity or if you expect it to be stopped early, either by continued distancing until it's starved our by a vaccine.

[coldtea]

>That's a thought that has crossed my mind before: if it's better the farther up in the respiratory system the initial infection happens, then all that hand washing might be a bad idea, at least for the personal outcome.

Huh? How does that figure? Hand washing will means less (or no) virii in your nose/mouth.

So, isn't it (a) good in itself, and (b) totally orthogonal to the infection happening "farther up in the respiratory system" (aside the positive, that if it happens and is further up, it will also be less viral content)

[usrusr]

> Huh? How does that figure? Hand washing will means less (or no) virii in your nose/mouth.

If you make "first contact" by inhaling tiny droplets it's possible that they will make landfall right down in the lungs, whereas an infection from dirty fingers is guaranteed to start in the nose/mouth area and will already be an immune system project while it works it's way deeper down. Still worse than not getting infected at all, but if you assume that it will eventually hit you anyways, easing into the infection via the nose would surely be preferable to starting in the lungs where it's actually dangerous.

The reverse of this would be accumulating an infective dose from the leakage amount allowed through by PPE while working in extreme exposure. I doubt that there is empirical data regarding viruses, but everything we've learned about particulate emissions suggests that smaller particles reach deeper into the lungs. So it seems quite convincing to me that people who do fall ill despite PPE fall ill harder. Might explain the prominent medical worker deaths.

[Aeolun]

If you stick your unwashed vingers in your nose a few times a day then maybe that will cause you to get sick instead of someone sneezing in your face?