Thursday 26 March 2020

no fomo

From the Latin fomes for tinder, the term was first coined by academic and physician Girolamo Frascastoro in his 1546 treatise De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis to distinguish contamination from an infectious agent—a disease vector in modern parlance—with a fomite being any inanimate object, a surface, a door handle, a light switch, can temporarily host and transfer germs. As small as it seems, hand-washing is a force-multiplier in this battle—which by the nature of public health is communal and goes unseen, that is—never knowing what impact what we did or neglected to do had, but is nonetheless essential.