The Deprecation of Simple Fixes

In 2 Kings 5, the commander of the Aramean army, a man named Naaman, suffered “leprosy.” Whether this was the disease now known as Hansen’s Disease, a more virulently contagious skin disease such as impetigo, shingles, or chickenpox, or an autoimmune disease that manifests on the skin, such as psoriasis, eczema, or even pemphigus, is beside the point: in almost every culture of the time, any sign of infection on one’s skin marked one as “unclean.” For what it’s worth, the description later in the chapter of skin “as white as snow” suggests vitiglio, which is thought to be an autoimmune disease and may be heritable, but is definitely not contagious.


At the urging of an enslaved girl from Israel, who insisted that a prophet there could heal the general, the King of Aram sent a wealth-laden Naaman to the King of Israel. I suppose the King of Israel was suspicious of this sudden appearance of an enemy general—that would be natural, of course. So rather than acquiescing to the request that the prophet be sought, the King of Israel tore his clothes and raged about the audacity of the Arameans.


Elisha, the prophet in question, heard about the envoy. “Send the man to me,” he wrote to the king. “In this way, our enemies will know that there truly is a prophet in Israel.” 


Naaman went to Elisha’s house. And I’m sure that Naaman, being a dignitary from a foreign country, expected the prophet’s personal, undivided attention, so it’s understandable that he was taken aback and angered when something completely different happened.


Elisha sent a servant out to the general’s entourage with a simple message: “Go wash in the Jordan River seven times. Then you will be clean because your flesh has been restored.”


We’d react the same way as Naaman, would’t we? “WASH IN THE RIVER SEVEN TIMES? That’s absurd! It can’t be that easy!” And further, Naaman raged, “I expected the prophet of God to stand over me and cure me with a wave of his hands in God’s name! And wash in the Jordan River, of all rivers? There’s not a river in Israel better than the Abana and Pharpar in Aram; I could probably have washed in them and been just as healed!”


Naaman’s servant pointed out the problem: The general expected the cure to be arduous or at least showy, but if the prophet said it would be so easy, wouldn’t it make sense to try it?


Naaman relented and went to the Jordan River, where he immersed himself seven times and was healed. He then went to Elisha and professed belief in the LORD God of Israel.


Sometimes, we, like Naaman, really, really expect and want the hardship of the show, not the simple fix. 


I think this is one reason we’re having so much trouble doing the simple things to slow the spread of COVID-19 ahead of the showier, harder fix of the vaccines.


Keeping social distance is a simple thing. So simple, in fact, that our socially-oriented brains tell us it can’t possibly work, even though we’ve practiced social distancing our entire lives when we get sick…so we don’t make others ill. With the exception of chicken pox when I was a kid before the Varicella zoster vaccine, if I was sick, my parents kept me apart from my brother and I wasn’t allowed to play with my friends. That meant separate rooms for us siblings—and meals on a tray in bed for me—and no visitors or visiting other houses. Even when I was supposedly not contagious any more, my mom was conservative with the loosening of the boundary because social distancing is an easier fix than antibiotics for my most common ailment, strep throat; my brother and I could play in the same room but not with the same toys and not sitting side-by-side. Both antibiotics and social distancing, by the way, are science-supported fixes for containing contagion, though social distancing has more applications than antibiotics because it works on both bacterial and viral infections.


Wearing masks is a simple thing. It’s maybe a little more intrusive than social distancing, but on the up side, masks can really help us reveal our personalities even as they hide our smiles. We don’t have a cultural norm of wearing masks during flu season or when one is ill here in America the way that some Asian countries do, at least yet, but the science behind this simple act has been amply demonstrated.  A 1897 study by Carl Friedrich Flügge showed how tuberculosis can be spread by droplets and one in the next year by W. Hübener demonstrated the reduction of infection in surgical wounds when surgeons wore double-layered gauze masks.1 Oddly enough, it took a while before masks were worn consistently in surgical theaters (1910s) and even longer before it was expected that masks cover the noses of those in theater (after 1930).2 The report of successful containment of SARS-CoV-2 infections among clients in a beauty salon where two stylists were infected but wore masks while on duty and mounting evidence that infections and mortality rates are substantially lower where masks are worn by custom, social pressure, or government mandate paints a picture of how well this simple fix can do as a tool for slowing the spread or, in that phrase we all know too well, “flattening the curve.”3

 

Because humans are inconsistent study subjects when not in controlled environments, the best evidence for the efficacy of mask wearing during this pandemic comes from animal studies. Species of animals that are known to be susceptible to the SARS-CoV-2 virus were studied in trials designed to mimic human spread. Before you picture hamsters wearing masks, that’s not how the researchers did it; sick animals were placed in adjoining cages to healthy animals with either nothing but a screen between the cages or a partition made of the same material as surgical masks. Not only did healthy animals in the cages separated by the mask material partitions have lower infection rates, but the infected animals behind partitions also had less severe cases of COVID-19.4


The two simple things together most likely have a multiplying effect. When you stay six feet or more away from others AND you wear a mask, you’re probably better off than one or the other. Stay six feet or more apart from others and wear a mask outside or in a well-ventilated (5 or more air exchanges per hour) room and you’re even safer.5 Even in a well-ventilated room with no more than 10 people per 1000 square feet and everyone wearing properly fitted and tested N-95 respirators without exhalation valves, I wouldn’t sing and I’d be leery if anyone started coughing, shouting, or sneezing. Safeer doesn’t mean safe.


Of course, the simplest fix of all is staying home completely, without any in-person interaction outside your own family/household members who are similarly staying home, including at the very least any cats in the family and probably dogs, too. This is the “abstinence only” method of COVID-19 protection and it works really, really well. As effectively, in fact, as the “abstinence only” method of birth control: 100% if practiced without fail, ever. 


But as with teens and sex, “abstinence only” is incredibly difficult in reality. Most of us are driven to need human interaction that ZOOM, FaceTime, Facebook Live, and other technical solutions just can’t mimic, even though right now those are safer than being together; a “just this once” outing could have devastating consequences, especially if that outing doesn’t include all the “safer interaction” protocols that are simple and powerful. Masks may or may not be as effective at preventing spread of COVID-19 when properly worn as condoms, when properly used, are at preventing pregnancy, but masks and social distancing outdoors may be as effective at keeping you safer from COVID-19 as a condom plus the birth control pill are at preventing pregnancy.


In the end, though the vaccines themselves are complicated and have required immense investment of time, talent, and money, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 may be as simple a fix for the underlying disease as it was for Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River. We are blessed beyond measure to live in a time when science can provide this kind of solution…if only we don’t expect the show.


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1. Matuschek, Christiane, et al. “The history and value of face masks.” Abstract from European Journal of Medical Research, found at the Journal List of the National Institutes of Health at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7309199/. Accessed 15 December 2020.


2. Ibid.


3. Peeples, Lynne. “Face masks: what the data say.” Nature, 6 October 2020. Online. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8. Accessed 15 December 2020.


4. Ibid.


5. Ibid., also: Science for the Road Ahead webinar on HVAC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqIfy4zzF6Q&list=PL6VgfHt6zEy5JulBsHTWUs2bFHl2O9Nrj&index=6 and Singing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV7U6HwxgHE&list=PL6VgfHt6zEy5JulBsHTWUs2bFHl2O9Nrj&index=5

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