I used to joke with OCD suffers that one of the best ways to make money was to set-up a booth selling hand-sanitizers at an OCD conference.  Now, with COVID-19, hand sanitizers are all over the place and people use it all the time.

Around March, I predicted that there could be germaphobia at a mass scale.  Now, I am beginning to think we are already here.

Germaphobia is the fear of germs, and people with the phobia are germaphobes.  Germaphobes have a fear of catching a deadly disease or getting ‘dirty’.  Their rationale of this fear is very irrational, and most non-OCD people will never understand the irrational fear.  (From my experience, the fear of disease is less common than the fear of dirt.)  Their behaviors are usually the following:

• They are afraid of touching handles.
• They assume everything is contaminated unless they sanitize it.
• Unless it is clean, they will not touch it.
• They will never eat anything using unwashed or un-sanitized hands.
• They keep track of who touched what.  For example, if a person assumed to be sick or dirty touches a handle, then another person touches the same handle and then touches a surface.  And then a third person touches the same surface and touches an item.  The germaphobe will think the item is contaminated.
• They have a combination of all-or-nothing thinking and half-glass-empty thinking.  For example, if the odds of dying are 4 in 10,000, germaphobes may find this to be an unacceptable risk.  They will accept 0 in 10000 or nothing at all.
• Germaphobes may try to get their family to go along with the madness.  For instance, if a germaphobe cleans the kitchen or the living room, the germaphobe might tell the family members to walk around the clean areas and not to touch the clean surfaces.  If they violate the rules, the germaphobe will clean the contaminated areas again even though the surface seems perfectly clean.
• They will go to extremes to maintain their sense of security.

(If you have a majority of these symptoms, you have a problem.)

One of my biggest concerns is when the COVID-19 crises is over, how many people will not be able to break their COVID-19 habits and obsessions.  How many will continue keeping 6-ft away from others?  How many people will continue wearing face masks?  How many people will continue wearing cleaning wipes and hand sanitizers? 

Already I have seen the following recently:

• People drive alone wearing face masks. (irrational habit unless you’re an Uber driver)
• A household family driving together wearing face masks. (possible enabling)
• People walking alone without anybody around wearing face masks. (extreme security)
• Merchants going contactless.  This means a clerk will not touch the customer’s credit card. (enabling)
• People consciously maintaining 6-ft from everybody. (avoidance)
• I have heard stories where people haven’t gone to the supermarket since March. (avoidance)
• People not concerned about continuing the COVID-19 mandates for the long-haul even after 7 months. (extreme security)

I haven’t met OCD suffers since January because of COVID mandates.  I wouldn’t be surprised once the mandates are lifted that I’ll meet a lot of new germaphobes.