Show of Hands

The COVID2019 strain of coronavirus currently making its way around the world out of mainland China seems to have a strong affinity for humans of Han Chinese descent, but also appears to be transmissible via the usual means to pretty much any proximate human: airborne droplets, direct and indirect physical contact, and feces (I've found no reports regarding urine specifically). This means the virus can be transmitted to others by the usual coughing, sneezing, and sweat (this accounts for both the direct physical contact and the indirect contact [door handles, push plates/bars, etc]) common to influenza coronaviruses generally. Transmission via feces among human populations isn't a method commonly discussed during preparation conversations, I think.

There is a phrase that is more common among English English speakers than among American English speakers; cack handed. As anyone who followed the dramatic series Rome will know, the word "cack" is latin for "shit", as in human and other sourced feces. In modern English language parlance, this is mostly a somewhat less-than-complimentary reference to those among us who are left hand dominate; cack handed = left handed.

There are other modern potential applications of the phrase.

In Iranian society, the phrase "cack handed" isn't used specifically due to the widespread practice of using the left hand to literally "wipe your bum" as our English cousins so delicately put it. Thus, cack handedness is simply the expected social practice in Iranian culture. How this relates to COVID2019 transmission out of a Han dominate human haplogroup is what Iranians frequently do after wiping.

Commonly, Iranians believe that rinsing the left hand off with water as a part of their toilet ritual is sufficient to comply with the health strictures of their version of Islam. From personal experience with Iranian culture, I know that hand soap and toilet paper are commonplace items in Iranian shops, or at least were 40+ years ago (mullahs being as human as the rest of us, one presumes they prefer their bum boys to be self-maintaining, as it were, such that these products continue to be available in Iranian shops today). The Iranian government has published that their "patient zero" is an individual who regularly travels to the PRC from his home and business in the city of Qom. The pathogen has spread from there, with a senior government minister in Tehran recently being identified as having contracted the disease (illustrating that this hand wiping practice isn't restricted to the "lower classes").

I think it can safely be asserted that Iranians are not as rigorous as they might be in completing all other tasks with the right hand only (which I don't believe is actually a religious stricture anyway).

A few thoughts come quickly to mind; how commonplace is this practice in Muslim societies generally? How much interaction is there between foreign posted Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel and the other Muslim populations they are "embedded" with? Shifting focus a bit, what are toilet rituals in Africa like, especially in those regions of that continent that "enjoy" close relations (cough) with ex-pat PRC populations? Even further afield, how likely is it that rigorous hand washing and wide-spread availability of TP being commonplace practice within the favelas of Brazil and their equivalent populations in other S. American countries? For that matter, here in the United States?

On a final not-unrelated note, I have recently learned that the UN's World Health Organization apparently doesn't have a specific mechanism whereby to declare a health pandemic. That being true, is it all that unrealistic to assume their long-since declared "health emergency" to be a practicable synonym for same?

For further advice, I can only refer the reader to the much-copied, never-surpassed Redd Foxx.

Update 2/27/2020; hat tip Instapundit: You wish I was making this stuff up: Applying essential oil to anus cures coronavirus says Iranian cleric. One shudders to think how deeply "onto" the application should go.

Update 3/2/2020; hat tip Brian Wang - Next Big Future: On a much more serious note, there is this https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/03/iranian-leaders-are-infected-with-coronavirus-and-pilgrims-are-licking-a-shrine.html. Please note that this is now a possibility that humanity has to seriously plan for: "If Iran is overwhelmed by Coronavirus then they would be a massive pool of infection for spread to the rest of the middle east. If millions of Iranians are infected then there would (be a*) need to prevent infected people being used as tools of terrorism". (* my edit)

Update 3/4/2020, hat tip Instapundit (again): I swear to God, I didn't ask (see update 2/27) https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/world/coronavirus-there-are-2-types-chinese-researchers-find-while-authorities-say-faeces-and-urine-can-transmit-the-infection/ar-BB10HP6x?li=BBr8Cnr.
"Coronavirus: there are 2 types, Chinese researchers find, while authorities say faeces and urine can transmit the infection"  Apparently we're all still gonna die, and along the way we're all gonna catch some variant of COVID19. SSDD.