Some of you young-uns might not know what we older folk know.

For instance, when I was young, people were obsessed with "sanitizing" everything. My grandma's generation would even use store-bought milk to feed her babies because she worried she might get them sick with her own milk!

It has never been hard to find legitimately mentally deranged people who have a hard time coping with the fact that the world is full of germs. Typically, educated people just avoid pointing out to "laymen" what the world actually looks like under a microscope.

In modern times, however, we have learned a few things about the bugs and critters trying to kill you every waking moment of every day. Let me try to walk you through the key facts.

First, you must understand that the world is dirty. You are dirty. Every square inch of the world is COVERED in pathogens that can easily kill you. If you were to take a microscope and look at a drop of pure, clean rainwater, you know what you would see? Yeah, there's no coming back from that. RAIN can kill you.

But there's a reason why you are not dead. It's because your body has an immune system that EXPECTS the world to be covered in filth. It is constantly fighting the pathogens you bring in to your body one way or the other.

In fact, if your body doesn't see the expected amount of pathogens, it may begin attacking itself. This is a huge problem, and there is a VERY LONG LIST of diseases caused by the immune system attacking the body.

So let's just suppress the immune system for people living in mostly sterile conditions, right? Well, wrong, for a number of reasons.

Without that aggressive immune system, you will die from something. This is a known fact. And all the antibiotics in the world can't help you with some of the diseases you might get with a weakened immune system. Some of the antibiotics will kill you outright.

And worse, these pathogens are FIGHTING EACH OTHER. That's right -- if you wipe something down clean and completely sterile -- there's a good chance when it gets re-infected with pathogens, it will be the really, really bad boys you don't want to mess with. One of the strategies to maintain a healthy immune system is to encourage the RIGHT pathogens and discourage the wrong ones. Waging nuclear war on all pathogens via antibiotics and antiseptics is generally a very bad idea.

Vaccinations work by injecting a small amount of (mostly harmless) pathogens into your body. That's right -- the chicken pox vaccine HAS CHICKEN POX IN IT. At least, until 2020, that's what vaccines were. Who knows what this new vaccine is doing? And now that the cover is blown -- what were the old vaccines doing because it turns out they don't work so well?

What do you do?

Modern medicine recommends the following:

1. Do NOT use antibiotics under any circumstances unless the life of the patient is at risk. All those antibacterial soaps -- we should toss 'em. They are doing way more harm than good.
2. BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. How? Keep stress low, get plenty of fresh air and sunshine, exercise, eat healthy foods, and take vitamins. Oh, and get plenty of face-to-face time with people so you are exposed to the community pathogens in low doses before it gets bad.
3. Clean, but don't sanitize. This sounds weird, but hear me out: Keep food and stuff off your table, wipe it down with hot soapy water, but do not try to kill every last germ on your counter. As long as there is nothing for the bad pathogens to eat, the good pathogens can do their job and keep the bad ones at bay.
4. Eat fermented foods like cheeses, yogurts, kimchi, etc... These introduce all sorts of GOOD pathogens into your body, which will encourage the proper growth of bacteria and such inside your body.

Not all of this stuff is hard-and-fast, but people who are following rules like this report being healthier and happier, with fewer diseases.

So, stop stressing about disease! Get exposed to them, keep your immune system strong and healthy, and live your life the best you know how. In the end, your immune system will be better than everyone else's and you'll survive the future diseases that China inevitably releases upon the world like clockwork.