Oh come on. Just go to Mass and keep your distance from others. Impetigo is not Ebola.
Impetigo is like Ebola in the sense that it is a “reportable disease.”
This means that when I find Staph aureus and Strep pyo growing on a skin-type culture, I have to call the floor or clinic and let them know, and THEY have to combine my culture results with their patient’s symptoms and presentation, and if impetigo is the diagnosis, they have to call the local health department, which will enter the patient information into a registry and monitor the situation.
If there are other cases of impetigo in a “cluster,” the health department will do further investigation to try to determine the source of the cluster of infections. In other words, if several people are diagnosed with impetigo, and the “common factor” between all these patients is that they are members of the same parish and attended the 9:30 a.m. Mass at that parish–well, the source of the infection is quite clear. The parish will be notified and expected to inform all of their families of the risk that they were exposed to, and anyone and everyone in the parish who has even a hint of rash will very likely head to their doctor’s office (or free clinic) to be tested, and that means lots of money spent (mainly by taxpayers and by insurance companies) that wouldn’t have had to be spent if the source patient had just obeyed doctor’s orders and STAYED HOME!
Not to mention that if anyone from that parish who is immunocompromised contracts impetigo after attending that Mass, they could be in grave danger of losing their physical life.
Do you think that the media would keep this quiet? Oh, no! This would be headline news–“a number of parishioners at St. So and So Parish have contracted impetigo, and the parish is taking steps to have the church disinfected over the next few days.”
And do you think the disinfecting costs the parish money? Oh, yes.
Even our littlest actions have consequences. When a doc says, “contagious for 48 hours,” he/she means it.
I’ve seen this scenario happen in our city, not because of impetigo, but because of other infections. Bacteria may be tiny, but they’re tough, and we should respect them!
