Dirt is ... oh, hang on

Time goes quickly when you're enjoying yourself. It was over two months ago, at the beginning of April, that I wrote a post about the gush of information and opinions about the New Normal. Well, now we're in the midst of the beginning of it (I think).

One question was which mindsets and elements of behaviour would be carried over as restrictions ease. Would the whole world remain obsessed with hygiene, for example?

Certainly, hand sanitisers and soap-related products have taken a huge hike in sales. The emails that the travel companies are sending me now on resumed services are full of #WeCare and Safety First, and providing masks and cleaning seats, tables and armrests, with links to cute little films should you need extra reassurance.

But what about all the other microorganisms that are killed off in the process? Have the role of the good guys - the gut and skin microbiome - in developing immunity been forgotten?

I have a theory, which could be complete nonsense, but might be one explanation why Germany has not been as hard-hit by the virus as the US and the UK. I wrote a couple of articles in my early years here expressing what I saw as a cultural difference between the Germans and Anglo-Saxon cultures in their approach to use of "hard" chemicals in household and garden, and the preference for plant-based remedies and cures in personal health.

Maybe the Germans are just more in tune with their germs - good and bad?