Why do people have to be warned not to drink or otherwise ingest Covid test kit liquid stuff???

[thewayne]

*sigh*

Apparently enough people - and CHILDREN! - have drank the solution, used it as eye drops, dribbled it onto their tongues, or put it onto the swab before swabbing their nostrils that it makes them sick to varying levels that the government now has to step in and warn them to NOT DO STUPID SHIT.

Warning: do not drink chemicals not meant to be drinked.
Warning: do not squirt chemicals into your eyes that are not eye drops or otherwise your eye doc tells you to do.
Warning: don't rub chemicals onto your skin that are used to test for diseases.

Doing these things might make you sick and shows that you might not be very smart. Have you considered moving to Florida, or do you already live there?

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/the-fda-would-like-you-to-not-put-covid-19-test-solution-in-your-eyes-nose/

Comments

[murakozi]

Maybe it's time to bring back Mister Yuck.

[thewayne]

ROFL!  I remember those stickers!  Blue dude with the green face?

A green frowny-face, with the Poison Control Hotline number.

[kathmandu]

We knew him as Mr. Ickyface.

By the time my first-grade class got him, the idea was to put the sticker on the telephone handset, so even a child too young to read could call for help if Mommy or Daddy fell down and started foaming at the mouth.

Re: A green frowny-face, with the Poison Control Hotline number.

[thewayne]

Wow!  Zero memory of that one!

Re: A green frowny-face, with the Poison Control Hotline number.

[murakozi]

I remember the tv commercials that aired after school during the 70s with the song about how Mister Yuck is mean, Mister Yuck is green. I do recall people putting the stickers on phones, too.

And thanks to the interwebs, there's a version of it on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLsONa3gKIQ

[disneydream06]

O.M.g.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There really are stupid people out there. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

There has never been a dearth of stupid people, I think the quantity has been increasing of late.

[disneydream06]

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lilysea]

To be fair, some of the children who have done this are of the age where they are young enough that they will drink ANYTHING, including cleaning products -

it's not the children being unintelligent, it's the parents not locking the test stuff up or putting it in a tall cupboard out of reach...

[thewayne]

You are absolutely correct.  When children drink stuff they shouldn't, it's usually their parent's lack of responsibility.  And goodness knows, our country has a big problem with adults and responsibility for some time now.

[fairy69]

it's called thinning out the herd...

[moxie_man]

I've said it before and this just provides more proof. Common sense has been bred out of the human species.

[thewayne]

That certainly seems to be the case.  I think it's the space aliens who have that book To Serve Man.

[silveradept]

I can see the "put the solution on the swab, and then swabbed" as an honest mistake (even though reading the directions probably would have stopped this), but many of the other ones still smack of people who are hoping to use the testing materials as treatments or other attempts to gain immunity from the thing other than he official or authorized way of getting vaccinated.

[thewayne]

That’s it right there - failure to read instructions. While I don’t read all instructions manuals, I pretty much at least give them a cursory once-over. But when I encounter something completely new - like DIY MEDICAL TESTS - yes, I read the instructions! And some tests don’t work the same as others! SMH I remember a prev girlfriend complaining about something with her car and I asked her if she’d checked her oil or her coolant level, I don’t remember which - it was Phoenix, so coolant is very important there. She didn’t know how to do that, no one had taught her. So when I was over there, I popped her hood and showed her a few things. Of course she’d never read the owner’s manual. Very smart woman, Bachelor’s in Accounting, working on an MBA and license in real estate at the time. Just couldn’t be bothered with things that could leave you stranded in 110 degree heat in the middle of a freeway.

[silveradept]

Because nobody had told her that was important stuff. I'm still learning all sorts of things well into my next decade because nobody ever bothered to tell me it was important. Maintenance stuff, especially. And if I don't get those things, then she probably got even less of them, with the expectation that the men in her life would know how to handle it and take care of it.

[thewayne]

Just Friday at the library I was talking with one of our regulars about our school, which is sort of being re-branded as a community college rather than a junior college, doesn't teach practical courses like plumbing, electrical, etc.  I learned a lot from my dad, a retired plumber, but I can't replace a faucet.  I can de-calcify a shower head and do some basic toilet repairs, but not much more complicated than that.  Forget electrical!  And our school doesn't teach anything like that.  It would be so useful and crickets.  They are mostly ignoring trades education.

[silveradept]

Trades education is, perceptually, for lower-class people who aren't "smart" enough to get into "real" college, never mind what it actually takes to know how to do most trades. While it would be useful to get a life skills course that handles things like basic plumbing and electrical, the unstated and often untrue assumption is that a college or university degree will mean getting paid well enough that you can pay other people to do the work that's beneath you while you focus on better uses of your intelligence and time.

(There's also, y'know, a big racist component to this idea, too, but that's the promise that gets extended to many about pursuing a university degree, that the money you get from it will mean being able to offload your problems into other people and to feel superior to them while doing it.)

[thewayne]

Good point about the racist angle.  The amount you can make in trades can be quite impressive, though, especially if you have a niche skill that will let you start your own business.

[silveradept]

Yeah, trades are one of the last possible ways that someone can have that good paying job that allows you to raise a family without getting an advanced or professional degree and becoming a salaryman or a middle manager.