The novel coronavirus continues to command headlines around the world as the public proceeds in its steady plunge into toilet paper hysteria and a pursuit of the long-lost art of personal space.
(Social distancing is a concept worth adhering to, unless you’re among the doltish horde who attended Thursday’s sold out Post Malone concert. Great job, Denver.)
As journalists around the world work feverishly to stay current in a news cycle prone to violent fluctuation, the media arm of one particular organization has opted to join the precautionary coronavirus fray.
Attention, please. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria would like a moment of your time.
A recent newsletter distributed by the surprisingly pathogen-wary terror gang — translated in a post Thursday by blogger Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi — issued intricate guidance on exactly how its members should “deal with epidemics.”
Notably, ISIS has taken a cue from the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, and other major sports leagues by suspending all activities abroad — in this case, the terror-related type — until further notice, an order designed to prohibit fighters from entering or returning from what the newsletter coined “the land of the epidemic.”
If there’s one thing the Islamic State considers unacceptable, it’s waging an unsanitary jihad.
Next, ISIS followers are charged with the “obligation of taking up the causes of protection from illnesses and avoiding them.” To do so, the newsletter instructs members of the terror group to “flee from the one afflicted with leprosy as you flee from the lion.”
Going full sprint might be a tad dramatic considering adequate personal space and hygiene practices should suffice.
Next, the organization’s black-clad followers are encouraged to “cover the mouth when yawning and sneezing” and take the extra step to “wash the hands before dipping them in the vessels.”
“When one of you wakes from his sleep, let him not dip his hand into the vessels until he washes it three times, for he does not know where his hand spent the night,” the translation read.
Classic ISIS and their perpetually scandalous hands — you just can’t keep those guys from dipping them in vessels.
Stand by for an abundance of quarantine boredom-induced propaganda videos.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.