Daybreak, the world sits on the edge of its seat, anxiously chewing its collective hand-sanitized fingernails for news of some breakthrough, some hope, as outbreaks of the cooties virus continue to sweep across the U.S.

Yesterday the National Guard finished shutting down all schools, parks, playgrounds and ball pits; a massive effort to slow the spread of cooties from its primary transmitters: children.

However, despair is setting in as tweets and status updates from abroad inform us all that cooties have apparently now spread to the parts of the world known as not America.

After experts announced to the general public two weeks ago that the cooties virus takes a month to fully incubate in its host and that its symptoms are vague and nearly impossible to diagnose, mass paranoia has whole neighborhoods locked indoors. Overloaded food delivery services now take up to a day or two.
 

Credit: Jason Freeny, artist, genius and unlicensed cooties virologist.
 

With the help of brave volunteers, medical practitioners have been working around the clock to administer the CCDD inoculation (using a finger to trace a Circle-Circle-Dot-Dot on the forearm), but uncertainty about the effectiveness of the remedy among some has resulted in extreme measures.

One viral how-to video of one parent’s attempt to keep his family safe by making “germ suits” from snorkels and lawn-and-leaf bags has created a wildfire craze, resulting in widespread looting of home improvement and sporting goods stores. And many of the nation’s card-carrying pitchfork and torch owners are out in force, in their own scuba-garbage outfits, patrolling the streets for anyone who “looks different” (the only confirmed symptom of cooties).

World leaders are convening in a secret, underground bunker in a “Clean Zone,” all eyes glued to a gigantic, Google-powered contagion map as it slowly grows a thick beard of infection push-pins.

With only occasional breaks to relieve the stress and take turns playing the world’s largest game of Tetris, they are presently in deep discussion about the theory that we may all already be infected with cooties. It is said there is much murmuring and pursing of lips.

There is little hope.

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Instructional Diagrams
They’re like a cooties shot for your eyeballs. Except you don’t have to touch or poke your eyeballs or anything awful.