One of the first written uses of the term was in a March 6, 2020, blog post by Bob Cooney, a recreational
virtual reality consultant, in which he said that VR-arcade operators should "practice hygiene theater" for customers as the
COVID-19 pandemic began. Even earlier written use was in a listener's comment on April 29, 2020, on radio personality Tom Leykis's website. On July 27, 2020,
Derek Thompson, a staff writer for
The Atlantic, used the term when referring to hygiene measures being taken during the COVID-19 pandemic that have done little to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and have provided a false sense of security. Organizations such as the
Kennedy Center continued to deploy temperature checks, even while acknowledging that the benefits were psychological, not medicinal. However, amidst the general reopening of the US, the specifics of what practices were done were varied enormously, as companies updated rules and continued to adapt to customer behavior. == See also ==