Grey’s Anatomy taught viewers a lesson about germs on Thursday night’s episode, pointing out in the opening voiceover that people touch their faces on average 18 times per hour – making them incredibly susceptible to infections.

Grey's Anatomy Recap

In the ER of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, everybody seems to be suffering from the same flu-like symptoms. When Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) takes a sneeze to the face, she resigns herself to the fact she'll contract the illness by the end of the day. Trauma doctor April (Sarah Drew) consults a patient with an autoimmune disorder, whose treatments seem to have stopped working. He, clearly, absolutely cannot get what’s going around the hospital so they put him in isolation.

After getting sneezed on, Arizona introduces Alex (Justin Chambers) to Oliver (aka “Dr. Butthole”), who’s made a name for himself performing bowel surgeries. He’s there to operate on a young boy who was born without a butthole. Anyway, Alex immediately takes a distaste for Oliver and his private practice. However, a part of him sees the allure of the fatter paycheck and the ability to perform more charity work.

Callie Recruits Jo To Ortho

Meanwhile, Alex’s girlfriend Jo (Camilla Luddington) is unsuccessfully trying to give a patient a tetanus shot. The hold up is that the patient refuses to have anything inorganic put into his body, believing it to be poison. When he suffers a seizure, he breaks his own arm because of the tetanus. Jo fears it’s her fault, but Callie takes (Sara Ramirez) her under her wing and says they’ll just have to break the bone again and reset it. Soon, Jo realizes that ortho could be for her.

Fearing the worst for her trial is Cristina (Sandra Oh), who is convinced the pervasive virus is going to infect her patients, ruining the trial and a shot at the Harper Avery. It becomes Ross’ (Gaius Charles) job to watch them all for signs and symptoms of the flu. Cristina has to perform a heart transplant on a young girl. Not long after she wraps up the surgery, the girl’s sibling comes in showing similar symptoms. Cristina and Owen (Kevin McKidd) think the root cause could be the family home.

While April has been able to keep her patient in isolation, her husband Jackson (Jesse Williams) passes out from the illness. He refuses to let her help him, which she thinks is a bad sign. Bailey (Chandra Willson) knows different. It’s either she gets a guy who wants to be babied while sick, or one who wants to deal with it themselves. It’s probably for the best she has the latter.

Meredith Saves Derek's Speech

Derek (Patrick Dempsey), worse for wear, tries his best to convince Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) that he’s not that sick. Throughout the day, however, his condition slowly worsens. While trying to practice his speech, he snaps at someone who’s consuming onion rings and making his nauseous. After consulting April and Bailey on a spinal fluid infection and on his way to deliver his speech, Derek slides to the ground in the hallway. Thankfully for him, Meredith’s been paying attention and manages to present her husband’s research to the global listening audience.

– Chelsea Regan

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