Germ Theory or Virus Skeptics

I am not sure what it is called but between my wife and I, we have bumped into the idea that "viruses do not exist" more frequently. One of the ladies I give a ride to the Azure standard pickup sometimes was trying to explain it to me. I was reading the link for this post yesterday and the idea was in that article or another on that site. https://permies.com/wiki/376311/Alpha-gal

So the lady that rides with us sometimes was the first time it has been brought up in person. One pickup ride she had her daughter and granddaughter coming to town to stay with her the next day. On the next pickup ride she told me they were sick and she got sick after a few days of them being there. She does not believe in viruses so she said it was due to staying up late with her daughter and getting up early and drinking coffee which she only does occasionally.

So when I look into this more some options are the environment you are in and even some sort of sympathy response. Alright so in this ladies case I can see how she could say those things about less sleep and such and that make the idea plausible in her mind. One person household or even if it was 2, the #2 may have been up late also.

Here is my issue and maybe someone can point me to some further reading on the subject or confirm my observations so I have more information to go off of. We have a family of 8 and homeschool. When our kids play with neighbor kids, sometimes one of our kids gets sick 2 or 3 days later, then another, then another and on through the 8 people it goes. If we have a nursing age baby, sometimes the baby and my wife do not get the sickness due to the amazing things that happen with antibodies and such with breastfeeding.

I have observed this phenomenon over the course of the last 10 years with the addition of kids. When I look into (googled) that specific scenario, one thing to blame is the environment. I suppose if that were true, we should randomly and spontaneously get sick. We don't. Another is the sympathy response, which I can say for myself and in my conscience, my reaction is not that. I doubt the kids would respond that way either, there more likely to tear one another from limb to limb

Anybody have any thoughts on this to share or resources that would specifically handle my observations from our household?

There was a time when Doctors didn't wash their hands between patients. Many patients got sicker.

Then someone figured out that there were microscopic organisms and some of them seemed to be linked to illnesses.

Doctors were forced to wash their hands between patients, and fewer patients (particularly mothers with newborns just delivered by those doctors who didn't really qualify as "being sick" to start with) got sick/sicker.

So do these people believe "viruses" don't exist, or that "microbes" don't exist? Pond water and a simple microscope will demonstrate that there are small things, capable of reproducing, that the human eye can't see. Many of them cohabit the human body and our gut digestion counts on them being there and doing their job.

Viruses are a bit weird. They can't reproduce without a host, they are much smaller again than most bacteria, and too small to be seen under a light microscope.

Atoms are also too small to see. Do the "viruses don't exist" people, also believe that atoms don't exist?

Some people believe things that I don't believe. Some of those belief/non-belief things aren't going to hurt me (I believe the earth is more or less round, but it won't hurt me if someone else believes it is flat). I am very willing to live and let live. Unfortunately, some things that some people believe in, despite what I would call reasonable evidence to the contrary, could end up hurting me. Personally, if people believe viruses don't exist and aren't willing to respect my opinion that they do, I would do my best to find different people to hang around with.