Hand washing since the pandemic...

[TheGreenDragon]

Have we as a nation learnt nothing?

Still seeing women come out of the toilet cubicle, sprinkle a little water over their fingertips for a few seconds then leave.

No soap, no hot water, no rubbing of hands and certainly not lasting at least 20 seconds.

My man friend was at a large hospital for a checkup last week - Cardiology.
He was shocked that 50% of the men in the loo didn’t wash hands - in a hospital environment that’s shocking.

But we observe the same at airports all over Europe - men going in, then out again within 30 seconds - no handwashing.

Seemingly the same with UK men and sauna hygiene, yesterday man leaves sauna, visibly dripping sweat, he passes a choice of 4 showers, but instead just gets into the swimming pool ( “to cool off - is what they all say) where we are head-down swimming - in his sweat. It’s stomach churning. It’s only the men that seem to do it…

This is incorrect and was badly managed during the pandemic. Of course it’s spread by surface contact but they found that it was ALSO airborne. Airborne droplets fall onto surfaces, they don’t hang around in a cloud/mist indefinitely.
At work we are more vigilant about surface disinfection than ventilation, and will disinfect any surface a patient has contact while in the room. But cross infection includes lots of micro organisms not just Covid.
Im an obsessive hand washer due to my profession. I can’t stand anything on my hands. Prepping food is a nightmare but as a result we never have stomach bugs. I might not have the cleanest kitchen floor but the door handles and food prep surfaces in my house are super clean. Door handles are my pet project, everyone touch s them without considering the risk of contamination.

90% who go to the toilet at the pool do not wash their hands with soap and water
That I'm impressed they actually get out of the pool to use the loo shows just how low the bar is set
People are disgusting and we never learn.

Me too, and I also am rarely ever ill. Many MNers are overly obsessed with hygiene.

I was waiting for my other half to come out of toilets yesterday a man came out just before him still doing himself up, I said to oh I assume he didn’t wash his hands then. Oh has (diagnosed) ocd and his hands are a mess just now, he’s massively stressed out with a few things and the hand washing/hygiene has been rough, as has the obsessive checking of doors etc etc. anyway I agree, people are gross. I’m a nurse so scrub hands after toilet etc then carry wipes/sanitiser for places with no handwashing facilities. Also work with snotty kids so think I’m likely immune to colds these days so many come in like that.

Something I noticed during Covid and since is the increasing number of people who prep food wearing gloves. You see videos online of people wearing usually black gloves. It is known, and has been for a long time, to be more effective to regularly wash your hands than to wear gloves. Unless you are replacing the glove after touching every single thing than there is more dirt on your hand than if you weren’t wearing them. You can feel if your hands are dirty, you can’t tell the same with the gloves. Also completely pointless if you are going to prep food then handle customers money with the same gloves on, then prep the next customers food. In New York in the 90s they made glove wearing mandatory for food hygiene licences. There was an increase in the number of cases of food poisoning, which was only reduced when they removed the gloves and reverted to regular handwashing.

I've noticed they've stopped providing hand sanitiser in shops and other public places like it was in the pandemic.

Hand sanitiser only works on clean hands. You must remove the bacteria which means washing, rinsing thoroughly and drying well.
Second best is hand sanitising wipes which removes bacteria.

I'm a hygiene freak where hands are concerned.

I shudder when having to order or input information via a public touchscreen. I wash my hands asap after using them because I know that many people have dirty habits.

I read a thing, ages ago, while I was obsessively campaigning for clean water in places that don't have it. One of the charities commissioned a large study on what it takes to remove micro-organisms from hands. Soap makes a big difference, but the main factor is rubbing. They said it doesn't even matter much if the towel is clean, it's more important to have plenty of friction.

Since then, I've thought of germs as tiny objects (which they are, of course) and it makes sense to knock them off your hands somehow. The soap helps detach them, because they have sticky skins, then you can rub & rinse the loose ones off in water. The rest get physically removed with vigorous towel use. I'm not that big on microbiology, but I like to imagine you even smash a fair few of the little bastards with the towel fibres.

So, yes - antibac will do what the soap does, but you need frottage as well!

Yeah I’ve been in sandwich shops and saw them handling money and pressing buttons on the till in gloved hands only to then start making a sandwich with the same gloves for the next customer.

When I see that I usually feel queasy and just leave the shop.

And this is why I never touch anything - door handles, locks etc in public toilets.
People, including some women, are disgusting.

Yanbu.
I can't bear it when people cough into their hands in the supermarket then handle food. And cashiers who wipe their noses with their fingers while putting shopping through. I did email a supermarket to grumble about the latter a while ago.

I have no time to be ill so am ultra careful.

This is my main issue with self service. Not a single shop has hand gel or cleaner next to them. They are manky!
When my GP surgery introduced self service check in I refused to use it as they didn't have hand gel next to it. They do now after I complained. I mean why would I want to touch a disgusting dirty screen that loads of sick people have touched when I'm just in for a blood test?
Oh and I still clean all the touch points in my work, my colleagues always seem to be sick with some virus or other.

Do you honestly this is this beneficial and proportionate?

I work in a restaurant and handwashing (or lack of) by the public when using the toilets makes me shudder.

We don't have hand driers, only paper towels and even after our busiest days the paper towels are hardly used. The sinks are dry and the soap hasn't been touched.

The men's toilets are usually worse than the woman's. You can tell by the quick duration of their toilet visit that they are just doing their business and coming straight out again, without even looking at the sinks and soap.

To think that people are eating and touching all the different surfaces and surroundings with those grubby hands is rank.

No had sanitiser, no blue rolls, people not washing their hands thoroughly and yet we are all still here. It's as if. when we aren't in a pandemic, a few germs don't kill you.

If you don’t have exposure to some germs, you never build immunity to anything.
I wash my hands after the loo and before prepping food. I wash them super thoroughly before prepping food for sale.
I don’t much else.
I rarely get ill.

@Chinnuy it is expressly not allowed in food hygiene to handle food and then handle money without complete segregation of touch. Complain.

yeah maybe I should. Send a wee email so their staff can be retrained/reminded.

Unfortunately, "good habits" got sacrificed during covid as people got fed up of the deceit/lies, and ridiculous restrictions, so people just stick too fingers up at everything, not just the stupid bits. It really could have been a major "reset" of basic hygiene, but the politicians/experts screwed it up.

I've just been into the hospital's oncology department with OH who is immunocompromised due to his cancer. No one wearing masks, neither patients nor staff, no bottles of hand gel, staff weren't wiping down the chairs between patients. And that's in a department where most, if not all of the patients will be at higher risk of infections etc due to chemo! We were the only ones wearing masks. It's an utter disgrace.

Yeah, it's those small things that pass people by. Like actual taps. I wish we had more hands off ergonomic toilet spaces, it's almost fruitless washing your hands when you end up touching a door handle on the way out. You could create a chicane for the entrance/exit with no doors given decent active ventilation in the toilets. Copper is meant to be a good metal for taps in terms of hygiene. I'm up for foot controlled taps, and spaces you can easily wash/shower down. I am careful these days about touching my face/food after being in public places. Our house is untidy but at least it's hygienic. A personal peeve is people handling meat and not washing their hands, sharing chopping boards, or gently wiping down a chopping board with last weeks dishcloth etc. Restaurants/cafes should place sinks out front, not in some derelict squalid toilet out the back.

I always take particular care to wash mine well in a public place/when I come in from being at a public place, and still use hand sanitiser. Hence I've hardly had any colds or sickness at all since 2020.

I work in a hospital and some people don’t!

Also some kids are really bad, we had my son’s friend over (6yo) asked them to wash hands before lunch and he had no idea how to!!

I don’t wash my hands when I come in from public places, and don’t carry hand sanitiser. I’ve also had no more than a couple of colds and no sickness bugs since 2020. You have absolutely no way of knowing that it was your actions that have prevented other illnesses.