AIBU to think wiping down trolley handles is utterly pointless?

[RaspberryCoulis]

Just back from my weekly trek round Asda to do the shopping. Got hissed at by some woman because I bypassed the queue of people waiting in a (socially distanced) queue to spray and wipe their trolley handles.

I never bother, I have never bothered. Seems utterly pointless. Rates of Covid in my area sitting around 100 per 100,000. That's 0.001%. Even if you believe that 90% are asymptomatic, that would be 1000 per 100,000 or 0.01%. You'd have to be very unlucky for one of the 0.01% to be the person who had the trolley before you.

Then, that person would have had to be not wearing a mask (mask compliance in this town is very high), sneeze/cough/lick the trolley handle (removing their mask to do so), and then i'd have to smear my hands exactly where they'd licked, remove my own mask, and lick my fingers.

A somewhat unlikely scenario.

It's all about the supermarkets trying to show how "covid secure" they are, isn't it? And actually, it makes bugger all difference?

If they put in one of those contactless dispensers I’ll use it. Just a bottle of liquid soap - not thanks, irrational or not, I don’t want to touch something that a 100 others have used.

I used to but stopped. It’s pretty pointless. I sanitise my hands (with my own sanitiser) before and after the supermarket and wear my mask. That’s about it.

Given your whole argument is about how statistically unlikely you are to contract covid from a trolley handle, it feels like the maths is quite important, no?

Just take precautions at every opportunity, I really don't understand why people don't! The rates might be low now but they will continue to rise (and rise quickly) if you and others don't. So you want to get COVID?!? It's not a big imposition to wipe a sodding trolley handle.

I don't think sanitising is enough. I wear gloves always, and a clean fresh pair for every different time I shop. New shop, new gloves. I take them off inside out and don't touch the germ surface and then sanitise my hands every time, even after glove-wearing.

I don't trust a sanitised trolley handle with my hands and certainly not a bottle of shop sanitiser that hundreds of people have already touched. And then people wonder why it's still spreading....

Wow with your attitudes I can see how the UK got in its current state.

@Cam77

If they put in one of those contactless dispensers I’ll use it. Just a bottle of liquid soap - not thanks, irrational or not, I don’t want to touch something that a 100 others have used.

This is my thinking on it. DH says I'm being ridiculous when I mention that I don't want to use the hand sanitiser in shops because I don't want to touch something every single bloody person in the shop has touched!

I don't clean my trolley either.

I don't think anything the shops do makes any difference. Or it does, then it is miniscule. It is purely so they can be seen to be doing something. Paying lip service to the idea that they are safe.

For me it is one of the things I hope remains after the Covid restrictions are long gone. Analysis shows what is found on the handles of supermarket trolleys is grim. I'd quite like a cleaning station to remain.

Other people are dirty bastards so I do quite like to clean the handles now as people hold them for so long and leave all their shit and wee on it. And all the time they pick their nose ...

However I need to get over it as life is short enough!

Should go to Waitrose as they clean all the trolleys for you and keep the clean and used ones separate, they do at my Waitrose anyway. I never bother to if I go to shops where you wipe them yourself though

I dont because I assumed the shops were still doing it. Also if I use sanitizer on my hands that gets transferred to the trolley which is just as good.
Also I normally find there is no where to stand safely and use the cleaning stations because staff are only monitoring how many in not how many are crowded around the cleaning station.

I don't use sanitiser either, @Woohoowoowoo. I will wash my hands when I get home.

People regularly do studies about how many bacteria are on trolleys, or bus seats, lift buttons, smartphones. I'm really not bothered by the fact bacteria are present, they are everywhere, not all bacteria are going to make you ill. Wash your hands. You can drive yourself nuts worrying about bacteria everywhere.

I don't sanitise the trolley handle either. I consider everything potentially contaminated in the shop (trolley/products/conveyor belt/card pin pad etc) and I'm touching multiple things. So I sanitise my hands once I've left the shop and before I touch anything in the car, and then wash them very thoroughly once I've got home. I don't touch eyes/mouth/nose etc until my hands have been washed.

There's usually a bunch of people milling round the sanitising station, and people touching the sprays/rolls/hand sanitiser, and it feels like an extra source of contamination. I feel far safer sanitising my hands in the car before I go into the shop and sanitising and washing my hands afterwards.

Mostly I do click and collect though instead. Much less stressful.

I never sanitise - I do my hands if they haven't been washed in a while.

I walked past a queue waiting to sanitise the trolley handles into Waitrose - I just wanted a basketful. I asked the security guy if there was a queue, and he pointed at the people waiting for the trolley sanitiser. I didn't bother arguing, I just turned and went to Iceland instead.

Can't be bothered with it all.

Yes I wear a mask.. Yes I wash my hands. But I don't and never have washed my shopping/post/deliveries. I think we all need a few germs to make sure our Immune systems are working to the full. Now more than ever.

@Cam77

If they put in one of those contactless dispensers I’ll use it. Just a bottle of liquid soap - not thanks, irrational or not, I don’t want to touch something that a 100 others have used.

I just use my own sanitiser on the trolley handle but I did this anyway because I'm emetaphonic and more worried about Noro than covid.

As others have said you are far more likely to catch it from products on the shelf or the sanitizer bottle.... Think. About it only say 10-15 people have probably touched a trolley a day... Yet hundreds if not thousands are touching that sanitizer bottle... Just ignore them :)

See I don't think you're going to catch it from products either. Or the sanitizer bottle - because you're touching it, then sanitizing.

Covid is spread by face to face contact, at a distance of less than 2 metres, for 15 minutes or more.

Not by touching stuff in supermarkets.

I’ve never used the trolley sanitising station at my supermarket either, for all the reasons mentioned above. The woman who hissed has no way of knowing whether or not you’ve actually wiped your trolley using your own pack of wipes. It’s also not like you getting into the shop before her really means she’s not going to be able to buy any of things she’s there for!

I don’t bother and that’s a ‘risk’ I’m willing to take. I wouldn’t comment on what anyone else does unless it’s a specific rule we all haveto abide by. Even then, I’d never make the assumption that a snapshot of someone else’s life defines them and say anything out loud.
I think plenty of people I come across are dicks for a variety of things and no doubt there are times when people think the same of me. I can’t get worked up about what someone insignificant in my life thinks of me.

OP I don't bother either. I wash my hands before I go shopping, I wash my hands when I get back. I walk to town so I am not touching car steering wheels/doors etc.

And as I've said on many an occasion, we're storing up problems for ourselves with antibiotic resistance if we continue to use hand sanitiser for a virus.

People haven't hissed at me but I will ignore them if they do.

Having witnessed how fucking disgusting some people are, I'm actually okay with wiping stuff down.

I think anyone who gives a shit that others don't is an idiot though.

Really not fussed either way. I don't bother using the stuff to wipe the handles of either trolleys or baskets. There's hand gel - I use that, and while my hands are still damp I use my hands to slide it over the handles.

Something I don't do is pay any attention to other people if they are stressed out and grouchy. You don't know what's going on in their life.

I used to wipe them when people didn't have to where a mask but don't bother now. Unless someone sneezed on the handles very unlikely, but I suppose those hands are handling all sorts of goods in the store. But I never wiped down my purchases either.

Why was the hissing woman in the supermarket with her husband?
More people in enclosed space = more risk of spread.

Given that it is obviously still spreading in significant numbers it must be transmitting somehow. Even if it doesn't account for many people even a few cases reduces the overall quite significantly. That's how exponential numbers work.