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?

wouldnt bother me if you dont want to its not a rule as this woman pointed out

I imagine far more people touch the spray bottles of sanitiser than touch each individual trolley/basket anyway. So if you were worried about it, that bottle of spray seems like the last thing you should touch. (I know some people will use gloves, or hold the bottle with paper towel).

This is exactly why I don't do it. I felt it was less risky just to assume that the whole supermarket process contaminates my hands and wash them the minute I get home (something I've always done anyway before we ever heard of COVID).

I do sanitise the trolley handle. Then I use sanitiser on my hands. Trollies could be low risk, but I’m in London with super high rates of infection.

And it’s not just Covid. I was in Westfield yesterday, went to the loo, this immaculately dressed young woman came out of the cubicle behind me, stood next to me at the sink, sorted her hair, put on some lip gloss , and left without washing her hands. Some people are skanky germ walkers and I am not taking chances, E. coli or Covid, I don’t want your bugs.

Not only did you not follow the rules, you bypassed a queue! You were lucky to get off with a bit of hissing. She probably laid a curse on you too.

The only time I sanitised my trolly handle was on Aldi where you couldn't get past without doing it. I didn't do it today though as there was no queue.

I do wear a mask and sanitise my hands though. It's no effort and might make a difference.

@RaspberryCoulis may be worth you looking at this (is clinical settings transfer, but modes of transmission hold for us in shops). Good sensible post by @BarbaraofSeville too. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7461745/

I stopped sanitizing months ago.
Not caught Covid nor passed it on.
People are way too paranoid.

@RaspberryCoulis

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.

If that were the case, my brother never would have caught it, not would a colleagues wife who was shielding at home.

My brother can trace his back to using a mop or touching the doors at the location. The woman who ran the meeting was not showing symptoms at that point. He had no face to face contact with her, certainly not for 15 minutes in an enclosed space.

My colleague can only assume it came in with the shopping order, as both were not leaving the house due to his wife's vulnerability.

So it goes to show a lapse in sanitising can lead to catching it. My brothers partner, who caught it via him at home, a 23 year old, ended up in hospital for 6 days. My colleagues wife unfortunately died, but she was terminally ill anyway, covid simply robbed her of what could have been her last few months/year.

You have a point though that most measures are not majorly effective. They are mostly to enable people to feel safe enough to go out and interact with the world again. I still believe thats why masks were made compulsory. I went to work and travelled around for work the first several weeks of quarantine without a mask in sight, but people were so compliant, so afraid to get back outside again, they needed to bring in a measure to make people feel safe.

Back on topic though, I DO wash down the handle of the trolleys, my logic being that I will be touching that over the course of 30-40 minutes, so if there is anything on there I have a higher likelihood of picking it up, compared to holding a loaf of bread for 2 seconds.

It's amazing how different people treat the same situations so differently. I'm currently in a city that records 5000 new cases per day (Not in the UK). Aside from mask wearing, there seems to be little in the way of restrictions, and the public don't seem very fussed at all. Compared to the UK where you have people diving into hedges in low case areas to keep the magic 2m distance.

I've probably been in supermarkets most weeks, sometimes twice a week, since March and I've never wiped my trolley down. I live in a hotspot in Wales that has had high cases throughout and I've been fine. I imagine I'd be more likely to catch it through my child being in school or my husband being in contact through work (I mostly WFH). It does seem like a very negligible chance of getting from a handle.

I don’t know why you wouldn’t tbh? It takes, what, 3 seconds? You can even do it whilst walking. And you don’t have to queue up to do it. Just use your own hand sanitiser.

It's usually optional. If some assistant wants to gel my trolley then fine0. But I don't bother.

I live in a hotspot in Wales that has had high cases throughout and I've been fine.

I’m alright jack?

You do realise you don’t just wipe things down to prevent you getting it, right? It’s about preventing the virus spreading. You could be transferring it to others.

Whenever I go into a shop here I'm a minority, I'm always the only person who stops to sanitise their basket in my local Tesco, and never see anyone do it when I go to a bigger supermarket either! I got tutted at for holding up the queue sanitising my basket the other day. I don't really think it does much but it's force of habit now, plus my local Tesco Metro is grubby AF anyway

I dunno - I think this is one of the things I'd like to stay long after we see the back of Coronavirus.

Think of how bloody disgusting they must have been before! God know how often they were properly cleaned almost never .

I never use the shop sanitizer. Imagine how many people have touched it. I carry my own and use that.

I work in customer services in a major supermarket!
I actually had a female customer bellow at me;
“WHY IS YOUR CLEANING STATION INSIDE THE SHOP? I COULD CATCH COVID FROM THIS!!”
The cleaning station was about 12 steps inside the store, as people had been complaining that it was too cold and wet to do it outside!

I touch trolleys and baskets all day long - l don’t sanitise. I make sure l wash my hands and use a nail brush regularly!

While we are in the subject of baskets trolleys...
Please stop taking them into the toilets with you / they are filthy!
Especially the baskets which some of you put at your feet in the cubicle!

Oh and YANBU. op

I am an OCD sufferer. My symptoms have been largely controlled for a decade. Covid has bought them to the fore front. I have always washed my hands, used hand san and a mask (since we were told to).

I'm not wiping down handles or shopping because that will set my OCD off again and I cannot take that risk.

I don't use the shop sanitizer bottle and I don't disinfect the handles. I can't see the point. I sanitise my own hands afterwards.

But l have to say also, that touching the hand sanitizer isn’t an issue is it? You’re using it ~ you’ll kill any germs in that process!

I don't like supermarket trolleys at the best of times. I have my own wire shopping basket that I use. It's brilliant, you don't need a bag so environmentally friendly too. Only good for small shops though.

I was always wary of trolley and basket handles before this year. I always wiped them down before use. Now I just take my own bag and walk round filling it up (Waitrose best for this as you can use the thingy to scan your goods and then pay at the end - no need to remove stuff from your basket).

I'm with you OP - I use the handsets in Sainsburys (well actually I use my phone with the app but same process) - they sanitise the handsets however you get to the checkout bit and they NEVER wipe the screens between shoppers - and despite using my phone I still have to touch the screen.

@Smallsteps88

I live in a hotspot in Wales that has had high cases throughout and I've been fine.

I’m alright jack?

You do realise you don’t just wipe things down to prevent you getting it, right? It’s about preventing the virus spreading. You could be transferring it to others.

I wash my hands before going to the supermarket and usually sanitise them when I leave my car if I'm driving there. The chances of me carrying enough viral load unknowingly on my washed hand to spread a virus is miniscule. I don't sanitise my hands every time I pick up an item or open a door or touch a card machine etc. because the risk is so tiny, and people are only doing these things to make themselves feel safer. The cases are spreading in my community through households that are mixing.

[quote petitdonkey]@RaspberryCoulis - I had to change all of my year 6 science planning this year on micro organisms. We have always taught the children that viruses are a different type as they can only survive on a living host, not hard surfaces...... now I am not a microbiologist but it’s seems strange that fact has changed...!![/quote]
You've always been wrong. Cigarettes can contain infectious tobacco mosaic virus as it's hardy enough to survive the curing process, for example.