Can we stop the "hygiene theatre"?

[Hamilbamil]

It's been said for a long time that the chances of transmission from surface contact and extremely small. I've copied an extract from a BBC article today below providing further details.

With this in mind, shouldn't we rein back on the "hygiene theatre" that has become part of daily life in so many places. In particular schools where, despite being in close proximity and massless all day, pupils and teachers spend an entirely disproportionate amount of time washing and sanitising. This isn't merely harmless activity, but actively reduces the amount of education our children are receiving as significant time is wasted carrying out these elaborate rituals.... all to give the false impression of being "Covid-safe".

Enough... Of course hygiene is good, but there's no excuse now to get back to normality in this area.

"At the start of the pandemic, a lot of focus was on surfaces. People washed groceries and avoided touching buttons at pedestrian crossings. Councils shut playgrounds and cordoned off park benches.Yet it's been all but impossible to find an outbreak linked to an infected surface. "It's to do with how the virus actually enters your system - it's* through the airways," says Dr Eilir Hughes, a GP and campaigner for more protective PPE for NHS staff.The virus takes hold in the body via the respiratory system - that's why testing for it involves a swab up the nose and down the back of the throat. It would take an extremely unlikely chain of events for infected droplets on an object to end up in someone's nose or throat. Hygiene is important, but washing hands and surfaces excessively, and avoiding touching objects - so-called "hygiene theatre" - has little impact on the spread of Covid."*

Couldn't agree more. So much time and resources wasted to tick the "covid secure" box.

I get irrationally annoyed when I see signs up in restaurants/shops etc saying things like "what we're doing to keep you safe". Safe from what? If you mean preventing me from catching covid then the best thing would be to only allow 1 customer in at a time but that's not realistic and would be majorly inconvenient for everyone so I think I'll just take my chances

Also, at my workplace we are no longer allowed to use reusable cloths. We have to use paper towels to clean everything. Add to that the extra cleaning we have to do and it's just so much waste. Makes me want to weep.

I couldn’t agree more. Also fed up of companies declaring the ways they’re trying to make everyone “feel safe”. It’s grating.

Yes!! I’m so sick of this. If people just wash their hands before they eat (which they should have been doing anyway), there’s really is no need to attempt to sanitise every single thing.

How many thousands hours of education have been wasted by this pointless pursuit i wonder... at a time when children's education has already been affected so badly.

My daughter shouldn't be coming home with cracked hands "for show".

Ive been saying this for ages.

I'm sick of being asked/expected to sanitise my hands when I enter every shop. Especially when it's barked at you as soon as you cross the threshold like my local charity shop.

I agree. I went to look at sofas the other day and they insisted you put on surgical gloves at the door in order to touch the sofas 😂. Absolute madness when (a) gloves are only effective for the first time you touch anything- as soon as you touch something else then they aren't clean anymore (b) you're still allowed to sit on them and (c) it creates such a huge amount of plastic waste.

I'm also strangely cross inside every time someone tells me to sanitise my hands. I think it just feels like such a pointless intrusion.

Yes I agree, perhaps if they stopped paying for sanitiser they could invest some money in ventilation as COVID IS AIRBORNE and also reintroduce masks.

I work in a reception/year 1 class and A LOT of items end up in mouths/up noses. From pen lids and pencils to pieces of Lego. Therefore I think it's wise anyway for them to be hot on hand washing. However, fold older years I agree, it's all for show and not actually doing anything. Just making hands sore and adding to the plastic bottle waste.

The surfaces isn't the issue.

It's droplets getting on hands from surfaces and then being rubbed in eyes, put in mouths or up noses.

We do infection control at school every year and covid hasn't changed our practice as we had proper practice in the first place (special school).

You don't need to wash groceries etc. You did need to wash hands after handling items. The same as you should anyway. The same way you wash hands before cooking and after the loo etc etc.

@TerritorialPissings

I couldn’t agree more. Also fed up of companies declaring the ways they’re trying to make everyone “feel safe”. It’s grating.

Even worse is companies TELLING people what they need to do to ‘stay safe’. It’s such crap and so meaningless. It’s right up there with “Feeding the Nation”, clearly meant to evoke some jolly wartime camaraderie. Just no.

@pigglepot

I agree. I went to look at sofas the other day and they insisted you put on surgical gloves at the door in order to touch the sofas 😂. Absolute madness when (a) gloves are only effective for the first time you touch anything- as soon as you touch something else then they aren't clean anymore (b) you're still allowed to sit on them and (c) it creates such a huge amount of plastic waste.

I'm also strangely cross inside every time someone tells me to sanitise my hands. I think it just feels like such a pointless intrusion.

Oh FFS really? That would have been it for me. Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

Part time Airbnb host here and in order to qualify for the 'Enhanced Clean' badge on our listing we must comply with 38 pages of instructions. All in full PPE (gloves, shoe coverings, mask and apron). It was always absolutely spotless before and the additional waste from all this is tragic.

I don't sanitise my hands entering buildings ... I've had the odd look or comment, but 92% of time no response i could notice.

Agreed. It's all for show and is just stupid.

Oh and the beautiful venue we finally managed to get married in last year moved all the soft furnishings out of the common areas. It was so sad to see such a stylish place stripped bare. Has anyone really managed to catch Covid off a sofa ?

Our secondary school have been asking children to leave school early (so they have 2 double lessons each day rather than 3). This is so that the cleaners can get cracking with cleaning the classrooms. I did query this and ask if the cleaners clild start later but apparently they have to be finished by 5pm.

It seems like a huge amount of overkill, especially as the whole school department layout has been altered to each year is in a bubble which uses the same set of classrooms each day. So classrooms are not shared between bubbles.

I appreciate some cleaning is necessary but this seems OTT!

Agree. DD has 2 days to read her school books and then they have to be quarantined in a box for 72 hours so they can be given to the next child the following week. Yet the children themselves are in the school and far filthier than the books. Makes no sense.

It's more than annoying. It's harmful. Bacteria is good for us. All this sanitising is wiping out the real benefits of bacteria too. Just one example - scientists have linked a lack of exposure to infection by common viruses or bacteria to childhood leukaemia.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321904

Like @lljkk I avoid the sanitiser wherever I go. I have managed to not sanitise my hands for 99% of the time without comment - the 1% was a tiny older woman who clapped her hands at me and ordered me to clean my hands. I turned on my heel and walked out of the shop and went to the next one along where I bought two lovely Italian terracotta planters for £2 each.I would have missed them if Id gone to the first shop.
It is the waste I object to though. In our office we have extra cleaners who solely tour the building wiping down the same door plates and handles all day long. They have to don a disposable apron and mask for each tour and use disposable wipes. And the amount of sanitiser used is incredible- and all for no real gain. I only wish I had bought share in a sanitiser company a year ago.

Agree.
And there has been very little emphasis on ventilation, which does make a difference.

Frequent hand washing and sanitising should stay; everyone touches their face quite often. Relentless cleaning of surfaces probably unnecessary.

What did it for me was when the children at DDs school weren't allowed to just give each other Christmas cards at school and bring them home, they had they be quarantined in drawers for three days. So they are sitting in a classroom together every day but are going to catch Covid from a Christmas card??? The head is usually sensible but I thought that was ridiculous.
I hate putting on hand sanitiser as I go into a shop now, the whole performance of it makes me feel a bit sick now.

I don't like the way you are forced to use that rank hand sanitizer on the way into John Lewis. They have someone on the door squirting it into your hands and it goes everywhere. I'm also fed up with being 'kept safe. Safe from what? Utter bullshit.