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."*

Agreed re hand sanitiser in shops, I've always thought it a bit pointless especially when when so many people touch the sanitiser bottle or pump in the first place. Same with trolley cleaning,how many touch the spray bottle entering the shop.

I've found anti-bac wipes (designed for hands) work well and they don't cause half as much skin irritation.

My local charity shop demands anyone who enters put on plastic shoe covers. I don't even want to know why they're preventing infection from the floor- unless they regularly find themselves licking the floor?

@Lucia574

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

Hand washing with soap and water yes, sanitising no. I'm fed up with having cracked and peeling hands so I'm now using it as little as possible.

I've made it to 46 without the excessive use of hand sanitiser so I certainly won't be using it any more than I have to!

Kids in schools have no option but to play their part in hygiene theatre. And you are risking a fine if you don't wear your mask in the shops.

But the rest of it? The wiping trolleys, the gloves, the sanitising? Just don't engage with it.

@RaspberryCoulis

Kids in schools have no option but to play their part in hygiene theatre. And you are risking a fine if you don't wear your mask in the shops.

But the rest of it? The wiping trolleys, the gloves, the sanitising? Just don't engage with it.

You're right, kids don't have an option. That's my point!

I don’t use it as I walk in shops and I say loudly ‘I have my own’
I would be willing to bet theirs is watered down to cut costs and it makes my hands itch cos it’s cheap stuff. I use my moisturising one when I FEEL I need to. Because I am a grown woman!

Our toddler gym has finally ditched the wiping down of surfaces (by the parents) on every piece of equipment between each child. It was ridiculous - it's not just one surface like a weights bench, but little 'stations' with tunnels, ramps, slide etc. Had to do it 3-4 times in a 45 min class, while trying to stop toddler DD going back up the ramp I'd just wiped down or running off to another station. I think they figured it was pointless a few months ago, but probably their head office were still insisting on it for the sake of theatre.

i wear a face covering in shops but refuse to use hand sanitser when entering - it's my very minor act of defiance

Like at my local gym, there’s a bottle of spray that all customers are supposed to use to clean the equipment but who cleans the bottle of spray between each use. Pointless, utterly pointless.

I'm glad that schools are taking hygiene seriously especially hand washing and cleaning desks and loos. I hate to think how many hours/days of education are lost due to the cesspit of bugs schools normally are

Advocating hand hygiene after going to the toilet and prior to eating is one thing but making children wash and sanitise their hands to the extent that they are actually coming home with sore, cracked, weeping skin is helping to prevent the transmission of infection how exactly. I mean, I'm pretty sure your more likely to pick up an infection through an open wound than you are from sharing a reading book!

My work team have now declared ourselves 'Covid Confiident' we've stopped asking whether things are 'safe' or not. We follow the rules that we have to but otherwise behave pretty much normally around each other. It's done us all the world of good.

I’ve only sanitised my hands once during the pandemic when I had to go and get a Covid test. Apart from that it’s just been regular hand washing. I haven’t been sick with anything contagious since last February so I must be doing something right and I’ve been catching public transport and working in the office the whole time!

‘Hygiene Theatre’ really is the most accurate term. It’s all for show! Same as the nonsensical one way directions through doors and in shops. What really scares me is how many people have fallen for it all.

Me and my 10yo dd actually worked this out....her class takes 10mins a time, 5 times a day for handwashing. So an hour a day 5 days a week. A WHOLE DAY OF LEARNING is spent washing hands every week. I despair.

I've seen this calculation before... It's batshit crazy what's going on! The equivalent of one day each week sanitising... If the Government are worried about the impact on learning caused by Covid, perhaps they could start by applying some common sense to this!

There are pictures in this lovely bbc article, which also agrees that surface transmission is unlikely.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57087517.amp

You’re absolutely right.

I had to jump through so many hoops to have my toddler, who has significant eczema, exempt from sanitising and frequent hand washing.

It seems to be purely to appease the anxious at this stage.

Yeah, I have to say the more ridiculous stuff is getting pretty tiresome now! I've stopped with the hand sanitiser and I haven't wiped down a trolley in months!

It's not healthy for kids to be too clean, sensible hygiene fine but we all need some exposure to all the various viruses and bacteria that we generally co- exist with otherwise our immune systems are going to start to struggle.

I've said it before but I've had the final scene from war of the worlds in my mind (when all the aliens die from a cold because they haven't got an immune system) on and off since the pandemic and consequently this obsessive cleaning started! I know it's fiction but I think there's some truth in it!

@UnmentionedElephantDildo

I hope it doesn't end.

Because it's a really good preventative measure against so many pathogens -noro and e-coli spring to mind, but I bet there are plenty of others

You genuinely want the equivalent of one school day each week taken up with cleansing and sanitising for evermore. I despair

Sensible, proportionate hygiene - absolutely.

Obsessive, neurotic hygiene that would have bordered being considered a psychiatric problem pre-Covid - No way!

I can’t get a letter from my GP ‘due to Covid’ and the lady trying to flog milk delivery to me today lost herself a customer as she couldn’t give me a business card ‘due to Covid’………. It’s all complete bollocks!

@Sunshinegirl82

Yeah, I have to say the more ridiculous stuff is getting pretty tiresome now! I've stopped with the hand sanitiser and I haven't wiped down a trolley in months!

It's not healthy for kids to be too clean, sensible hygiene fine but we all need some exposure to all the various viruses and bacteria that we generally co- exist with otherwise our immune systems are going to start to struggle.

I've said it before but I've had the final scene from war of the worlds in my mind (when all the aliens die from a cold because they haven't got an immune system) on and off since the pandemic and consequently this obsessive cleaning started! I know it's fiction but I think there's some truth in it!

Yes, trying to live in a sterile environment isn't healthy! I picked up a cold a couple of months back. I'm pretty confident that it came from my daughter's school as we had similar symptoms. Pretty sure if wasn't Covid as the symptoms weren't Covid-like for any of us, and we all had negative lateral flow tests.... but I had the cold for a fortnight which I've not experienced in a very long time. Normally I throw colds off in under a week. I did wonder if that might have been because I hadn't been exposed to any infections for over a year and my body had lost some of its ability to fight it off easily.

DS isn't allowed to use a rucksack school bag coz Covid. Instead we have to individually hold the waterbottle, book, reading record and any other item, thus greatly increasing the amount of handling

It is also apparently more dangerous for a few (vaccinated) parents to stand on a large, near empty playground exposed to the elements than to be in a classroom thus one should wear a pocket handkerchief on their face for safety (despite the fact that they're more likely to spread through children being classmates indoors 5 days a week, going to each others on play dates, extra curriculars and even being on holiday together over half term!)

I gave up on gels/ santitising trollies most of the time when the weather cooled and I wore gloves anyway.

After too many panic attacks, I ditched the face masks/ visors in January. The world has not fallen in.

Ventilation is key. If it's practical to do it outside that's great. Try and keep a fresh intake of air. I'm sure building standards have room for improvement.

Hand washing at certain transitions is good, but too much is not of benefit. Sanitising, less useful. Some surfaces have probably benefited from more regular cleaning, but not things like seats of chairs.

Oh the irony of sinks being taped up coz Covid so it's harder to wash your hands.

Far too much performing just to fill up a risk assessment with minimal benefit and often harm caused (skin irritation, time, cost, waste...)

@Arcadia

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.

We had this at my son’s school. There was a deadline by which the children had to send in cards, so that they could be quarantined for 72 hours. The same quarantine practice was not applied to gifts for the teacher!

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.

Sadly though, too many people didn't wash their hands (watch how many don't do it in loos). The hygiene aspect is one of the things I've liked about the Pandemic.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

I'm not complaining. Mainly because diarrhoea and vomiting incidences have plummeted in the time, as have things like shingles, chickenpox and all other common and easily transmissible diseases that usually sweep through 1500 kids and staff like wildfire. So it is working in preventing a huge number of infections.

But also I don't mind it because I see men in the gym stopping to clean their arse and back sweat off the equipment when that was always a rarity before Covid.

It's particularly helpful for CV and CEV children, who are more vulnerable to contagious diseases.

I remember being struck by a friend's photos from her visit to family in Japan. Even the traffic filled busy roads looked clean.

Obviously excessive hand washing to the point of cracked bleeding hands is not good, and PP are right that soap and warm water are better than sanitisers (which are for when out and about and not near a tap).

However, we seem to have really lost the understanding of basic hygiene and infection control in recent decades. It's good if we get that knowledge back - particularly in hospitals.

It would take an extremely unlikely chain of events for infected droplets on an object to end up in someone's nose or throat.

And yet the studies on the Diamond Princess propose that the initial stage of the outbreak there was due to exactly that. Before people were confined to cabins, the great majority of passengers spent a lot of time outside on the ship. The unlikely possibility of airborne spread outside was identified even then so the slow burn of the beginning most likely gained traction from surfaces. Once confined to cabins, unfortunately, the ventilation system and close proximity, and probably aerosols such as from toilet flushes, actually fanned a well-fuelled fuse and a steep curve.

Are toilet flushes and touching your face, phone, sunglasses, for example, all that rare in a day?

Ventilation and relative humidity are important (hence masks obstructing some of the humidity and direct path of exhalation, as long as they are not damp). Sanitiser probably generally ineffective compared to handwashing with water and soap.