Easy. Just lick the door handle 3 ~ 4 times to clean it so that you don’t need to get your hands dirty.
Yup! You also sometimes get free nutrients on the door handle ☺️
That’s how I do it and I’ve only had Covid 5 times! Works like a charm.
Seriously though, one of my biggest pet peeves is when they get every other aspect of touch-less design correct, and then fail with the door.
#designfails
There are add on “foot handles” that sort this out, but they are pretty uncommon.
Hand driers that use air increase “germs” on your skin. Paper towels reduce them.
If there are no paper towels I use toilet paper. Last time I used a public restroom I dried my hands on my pants.
I dont know if this has been definitively proven as last I heard the studies that reflected this were paid for by paper manufacturers.
Unless you’re immunocompromised, is this really worth worrying about?
It’s strange that automatic doors are standard on the outside of just about every shop, but nobody has ever thought to put them indoors.
Because it’s an extra expense, not just to install but to maintain. They put them on the exterior door because it lets people in faster and easier (more customers) and is easier to haul out your purchases when you leave so you are encouraged to buy things without thinking as much about logistics. Bathroom doors being automated vs manual is almost never going to affect sales.
The correct way to handle this would be to use a disposable paper product. Most places still have a paper towel dispenser along side the air hand dryer, you’re supposed to use that.
Besides the point, most people don’t know how to properly wash and dry their hands. There’s a technique to both that actually improves cleanliness a lot and reduces overall waste.
I never use air based hand dryers. Paper towel for life. Some places use maze patterns instead of doors, which I generally like but usually requires some extra work with air handling to make sure the bathroom air stays in the bathroom, and a bit more floor space to provide the room for the maze pattern. Those restrooms are usually the ones without paper towel, I don’t mind, I just have moist hands for a few minutes afterwards.
All of this can be googled. So I won’t go into more detail, but the majority of people couldn’t possibly give fewer fucks about handwashing or hand drying properly. So I expect most won’t even try to learn how to do things better, ever. They just go with whatever their parents taught them as a child and never question it again. Bluntly, your parents probably did the same, so you’re probably working off of 50+ year old advice on hand washing.
Yes, yes and yes. Do you also do laboratory work? Ive always found these hygiene important but, now i notice how nasty all things get since ive started doing lab work and especially when working with diseases
Nope, I’m an IT guy with a nurse for a wife. I’ve taken first aid (including proper handwashing) for about 30 years being a member of St. John’s ambulance for a long time in there.
It’s been beaten over my head for most of my life. Looking into it, the rabbit hole goes deeper. I also found a TED style talk (may have been TEDx? I forget) talking about the best way to dry your hands while using as few paper towels as possible.
I know I’ve only really scratched the surface with what I could know on the topic. I also understand that there’s helpful “germs” on your skin, and over washing or over use of hand sanitizer can be detrimental to skin health and long term health; of course with a huge number of caveats that are just so far outside of the scope of what I’m trying to say.
Looping back on topic, I’m a science nerd, first-aid trained, very curious and knowledge seeking individual with a large exposure to medical people. Hygiene is very important.
Cool background and understandable how that came to be. It is also important to get some exposure to the “bad” germs but that is a hard balance so I just see toilet areas as a big no no.
Indeed.
In addition, I find that a stunning number of folks are okay with either simply rinsing their hands with only water, or not washing their hands at all. Disgusting.
I often don’t shake people’s hands, or at least sanitize after shaking hands because I don’t know who washes up after using the restroom and who has shit on their hands.
My favourite is the kind of S curve that some places have, so you just walk in, but it’s private enough that people can’t just leer from the hallway or whatever I’m not actually sure what we’re accomplishing with doors here unless it’s a very tight space I guess like if the bathroom is near the area where patrons eat at a resto? Yeah I get that, door away. Sorry for rambling.
I worked in an office that had the S curve bathroom and I do not recommend it. People who sat on that side of the floor got to hear the air dryer every time someone used the bathroom. Also, the smells… Automatic door openers are the answer.
I went to college the S curves, as well as one office briefly before the pandemic, but they were both off the “main drag” by a bit. Like along a hallway that didn’t have people just sitting nearby.
As is eternally the case, location matters
Smells?? Seems like bad exhaust system
There is always going to be a door handle where ever you go. The next pull door after the toilet is always gonna be the grossest.
Foot handles are a thing that keep popping up in public places. Nice to see. Could seriously spare a lot of cross contamination.
Elbows, anyone?
Good luck pulling a door handle with elbows
I use my foot
Yeah, this drives me crazy. Best thing I can do if I have a jacket or long sleeved shirt on, is to put my hand inside the sleeve and open it that way
Shouldn’t you just grab a paper towel and open the door with it at the end of the comic strip?
I just stand inside the door until someone else comes in, then escape.
This works poorly in remote areas, but I consider 4 days trapped in a public bathroom worth it to avoid touching the poop handle.
One of the positives from the covid pandemic is a lot of bathroom doors can be opened with your foot now.
Also the return of paper towels for hand drying.
I hate those stupid air dryers. Most of them barely do any better than just shaking your hands in the air, because they’re simply spraying your clean hands with all of the shit and piss particles that are floating in the air.
Would rather have some cheap paper towels so I can dry my hands, and use the towel to open the door before throwing it in the trash.
The only dryers I like are the Dyson ones the air blade ones.
They’re pretty bad. Putting your hands down in a hole and spraying water all over isn’t real sanitary. I’ve seen some that are really dirty inside!
Additionally, my understanding is that a lot of the cleaning done by washing your hands is mechanical, and using a paper towel with a slightly rough and absorbent surface scrapes off all the stuff that has been loosened by washing with soap and water.
Outside of antibacterial or germicidal soaps, the cleaning action of washing with soap is 100% mechanical. Soap molecules are asymmetrical and have one side that’s hydrophilic and one side that’s hydrophobic which, when used with water, creates a nifty mechanism that picks up crap on one side and catches a ride on the water molecules with the other side.
Isn’t basic soap also destroying the lipidic membrane of most bacteria? It doesn’t need to be specific antibacterial soap for that.
Regular soap does also kill bacteria with those hydrophobic sides of its molecules by breaking a bacteria or virus’ lipid membrane. I would argue this still a mechanical process though. Antibacterial soaps use a specific chemical, Triclosan, that binds with enzymes within the bacteria that prevent it from reproducing.
