News Advice on avoiding passing on the H1N1 Virus

[VanIsle]

I was reading an article from yesterday's paper. It was in regard to keeping your business up and running in the wake of a pandemic which appears almost a certainty right now. Some of their suggestions were things like: Hold tele-conferences rather than board meetings; wash your hands frequently; don't go to work if you or your family are ill. They go on to say things like: Pay for employees regular flu shot and H1N1 shot (ya right); provide anti-bacterial sanitizers in washrooms. Provide employees with disinfectant wipes for telephones and other objects that may be shared in the workplace. Enforce a sick-leave policy and encourage your employees to stay at home if they are sick or feel un-well. Spread workers out so they are not in such close contact. Use the internet and telephone to make sales to customers. Diversify your supply chain. Cross train employees. The list goes on. Not one line of this article mentions one of the most important factors. Grocery shopping and handling money. What will people do? Will they phone their orders in and we'll have someone with masks on, waiting for them to do a "drive thru" pick-up of their food? Hand sanitizer is great with one drawback for cash handlers. The alcohol in it really dries out your hands and then your finger tips split. Then you have to take payment and give out change from an open wound. I've tried the band-aids (liquid too)and the finger cots. Band-aids fall off and finger cots tear. (for those who may not know - finger cots are little rubber finger gloves made to fit individual fingers). They do not mention what I should or could do as a cashier to minimize my exposure from you to me or me to you. I guess they should have thought of suggesting to grocery stores the setting up of grocery delivery and of prescription delivery to those who should not or cannot leave their homes.
How do you feel about this? What would you do?

 

[karrie]

One of my local grocery stores has their cashiers wear rubber gloves. You won't touch your face, rub your eyes/nose, etc., with rubber gloves because they make you more aware, so all that crud from the meat packages, money, customers, stays on your gloves and gets tossed into the garbage at the end of each shift.

 

[VanIsle]

One of my local grocery stores has their cashiers wear rubber gloves. You won't touch your face, rub your eyes/nose, etc., with rubber gloves because they make you more aware, so all that crud from the meat packages, money, customers, stays on your gloves and gets tossed into the garbage at the end of each shift.

I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it would be to "make change" with rubber gloves on. I assume you mean the light weight disposables. They are made of the same substance as the finger cots. The ends of the finger tips rip off in about 10 min. We have Purell at each till but as I said, it dries your hands out so bad that your fingers crack and then you have an open wound. The only thing I can think of that might help is very tight fitting leather gloves if it goes that far.
Someone asked the store manager if the store was taking any measures to protect the staff and she said "like what?".

 

[karrie]

I don't know how often they tear through... I've never had the issues with finger cots that you do. I use them a lot when I've gotten careless in the kitchen. lol. I can wear one for a whole day with no issue.

 

[talloola]

One should wash very very often during those times, and it does 'not' have to be
disinfectant wash. Just have a package of 'hand wipes' handy at the till, and wipe
your hands often, and dispose each sheet. A nurse told me at one time, that it is
better to just use warm water with a little soap, not disinfectant.
Don't know if hand wipes are made that way, but I'm going to check, because I will
purchase a package for each of us.
Money can be wiped off, and change as well, car door handles, grocery carts, etc.
by each person using them.
Some of our stores have hand wipes in the entrance of the store to wipe grocery
carts, or hands, and our mall has a dispenser of hand wipes for everyone, who
wishes, to take one and wipe hands, they put those there over a year ago.

 

[Stretch]

or avoid all "vaccinations" and give your immune system a chance to do what evolution designed it to do..........

 

[talloola]

or avoid all "vaccinations" and give your immune system a chance to do what evolution designed it to do..........

I wonder if all of the dead people who died from the plague would agree with you, or, from polio, or small pox, and on and on, I'm sure sure they 'all' would
have liked to 'HAVE A LIFE'.
Wonder what was wrong with their immune systems, food back then was all
organic, no pesticides or chemicals, pure food.

 

[Cliffy]

This may sound cold, but one of the reasons that there is potential for pandemics is that the world is over populated. Nature has always used disease as a way of creating balance. Most species are kept in balance but humans have found a way to create imbalance and now we may see a "correction" from time to time, like we saw in the stock market.

Are we that important that we should live beyond our capacity for the earth to sustain? We are the only species out of step with the rest of life here. Sooner or later there will have to be a reckoning for our unsustainable lifestyles. It will not be pretty, but it is necessary. We cannot hold off the inevitable forever.

 

[karrie]

I wonder if all of the dead people who died from the plague would agree with you, or, from polio, or small pox, and on and on, I'm sure sure they 'all' would
have liked to 'HAVE A LIFE'.
Wonder what was wrong with their immune systems, food back then was all
organic, no pesticides or chemicals, pure food.

Is it really fair to compare H1N1 with those though? From what I've seen, H1N1 is no different from any other flu. Sure, it's been labelled 'pandemic', but, most illnesses are pandemic now, given the sheer amount of traffic across borders.

And, Cliffy, I agree in my own jaded way. Look what human populations have done since the eradication of the major plagues. It's hitting the point where people feel it's a bigger threat than the diseases ever were. That's scary.

 

[talloola]

Is it really fair to compare H1N1 with those though? From what I've seen, H1N1 is no different from any other flu. Sure, it's been labelled 'pandemic', but, most illnesses are pandemic now, given the sheer amount of traffic across borders.
For every person who's lives are ended because of a sickness that could have
been controlled, is a life lost, it's so easy to dismiss that because it doesn't
touch us, and if any of our family members succumb to H1N1, and they hadn't
taken precautions to prevent it,I wonder what we will think then.
Sure the H1N1 most likely won't make a huge impact,' but it is a new flu,'
with a different 'base', as it is connected to animals/birds/us. They do not
know what the impact will be, so, till it's all over, there is no data to follow.
I'm sure 'they' as well as the rest of 'us', hope for a light flu season, but the
prognosis isn't known yet.
What if there had been the same alarming backlash for the other vaccines
which were discovered to eradicate polio, etc. (which isn't actually gone,
as flare ups do occur from time to time).
do we actually want to stand back, and allow the 'viruses', which are live
preditors, no different than any preditor, try to take as many of our lives
as possible, I don't think so, humans like to fight back, it's just human.;-)
And, as I've said before, for those who don't want the vaccination, that's
fine, it's a free country, and all of us 'who' do take it will protect the rest
who don't, as we will keep the numbers very low.

 

[TenPenny]

Is it really fair to compare H1N1 with those though? From what I've seen, H1N1 is no different from any other flu. Sure, it's been labelled 'pandemic', but, most illnesses are pandemic now, given the sheer amount of traffic across borders.

Exactly, it's just another strain of flu. So, let's let it do what it was designed to do: kill off the weak. Lower the population a little bit. That will create job openings. It's a stimulus package.

 

[VanIsle]

One should wash very very often during those times, and it does 'not' have to be
disinfectant wash. Just have a package of 'hand wipes' handy at the till, and wipe
your hands often, and dispose each sheet. A nurse told me at one time, that it is
better to just use warm water with a little soap, not disinfectant.
Don't know if hand wipes are made that way, but I'm going to check, because I will
purchase a package for each of us.
Money can be wiped off, and change as well, car door handles, grocery carts, etc.
by each person using them.
Some of our stores have hand wipes in the entrance of the store to wipe grocery
carts, or hands, and our mall has a dispenser of hand wipes for everyone, who
wishes, to take one and wipe hands, they put those there over a year ago.

I would imagine all wipes out there have alcohol in them and that is what causes the dry hands. I'm sure that anyone can appreciate that I (and all like me) do not have any time to be washing money as people go through my check-out. Money is said to retain germs for up to a week.
As for using rubber gloves or finger cots, you can make change (coins)only a very few times - maybe 4 - 5 before the end rips off of the pointer (index) finger cot. I've had severely split fingers so I've tried to use the cots. The best thing is the liquid bandaid but it wears off after about 2 hand washes.