From a Mexican’s point of view, American counter-service restaurants and ice cream stands do something completely unsanitary: the person handling the cash is also the person handling food.
At least in the Shanghai region, I noticed that the Chinese usually separate food-handling from customer-handling (not really “cash handling” since WeChat is the typical method of payment.)
I’m wondering if Americans will get fewer colds as we transition to a cashless economy. If everyone who goes to a counter pays by inserting a credit card into a machine or waving a phone, shouldn’t there be less chance of an infection being passed from customer-to-clerk-to-customer?
I couldn’t find good research on this subject. China would be an interesting case study since they have gone mostly cashless in a short period of time. Anecdotally, it was rare to see someone (Shanghai in November) suffering from a cold and I never got any hint of food poisoning.
But maybe this isn’t interesting because the effect will be small and swamped by increased transmission of disease due to increasing population density (from (a) population growth, (b) migration and urbanization).
Related:
- “Catching Flu From Money” (NYT): “The influenza virus can survive on paper money for 10 or more days”
Not with the obligatory tech/finance open office trend. My 150 person company moved in the fall last year from a cubicle farm/private office building to a 32,000 sq ft, 1 flr foot open office and I have consistently been sick 2-3 times a month since. Nothing else has changed in my life.
I’m amazed that the open office idiocy still thrives in tech. It has been shown time and time again that open offices destroy productivity of software developers. It’s truly amazing that MBAs still think that saving on offices while reducing output of highly compensated employees makes any sense.
A lot of minimally-staffed (e.g. during off-hours) food joints in the US have a de facto policy of “put disposable gloves on to make order, throw gloves away to transact payment” that’s kind of appalling from a waste perspective.
Not as appalling as when the lazy/forgetful staff member just doesn’t take the gloves off during the transaction, of course.
More likely the other way around (sort of). Containment of a pandemic provides a great pretext to discourage or ban cash. While cash survives, people can use a medium of exchange among themselves without approval or tracking, that’s practically anarchy! Cash is like public libraries and alcohol, if it were invented today it would immediately be suppressed.
Kipling addressed man’s frustration with disease and an uncaring deity in Natural Theology:
PRIMITIVE
I ate my fill of a whale that died
And stranded after a month at sea. .
There is a pain in my inside.
Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith?
Look how the Gods have me!…
full poem: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_naturaltheology.htm
Could be, but the effect could be reversed if everybody needs to punch in a PIN code.
In Chinese-style payment systems, if a PIN code is entered it is on the consumer’s own telephone, not on any shared device.
How about America’s other national pastime – gambling? Has anyone ever done any rigorous epidemiology on casinos? In 1992, only 6 states allowed casino gambling and by 2017 there were 24 states with casinos and around 450-500 properties (and that leaves out a lot, see below):
https://www.americangaming.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/AGA-2018-State-of-the-States-Report_FINAL.pdf
“The total of commercial casino locations does
not include other forms of commercial gaming
locations, such as bars, taverns or truck stops with
video lottery terminals, video gaming terminals
or electronic gaming devices, animal racetracks
without gaming machines such as horse and dog
tracks, slot-route operation locations, instant
racing terminal locations or off-track betting
operations, lottery/retail locations, tribal casinos
or tribal gaming locations operated by sovereign
tribal governments, card rooms, standalone
sportsbooks, or other locations in which gaming is
incidental to the location’s primary business.
Also excluded from state gaming revenue and
tax totals are monies derived from locations with
electronic gaming devices, such as video lottery
terminals or video gaming terminals, in Illinois,
Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South
Dakota, and West Virginia. The competitive impact
of each of the above operations, however, is noted
where warranted.”
Then there are the tribal casinos:
“The commercial industry’s $40.28 billion gaming
revenue figure in 2017 represents revenue only
from commercial casino operations, and does not
include revenue from the more than 500 tribal
gaming facilities across America.”
Casinos seem like an ideal place for contagious diseases to find their vectors: lots of cash, chips, cards, etc., people touching things like slot machines, door knobs, chairs, tables, all kinds of surfaces. Questionable hygiene practices (ever been to the rest room at a big casino and watched people?) Big enclosed spaces where thousands of people mingle. Alcohol being served, food and drinks being consumed everywhere, late into the night. All kinds of characters walking around from who knows where, and a gaming population that also tends to attract the elderly.
“America’s 460 commercial casino locations generated some $9.23 billion in direct gaming tax revenue in 2017”
How much did they generate in terms of direct and indirect health care costs for people who get sick while they gamble?
Aside: At least so I heard anecdotally, at one time many years ago, prior to his forays into the worlds of reality television and politics, Donald Trump was known for not shaking hands with people. Wouldn’t do it. Germophobe. My guess at the time was that he didn’t do it because he had seen the CCTV feeds at his casino properties and watched what people really do with their hands when they think nobody is looking. Once you’ve watched a few thousand people put their snotty, slimy, spittle-and-stabingus-coated paws all over your shiny, shimmering slot machines, you probably wouldn’t want to shake hands with them, either.
I used to make an old girlfriend upset with the observation: “You know, microscopically speaking, there’s no such thing as a vegan.”
The New York Times got it right as usual. The problem is not flu, the problem is money.
And what’s the problem with the money? it’s just in the wrong hands.
Please use the hand sanitizer wisely.
Not in NYC, where the City Council has legislated that businesses must accept cash. Presumably something thought up by the labor unions to protect the jobs of people who handle cash.