The need to go is a big barrier to going out. Why public bathrooms are a stumbling block (WP)

[dalton99a]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/coronavirus-reopen-bathrooms/2020/05/18/a6ed57fc-93ba-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html

The need to go is a big barrier to going out. Why public bathrooms are a stumbling block for reopening.
By Marc Fisher
May 18 at 2:11 PM

The idea of a return to life in public is unnerving enough for many people. But it turns out that one of the biggest obstacles to dining in a restaurant, renewing a doctor’s appointment or going back to the office is the prospect of having to use a public restroom — a tight, intimate and potentially germ-infested space.

It’s a hurdle vexing many business owners as they prepare to reopen in a time of social distancing, reduced capacity and heightened anxiety about the very air we breathe.

A Texas barbecue restaurant reopened only after hiring for a new job category: a bathroom monitor, who assures that people waiting their turn are spaced well apart. In Florida, malls are installing touch-free sinks and hand dryers in restrooms before opening their doors. McDonald’s is requiring franchisees to clean bathrooms every 30 minutes. Across the country, businesses are replacing blow dryers with paper towels, decommissioning urinals that now seem too close together, and removing restroom doors to create airport-style, no-touch entrances.

In San Luis Obispo, Calif., the Sunset Drive-In held back from reopening even though the health department gave it the green light because the owner needed time to figure out how to address customers’ concerns about catching the novel coronavirus in the bathroom.

[CottonBear]

1. Toilet lids, preferably automatic or with the side handles, seem necessary

to prevent fecal matter, germs & viruses from being sent into the air with water particles during the flushing process.

[hack89]

2. This is the issue we are struggling with at work

we can control our office space but we share communal restrooms with the other tenants of our building.

[CottonBear]

4. I work in a public place, which is currently closed to the public.

People are dirty and gross. They don’t wash their hands and after using the toilet or before eating. They place food directly onto unsanitary surfaces, like indoor and outdoor tables. They let children go barefoot inside buildings.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Don't Hand Driers Make Things Worse?

The increase air turbulence which spreads the air around the room.
Seems like it's better to provide paper towels and keep the teash empty.

[CottonBear]

7. Have open trash cans, not ones with flip lids that you push down to discard waste.

Have a waste can next to door if door doesn’t open out, so you can use towel to open door and then discard towel.

[crickets]

9. Also smart. nt

[crickets]

8. I had the same thought.

A quick web search is all it takes to find studies proving exactly that. Also, people tend to walk away with very warm, still sorta damp hands and that's not good. I know businesses mean well in trying to keep people from touching things, but there are no-touch towel dispensers that would be a much better idea over traditional hot air hand driers or the newer jet driers.

[progree]

11. Yup. The OP says "businesses are replacing blow dryers with paper towels,"

Don't Hand Driers Make Things Worse?

[ProfessorGAC]

12. I Read It Backwards

I'm not dyslexic either!
I thought it was the other way around.

[progree]

13. No problem. I get things bassackwards on occasion too 😊 n/t

[subterranean]

16. Yes, but it also said that Florida malls are installing hand dryers.

That's what was confusing. Apparently Florida malls are doing the opposite of what businesses in the rest of the country are doing.

[crickets]

18. *facepalm* I read too quickly and didn't make the distinction

from the earlier mall statement. Oops! I feel a little silly, but much better about the hand towel situation.
Thanks, progree.

[progree]

20. And I totally missed the Florida malls part until now :facepalm:

From the OP (bold added by Progree) :

In Florida, malls are installing touch-free sinks and hand dryers in restrooms before opening their doors. McDonald’s is requiring franchisees to clean bathrooms every 30 minutes. Across the country, businesses are replacing blow dryers with paper towels

Unless a "hand dryer" is something other than a "blow dryer"? A "hand dryer" could be just about anything, I suppose.

[fleur-de-lisa]

5. This is the reason I don't want to go back to my office.

I work in a high rise office building. There are probably 15 women who use the same restroom on our floor. No way in hell I'm going back any time soon, especially since I can easily work from home. My firm has been set up to work remotely for the last ten years.

I realize this is a great privilege that so many other US workers don't have. I'm so scared for other people who don't have the luxury of working from home and have to go out every day and risk the safety of their families.

If only we had a real leader instead of an ignorant, narcissistic buffoon . . .

[uponit7771]

6. Instead of over paying people to stay home and allowing companies to borrow money to stay even

... Trump and the M$M for the most part are going to kill a lot of people so Trump can get re-elected.

[nolabear]

10. You may laugh, but I bought a pee funnel.

I haven’t used it yet. I keep staring at it, flattened in its shrink-wrap. But I plan to practice with it at home. Women campers have used them for ages and it’ll at least solve the problem of sitting. I don’t know what to do about aerosol and breathing. Wear a mask I guess. And wash like crazy!

The info on Amazon is eye opening whether you buy there or not.

[Pobeka]

15. My SO has one for hiking/backpacking. She loves it! n/t

[Wawannabe]

14. Running into this in my new covid era job

I am a bartender so was out of work. Took a job washing boats on the lakes here. Problem is that the bathrooms are all unavailable cuz the offices are closed and half the convenience stores have made their restrooms unavailable. Even all porta potties I have found are locked up.

I never sit. Hover, man. Learned this many decades ago while bar hopping with the parents. My stepmom actually taught me something useful.

If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie 😂

[snort]

17. .

[link:|

[RobinA]

19. I've Been Complaining

about the horrible one man, no stall bathroom at my work for years. No change before, no change now. Don't expect any ever.