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Risk from cutting finger on shredded credit card recently used in drive through?
The other day I went through the drive through for take out food (which was pretty busy at the time). The clerk took my credit card and swiped it. It didn't work so she tried rubbing the magnetic strip with her latex glove she was wearing (Covid-19 precautions) and eventually keyed it in manually.
I took hand sanitizer and cleaned the credit card (as I usually do because of Covid-19), by rubbing it on my hands and on the card.. I'm sure every crevice wasn't cleaned though. When I got home, we ate and I decided to shred mail.. Maybe an hour or so had gone by by this time since we picked up the food. I noticed I received a replacement credit card, so I shredded the one that I used in the drive through.. it made a loud crunching noise, and later on when I was clearing the bin, I noticed a piece of it was attempted to be shredded but still sort of intact. I didn't know, but I see the contents of this card was made with metal.. I saw a few evidence of numbers on the piece, and tried to push it back through the shredder but it was too deformed to go again. So I tried to peel it off the piece of metal. Afterwards, I noticed a few small cuts on my fingers, with a tiny bit of blood oozing out. I went and washed my hands, and then applied hand sanitizer, and felt the cuts burning. I started to worry as I know the card was just touched by the clerk who handles money and credit cards all day from the public
Ultimately, what are the risks of contracting HIV or hepatitis in this event?
I apologize if this may seem a little over the top, but I am ignorant to the risks outside of sex and drug use of the risks of contracting HIV virus may pose. I worry because my wife is a nursing mother, but we are otherwise healthy individuals.
I took hand sanitizer and cleaned the credit card (as I usually do because of Covid-19), by rubbing it on my hands and on the card.. I'm sure every crevice wasn't cleaned though. When I got home, we ate and I decided to shred mail.. Maybe an hour or so had gone by by this time since we picked up the food. I noticed I received a replacement credit card, so I shredded the one that I used in the drive through.. it made a loud crunching noise, and later on when I was clearing the bin, I noticed a piece of it was attempted to be shredded but still sort of intact. I didn't know, but I see the contents of this card was made with metal.. I saw a few evidence of numbers on the piece, and tried to push it back through the shredder but it was too deformed to go again. So I tried to peel it off the piece of metal. Afterwards, I noticed a few small cuts on my fingers, with a tiny bit of blood oozing out. I went and washed my hands, and then applied hand sanitizer, and felt the cuts burning. I started to worry as I know the card was just touched by the clerk who handles money and credit cards all day from the public
Ultimately, what are the risks of contracting HIV or hepatitis in this event?
I apologize if this may seem a little over the top, but I am ignorant to the risks outside of sex and drug use of the risks of contracting HIV virus may pose. I worry because my wife is a nursing mother, but we are otherwise healthy individuals.
Your situation involves personal contact with an object in air (card, etc. which is still not a risk for hiv.) No worries, because you can't get hiv from personal contact except unprotected penetrating vaginal or anal, neither of which you did and you didn't share hollow needles to inject with which is the only other way to acquire hiv. Analysis of large numbers of infected people over the 40 years of hiv history has proven that people don't get hiv in the way you are worried is a risk.
HIV is a fragile virus in air or saliva and is effectively instantly dead in either air or saliva so the worst that could happen is dead virus rubbed you, and obviously anything which is dead cannot live again so you are good. Blood and cuts would not be relevant in your situation since the hiv has become effectively dead, so you don't have to worry about them to be sure that you are safe.
There is no reason for a person to test when they are safe. Next time cut the card once or twice and put the pieces in different garbage bins on different weeks.
HIV is a fragile virus in air or saliva and is effectively instantly dead in either air or saliva so the worst that could happen is dead virus rubbed you, and obviously anything which is dead cannot live again so you are good. Blood and cuts would not be relevant in your situation since the hiv has become effectively dead, so you don't have to worry about them to be sure that you are safe.
There is no reason for a person to test when they are safe. Next time cut the card once or twice and put the pieces in different garbage bins on different weeks.
1 Comments
Great thank you for your response. I normally shred the credit cards with no issue. I didn't realize the inside of this credit card was made of metal until I attempted to shred it unfortunately.
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