Is "Big Brother" the Way to Go for Infection Control?

It will depend on how Smart and intelligent your "Big Brother" is going to be? Will they posses "police powers" too?

Restaurants could really do with some sort of hygiene surveillance and a big stick.

One hopes that the staff wash their hands.

Patrons also worry me especially at buffets.

You can't be certain anyone will follow guidelines already in place. This has to be a self-governance issue. People have to be aware of the need for good hand hygiene and then put them into practice themselves. "Big brother" can't put cameras in rest rooms and everywhere else, and even if they did, who is going to be paid to watch every bit of captured images to make sure people are following established procedures? What authority would they have for instituting consequences and who picks the consequences?

This has to be personal responsibility. How's that for a novel idea?

If health institutions have a bad record of Infection Control the customer will go elsewhere so they will ensure they have programs in place, train and encourage their staffs to follow those guidelines, for the good of the organization and those they serve.

Agreed. I personally wonder about the effects of constant monitoring and automated enforcement on the development of people's moral compass. How can one learn to be responsible and morally autonomous, if one never gets a chance to do the right thing when no one is watching? Responsibility takes practice, and eliminating the opportunities for practice would seem to me to increase the numbers of people looking to get away with something, to get out frum under the themb of "the man," to game the system, and so forth, for its own sake, just to feel a bit of freedom. It's tempting to go with the constant monitoring and automated enforcement, because these can be accomplished with a lot more ease than getting a critical mass of the people on board with some sort of moral consensus, but the former can only be accomplished by breeding or training any impulse for human freedom out of the masses, a kind of animal husbandry. Well, there goes democracy.

The hand washing station should be in full view.

Self policing works best when there is a risk of being seen.

Then there's the cashiers who also handle food......