Welcome back, but I'm sorry you found it necessary. Although your previous question was about a more direct potential exposure -- at least sex was involved that time. But if you read and understood that reply, you should understand that something like this is risk free. HIV simply is not transmitted by such indirect contact. Also, saliva is the only potential body substance from the Starbucks worker that could have been on her fingers, the counter top, etc -- and saliva never transmits HIV. But there would be nor risk if, for example, she had blood or vaginal fluids on her hands. And anyway, the vast majority of people don't have HIV anyway.---

Dear sir,

Over the 3 decades of the known worldwide HIV epidemic, nobody has ever caught HIV from non-sexual contact with other persons. Every person seen in the busiest HIV/AIDS clinics has a history of sex, direct blood contact through shared drug injection equipment, or other known high risk interactions with infected persons. "Exposures" like this must have occurred billions of times around the world, and yet nobody with HIV/AIDS lacks evidence of direct high risk exposures. (When they say they are unaware of such exposures, it always turns out they were wrong, i.e. had high risk exposures of some kind.)

We in the health professions have done a poor job in educating the public about health risks from blood exposures. At one time there was a very casual attitude:  doctors didn’t care much if blood got on our hands or clothing (aside from appearances), and most of the public had the same perspective. Who cared if they contacted blood while helping a child or a friend with a cut, or assisting at an accident scene? That attitude, we now know, was too cavalier: we paid too little attention to known risks and didn’t even know about others. However, I think public health messaging, and public attitudes, have gone too far the other way. Virtually any blood contact is often described as risky, and many people now are inappropriately frightened about contacting blood either directly from bleeding persons or in the environment. The fact is that the risks of HIV, hepatitis B or C, or other blood-borne infections from such events are very low. Few if any persons have ever acquired these infections except by direct blood exchange, e.g. from transfusions (before infection testing prevented them), shared needles, or sexual contact. There certainly is no significant risk from exposure to blood on contaminated surfaces or personal items used by bleeding persons, especially if the blood has dried. Even wet blood in the mouth or eyes carries only theoretical risk of HIV transmission, with no cases ever known; the same probably is true of hepatitis B and C. If you physically come into contact with obvious or apparent wet blood, it’s common sense to try to avoid touching the mouth or eyes, and to wash with soap and water. But such events never require testing for HIV or hepatitis.

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Thanks very much sir for hearing patiently even queries like mine.  Thanks very much for your services and knowledge provided sir.  You and dr hook are really awesome. Angels for people like me. May God always bless you.

I'm glad to have helped. But please adhere to the policy described in the closing paragraph of my first reply above.---