As a completely trivial takeaway from this, now I want to start using tissues to press elevator buttons in hospitals, and possibly bring along surface disinfecting wipes to use on them as well.
That would be very expensive for very little benefit - five minutes is more than long enough for multiple people to use the same buttons at a busy hospital during the day.
It's much better to promote behaviors like washing hands before touching food or mucous membranes (like rubbing your eyes) and using alcohol-based hand sanitizers when that isn't practical. That's why you see hand sanitizer dispensers every few feet at (good) hospitals, and why infection rates plummeted when hospitals introduced them.
In addition, never touch those buttons with the tips of your fingers. Use the knuckle of your pinky instead - it's much less common to accidentally use that to touch a mucous membrane later on, so it's slightly better.
It's a matter of defense-in-depth. When the traffic is heavy enough to have less than 5 minutes between contacts, how many more people would be infected after a week?
As for cost, it would be more expensive but less so than you might think. With how thin the plating layer is, even for heavy wear, the material cost is under $500 per square meter. For small objects like buttons, door knobs, and hand rails it's negligible compared to installation and other costs. By switching to a cheaper base material it could even be cheaper over all.
Combining suggestions above, perhaps touching it with a ring on your finger would be even better (e.g. a silver ring).
Alcohol hand gels give a false sense of cleanliness though. Some hospitals have problems with Norovirus, and it's likely members of the public who've recently had vomiting think it's okay for them to visit a relative because of all the handgel.
It's not perfect, but it's empirically better than the previous situation.
100% completely wrong. Simple casual observation of people exiting restrooms is proof that if anything is touched, it cannot be clean. I have seen far too many people not washing after going #2 that I simply do not trust a single damn thing that I touch in public. I'm not OCD, but the general piggishness of a large portion of the population is quite disgusting.
I operate on the assumption of filth, and it has kept me from getting sick for nearly 7 years. I avoid public restrooms unless nature is screaming at me, and I carry safety wipes and use them all the time. I use them the moment when I get into my car from visiting anything, anywhere.
I filled in for the building manager at a higher end office building, and the things I have seen were shocking. I have seen non-public bathrooms defiled in disgusting ways...all on touch surfaces. Feces, blood, ejaculate, and who knows what type of drippy bile. This in an upscale business building, mind you. Imagine what horrors are visited upon your common public restroom.
I even wash my soda cans. Probably a bit overkill, and my dad used to give me stick about it until he got sick from drinking from a can that had mouse pee on it.
The neat thing is that being fastidious doesn't take much time or effort. And, it's not like my immune system became Superman overnight 7 years ago, it's that I started being careful with what I did with my hands.
I think maybe by number of cells we are more gut bacteria than human.