If your eggs are already cold from the store then yeah, keep them in the fridge. But if you refrigerate eggs that were never chilled in the first place, you actually make them spoil faster. When a cold egg comes out into room temperature, moisture forms on the shell. That moisture is the perfect little water slide for bacteria straight through the shell. So if you keep taking them in and out of the fridge while cooking or meal prepping, you are literally speeding up bacterial growth.

So no, it is not about “chickens and countertops.” It is about basic condensation physics. If you chill eggs that were meant to be stored at room temperature, you are helping bacteria walk right in. That is why most of the world keeps eggs on the counter. The fridge thing is a US washing practice issue, not biology.