Don't wear gloves shopping or out and about - HSE infection control experts warn

robinph

BrianD3 wrote: »

Anyhow, removing gloves without contaminating yourself is easier than removing a mask (that you intend to reuse) without contaminating yourself, neither are rocket science.

Why does it matter how you remove a mask?

Outside of clinical settings the masks are worn to stop the person wearing it spreading, not to stop you catching anything from anyone else. It hardly matters if I'm infected and my mask is therefore contaminated and I then touch it "wrongly" whilst taking it off. Once nobody else is touching it then where's the problem?

odyssey06

robinph wrote: »

Perfectly fine to take precautions, but wearing gloves in a pointless way that does nothing to protect yourself or anyone else is not it. The only thing that wearing gloves whilst shopping does is use up the supply of gloves and make you look like a bit of an idiot.

Make you look like a bit of an idiot? As if that is on anyone's priority list right now as a concern.
There's dozens of things we're doing now that would have triggered that response in 2019. Right now, it carries about as much weight as a feather in a storm.

Wearing gloves makes it easier for me to sanitise my hands on the go. I know they aren't a magic glove that kills any virus they touch, but they serve a purpose.

Stark

Masks and gloves are a different ballgame though. Even an incorrectly used mask will still limit the spread of droplet spray to third parties so an improvement on no mask. Gloves on the other hand are worse than naked skin in the cases of most people who use them.

BrianD3 wrote:

Also, I note that none of the naysayers have responded to my point about the shortage of hand sanitiser and sanitising gloves with bleach. Personally I have about 500 mls of alcohol hand sanitiser left while I have hundreds of nitrile gloves. If someone has load of hand sanitiser (and no gloves) then good for them.

Hand sanitiser is in fairly plentiful supply these days I've noticed. The stuff you get online from distilleries tends to be good value. Personally I've found I've been using very little in practice as my only trips outside are to the supermarket and at home, soap and water is more effective than sanitiser for getting rid of the virus.

D3V!L

I recently seen a man walking around Dublin City with gloves that were clearly a couple of days old. They were really worn and large holes in them. You'd have to wonder what they hope to achieve by wearing them. I think the majority of people wearing gloves and masks are just monkey see monkey do.

neonsofa

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And the people who wear them in the park. What is that all about?!?

I walk through the park to get to work. We are obligated to wear masks and gloves in the common areas of work and can remove them once in our own offices. So I wear my gloves and mask on way into work so that I'm covered for entering the building, once I'm in my own office I remove them and sanitize/clean etc. Same when going home, put them on before I leave my office, walk home through park, and remove once I get home. I would prefer not to wear either, but I wear them for my colleagues as requested, even if it looks stupid to others. I'm sure there are others who have similar reasons where they are on their way to or from somewhere that requires them.

Panrich

Penn wrote: »

I don't think there's any harm in doing both; wearing gloves and also keeping good hand hygiene. Anything that minimises risk, so long as people don't use it as a false sense of security.

Agreed. I can see why some people want to use gloves and they would provide a little bit of extra protection (even it is only marginal). I would be thinking that the virus cannot get under fingernails while wearing gloves for example.

Chris_5339762

I use a glove on my right hand only for shopping.



I put the money into the trolley with my left hand and pull away the trolley with my right. I control the trolley with my right hand and open all freezer doors with my right hand. I pick up all items with my right hand and put them into my trolley. My right hand is my "dirty" hand.



My left hand has the shopping list in it and is not used to touch any part of the shop or any of the products at all. I have my card in my left pocket and use that (with my clean left hand) to do contactless. If I have to type a pin, the pin gets typed with my right hand.



Items are put into the back of the car with my right hand and then the glove is taken off carefully (without touching the outside) and binned. Hand sanitiser when I get into the car.


I'm rigid about all of this. Some hospital training helps.


Why both with the glove at all? Calculated risk. I can't wash my hands properly in the car. I also don't infect my car at all. So I'll keep to my one-handed shopping I think!

robinph

neonsofa wrote: »

I walk through the park to get to work. We are obligated to wear masks and gloves in the common areas of work and can remove them once in our own offices. So I wear my gloves and mask on way into work so that I'm covered for entering the building, once I'm in my own office I remove them and sanitize/clean etc. Same when going home, put them on before I leave my office, walk home through park, and remove once I get home. I would prefer not to wear either, but I wear them for my colleagues as requested, even if it looks stupid to others. I'm sure there are others who have similar reasons where they are on their way to or from somewhere that requires them.

That sounds completely back to front wearing the gloves and mask when outside, but taking them off once inside.

Do you each have your own enclosed offices that nobody else has access to?

robinph

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

I use a glove on my right hand only for shopping.

What are you doing when you get home with the shopping?

neonsofa

robinph wrote: »

That sounds completely back to front wearing the gloves and mask when outside, but taking them off once inside.

Do you each have your own enclosed offices that nobody else has access to?

I take them off when inside my own office. I wear them in the common areas of the building where there are other staff members. I only have to wear them in common areas of the building because in my own office it's just me, that's where I take them off.

Chris_5339762

robinph wrote: »

What are you doing when you get home with the shopping?

Its easier since there is a sink and plenty of soap for handwashing, which is still the best.



Since I have to live with my two 70+ year old parents (long story, no way to avoid it at the mo), we're strict. I wash hands, then bring in the plastic boxes containing the shopping at which time everything is wiped down (by them, not me) with antibacterial wipes and put in the cupboards. Handwashing again after.



I considered leaving tins etc in the garage for a few days for anything on them to die, but that involves a lot more logistics and inevitably the can of evaporated milk in the garage would be needed now!! :eek:



I'm sure there are improvements that can be made, but its a case of managing risk rather than ever being able to remove it completely.

Edit: In the shops its not so much the products I'm worried about (unless someone is squeezing all the fruit to get the ripest one) its the fridge handles, trolley handle, pin pad and things like that. Also, having one clean and one dirty hand reduces the risk substantially when I have to ring home to find out exactly what brand of cheese they want. Phone = clean hand only, Cheese = gloved hand only.

Away With The Fairies

TheChizler wrote: »

Intuitively it feels like a path of transmission but it would be good to know if it's been proven this can happen, it's plausible there's not enough virus to infect someone after secondary transfers.

It just takes one virus particle to get into your body and for it to multiply.

Away With The Fairies

[Deleted User] wrote: »

“Lives” does not equal transmission. These studies have long since been pulled apart, as are in laboratory conditions and don’t account for whether the virus is present in enough volume to infect a person or even whether it is still in one piece. There is so much scaremongering about this

It's not scaremongering, it's the truth. It takes one virus particle to get into your body. That's why they are telling us to keep washing our hands in case you pick it up from a surface.

robinph

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

It just takes one virus particle to get into your body and for it to multiply.

Does it? Where have you got that from?

The articles I've seen say they don't know, but for similar infections it's in the 10,000 particles before you'd be infected. This is probably less needed, but certainly not 1.

TheChizler

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

It just takes one virus particle to get into your body and for it to multiply.

Maybe in ideal conditions in someone with no immune system, but the minimum infectious viral load is thought to be in the 100s to thousands of active viruses, depending on who you talk to.

odyssey06

TheChizler wrote: »

Maybe in ideal conditions in someone with no immune system, but the minimum infectious viral load is thought to be in the 100s to thousands of active viruses, depending on who you talk to.

That sounds like a huge number but - open to correction here - it's still a microscopic amount of material?

Boggles

Is this the same HSE who recommended visiting your granny in a care home not so long ago?

Away With The Fairies

robinph wrote: »

Does it? Where have you got that from?

The articles I've seen say they don't know, but for similar infections it's in the 10,000 particles before you'd be infected. This is probably less needed, but certainly not 1.

The infectious dose can be quite small in some viruses, the flu for example. The infectious dose is still unknown with this virus. The more contagious a virus is, the less virus particles is needed. The virus can live for days on surfaces so touching your eyes, nose and mouth after touching a surface from someone who has sneezed on is a route of transmission.

Plumbthedepths

Boggles wrote: »

Is this the same HSE who recommended visiting your granny in a care home not so long ago?

They are right about this. They were wrong about care homes.

Plumbthedepths

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

The infectious dose can be quite small in some viruses, the flu for example. The infectious dose is still unknown with this virus. The more contagious a virus is, the less virus particles is needed. The virus can live for days on surfaces so touching your eyes, nose and mouth after touching a surface from someone who has sneezed on is a route of transmission.

Can you provide the evidence to back up your claim that one particle can infect a person with Covid?

BarryD2

Boggles wrote: »

Is this the same HSE who recommended visiting your granny in a care home not so long ago?

And the same HSE who advised anyone coming back from ski holidays in Italy, students coming from China etc., to go into work, school, college as normal and sure let us know if you have a dose in a couple of weeks.

How much did that advice cost us in terms of restrictions??

Surely wearing gloves/ masks as well as other precautions is better than not. Likely more to do with shortage of supplies.

TheChizler

odyssey06 wrote: »

That sounds like a huge number but - open to correction here - it's still a microscopic amount of material?

Potentially yes, but maybe only a fraction of a viable amount completes and survives the transfer from the surface to your hand to your mouth. I guess what we're saying is here we don't know one way or the other so it would be interesting to have some research we could read. By all means be cautious in the absence of research.

Boggles

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

They are right about this. They were wrong about care homes.

According to who? The HSE? :pac:

They are just about to flip 180 on masks.

Rule of thumb, whatever they are telling you to do, do the opposite on PPE.

Gloves are effective if used correctly. The trick is pretend you are not wearing them.

Plumbthedepths

BarryD2 wrote: »

And the same HSE who advised anyone coming back from ski holidays in Italy, students coming from China etc., to go into work, school, college as normal and sure let us know if you have a dose in a couple of weeks.

How much did that advice cost us in terms of restrictions??

Surely wearing gloves/ masks as well as other precautions is better than not. Likely more to do with shortage of supplies.

Health professionals change gloves after examining patients so as to avoid cross contamination. People wearing gloves touch bloody everything thinking the glove keeps them safe. I've even seen one fool pull her glove off with her teeth.

BrianD3

robinph wrote: »

Why does it matter how you remove a mask?

Outside of clinical settings the masks are worn to stop the person wearing it spreading, not to stop you catching anything from anyone else. It hardly matters if I'm infected and my mask is therefore contaminated and I then touch it "wrongly" whilst taking it off. Once nobody else is touching it then where's the problem?

Not this again. Masks protect the wearer from others as well as others from the wearer i.e. two way protection (exception: valved respirators which only protect the wearer)

This two way protection doesn't magically stop once someone steps outside of a clinical setting. That bullsh*t was put out by the authorities when they wanted to save masks for healthcare workers and cover up their own ineptitude.

Simply put, if someone sneezes near your face when you are wearing a mask, many droplets that would have gone into your mouth and nose are now in your mask. And yet you think there is no problem here with then taking the mask off any way you want?

s1ippy

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

I'm rigid about all of this. Some hospital training helps.

Not to sh!t on your methods but hospital training currently absolutely does not recommend Clean/Dirty hand technique.

Then again, they also give a passing grade if you get 80% of the PPE and hand hygiene training right. If you get 80% of it right in real life there is a 100% chance of cross-contamination from the 20% of actions you took in error.

Xertz

The issue isn’t the gloves. It’s the fact the people aren’t disposing of them.

I know people who have one pair of disposable gloves and just wear them everywhere. I tried explaining why that’s not a good idea and got nowhere.

I have a few boxes of disposable gloves myself and I put a fresh pair on when entering a supermarket and throw them into the bin on the way out.

There’s also a significant difficulty getting those kinds of gloves. I’ve bought a few boxes of disposable marigolds online but things like Killeen Handies which used to be available in most supermarkets disappeared weeks ago and haven’t come back.

Disposable gloves were never a product that were widely stocked here in retail.

So frankly, I’m not seeing where most people are getting a large supply of disposable gloves, as they’re scarce. Which means most people (or many people anyway) must be reusing they same ones over and over which isn’t a great situation.

The down side is that I’ll probably be getting told not to wear mine, even though I’ve been doing it right all along.

robinph

BrianD3 wrote: »

Not this again. Masks protect the wearer from others as well as others from the wearer i.e. two way protection (exception: valved respirators which only protect the wearer)

This two way protection doesn't magically stop once someone steps outside of a clinical setting. That bullsh*t was put out by the authorities when they wanted to save masks for healthcare workers and cover up their own ineptitude.

Simply put, if someone sneezes near your face when you are wearing a mask, many droplets that would have gone into your mouth and nose are now in your mask. And yet you think there is no problem here with then taking the mask off any way you want?

Not what I said at all.

But generally if you are keeping 2 meters apart then the chances of someone sneezing on your masked face is limited. In hospitals where it's not possible to keep distance, and people are ill so sneezing and coughing, that is where the mask is protecting you from others. Outside of that situation the mask is to protect other from you.

Of course if someone working in a hospital is infected then it's working the other way round and if someone on the street is infected and coughs in your face it protects you from them. But that is not their primary function in those situations.

odyssey06

Xertz wrote: »

So frankly, I’m not seeing where most people are getting a large supply of disposable gloves, as they’re scarce. Which means most people (or many people anyway) must be reusing they same ones over and over which isn’t a great situation.

You might be right but just noting I got a box of 100 in my local chemist around Paddys Day. At the rate I am using them I have enough supply for 2-3 months.

robinph

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

The virus can live for days on surfaces ...

The virus can be detected on surfaces days later. Not aware of it being shown to be viable or evidence of people getting infected by the route of touching surfaces (outside of a coronavirus ward).

Not sure what country it was from, but saw some video on the news of people going along spraying a ornamental garden trees and bushes with disinfectant. That kind of thing does nothing other than scare people into thinking that the virus is a living beastie that is going to hide in corners waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims.