Washing hands is one of the most important measures to protect yourself against the coronavirus. But you cannot wash your hands all the time, there is no opportunity to do so when shopping. So wear rubber gloves? Better not, say doctors.
The corona virus can be found on plastic and metal surfaces theoretically survive for a while. Some people wear rubber gloves in order to avoid being infected with the corona virus in the supermarket or at the traffic lights. However, doctors and nurses warn about this online.
“Stop wearing medical gloves in public,” writes Dr. Marc Hanefeld, a general practitioner from Lower Saxony, on Twitter. “This is a hygienic mess on a large scale.” Rubber gloves are only useful in everyday medical practice; the wearer protects them from major contaminants when they come into contact with body fluids, for example.
Hanefeld: Rubber gloves in everyday life do not protect
According to Hanefeld, the gloves quickly become porous and thus permeable in everyday life. “Neither wearer nor patient / touched are med. Gloves protected. Hygienic hand disinfection is necessary before and after use. ”Even“ 50 percent of health workers ”do not keep the correct hand disinfection.
If bacteria, germs or viruses penetrate through the porous glove, they meet ideal conditions: “Under the glove, bacteria multiply with pleasure in the warm, humid chamber. At the latest after taking off, you have a sewer on your hands without disinfection. ”In addition, plastic releases more germs into the environment than skin. “You don’t run around with rubber gloves unless you want to be a hygiene pig.”
Viral video: Gloves and the risk of cross-contamination
(Photo: screenshot Facebook Molly Lixey)
Molly Lixey, a caregiver from Michigan warns of another problematic effect – “cross-contamination”. She demonstrates what this means in a video that has been viewed more than a million times on Facebook.
In the clip, Lixey wears rubber gloves and pretends to walk through a supermarket and shop. Green paint sticks to the “toilet paper” – this symbolizes bacteria and germs. After Lixey puts the toilet paper in the shopping cart, her fingertips are also covered with paint. She continues her shopping, she also calls and writes a message to her husband. In the end there is the color on your smartphone and on your face – and with it the bacteria and germs.
Here is the video from Lixey on Facebook:
In the end, the hands are green too
In the car she takes off her gloves, throws them into the parking lot and calls again. Now there are green spots on her fingers too – they come from the smartphone. “There’s no use wearing gloves if you don’t wash your hands every time you touch something.”
Above all, the rubber gloves convey a false sense of security – and produce unnecessary waste. Lixey’s recommendation to her audience: wash your hands, don’t touch your face and leave your phone in your pocket. The Robert Koch Institute also recommends not shaking hands, sneezing or coughing only in the crook of your arm or handkerchiefs and keeping your distance.
Read more on Techzle.com:
- Wash hands: This way your hands are really clean
- “Wash Your Lyrics”: Song generator for proper hand washing goes viral
- Viral school experiment shows how important hand washing is