Based on what I’m seeing in my weekly grocery trip, people need a primer on how to use disposable gloves properly. As a scientist who wears gloves to protect me from lethal chemicals (abd to avoid contaminating ice age specimens), let me share some tips:

One of the most important things to remember: the point of gloves is not to not prevent you from “absorbing” the virus through your skin. If your skin is hydrated and you don’t have open wounds, your body’s natural defenses will prevent transmission through your skin.

(With all the handwashing, your hands may be cracked and dry: keep them hydrated with heavy duty hand creams!)

So why wear gloves? They’re disposable! If you touch a surface lots of other people touched, like a pin pad at a checkout counter or a door handle, you can throw them away and avoid transmitting any germs (like coronavirus) to your phone, face, car door, debit card, keys, etc.

Gloves will not prevent you from transferring germs from a contaminated surface to an I contaminated one! They aren’t anti-microbial. If you touch a doorknob with gloves on, then touch your face WITH THOSE SAME GLOVES, you’ve transmitted germs from the doorknob to your face.

Things I saw people doing while wearing gloves:

- opening a soda bottle and taking a drink

- touching their glasses

- adjusting their masks

- touching their car keys, debit card

- using their phone

*All while shopping in a store and handling groceries, their carts, etc.*

The only way gloves are effective is if you change them as often as you should wash or sanitize* your hands.

Read that out loud. Again. Make it stick.

*Good hand-washing with soap is more effective than sanitizer, but it’s not always something we can do outside the house.

If you have gloves on, and you’ve touched something, treat your hands as if they were contaminated. Period. Treat the gloves as an extra layer of skin that you can shed BEFORE you touch your face, your car door, or any surface you don’t want to contaminate.

“But doesn’t that mean you have to change your gloves a lot?”

Yep!

It also means you can get by without them if you’re washing your hands and paying attention to what you touch. Or save them for things like the gas pump or other single uses where you can’t wash your hands.

You should not re-use gloves.

Gloves start to lose effectiveness with use, and not all gloves are the same (there are many kinds!) so look up how long you can safely wear yours.

Learn how to safely remove them!

Many research-grade gloves are designed to tear if they have a defect, so if you put them on and they rip, that’s good! It means there was a tiny hole or a weak spot. Just get another one.

Be careful if you’re thinking about sanitizing your gloves. You may be reducing their effectiveness, depending on the chemicals used. There are lots of charts online that tell you what your specific type of gloves will be effective against.

And finally, please safely dispose of your used gloves in the trash. Bag them up in your car if you can’t find an outdoor garbage can. Don’t throw them on the ground for someone else to pick up, or where they could potentially harm wildlife.

A lot of folks are asking about washing and re-using disposable gloves:

Think of them like condoms, folks. Single-use and disposable. That’s what they were designed for. They start to wear out and and fail rates increase within 15-30 minutes. That’s why hospitals need so many.

I can’t believe I need to add this, but: don’t remove your gloves with your teeth. Ever. Under any circumstances. Even if we aren’t in a pandemic. Even if you just chopped up some jalapeños. If you didn’t want it on your hands, you don’t want in your mouth.

(Apologies for the typos! Ugh!)

PS It’s okay if you didn’t know some or all of this. Disposable gloves are something most of us don’t use on a daily basis. We’re all having to learn new things to get through this. Take care of one another, stay strong, stay healthy.