Doctor Explains How Easily Cross-contamination Happens Even If You’re Wearing Gloves
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to update its recommendations for how individuals can protect themselves from catching or spreading the coronavirus. Health officials still say the best way to avoid getting sick is to limit your exposure to the virus, which means staying home as much
Posted — UpdatedIn the interview, Tarbox refers to a training video for doctors and lab workers about how quickly a contaminant can spread. The video shows a person wearing gloves and then touching a chemical that glows under certain lighting. After the person touches the chemical, they then move on to other objects — leaving traces of the chemical on everything they touch.
Even for those who wear gloves, if they touch something that is contaminated, they may then spread those germs onto their smartphones, shopping carts, gas pumps or other items. Then, those items become contaminated.
Tarbox says wearing gloves in public may not necessarily help with cross-contamination, but they can be a good reminder for us to practice better hygiene and not to touch our faces.
“Wearing any kind of medical glove, it’s an extra layer of reminder that I might have something on my hands I don’t want on my face,” she said.
“But you can just as easily transfer particles from the glove surface to other surfaces as you can from fingertips. So … they’re not magical.”
Copyright 2024 Simplemost. All rights reserved.