Community Chat

[pitdakota]

@denisemb, as a nurse I can tell you what I have done the 2 times I have gone to the grocery.  I don't wear gloves.  I do have some here from when I took care of my mother, but they stay in the box.

And the reason I don't wear gloves is because I think, for me, they put me at greater risk wearing them in the grocery.   The reason people need to protect their hands is for the relatively small chance that a product or a surface in the grocery store has an active virus that has landed there from someone else.  If it is there and you touch it, you will pick it up whether you have bare hands or gloves.

When you get to the check out line, what would I do when I get ready to pay?  Reach into your purse, get your wallet, get your card, etc.  For the sake of discussion those gloves that has a virus that is viable can now be all over my purse, wallet, credit card, etc.  In fact, the risk would be fairly significant that by handling all those articles you would transmit the virus to at least one of those articles.  

I see women wearing gloves in the store in the check out line and that is exactly what they do.  

One should not use hand sanitizer on disposable gloves.  It does interfere with the substance of the glove and really you can't use it effectively when you have gloves on anyway.  So theoretically, one should correctly remove the gloves, discard them, and put on a clean pair before touching any personal articles you need in order to pay.

We have all seen the pictures of gloves laying in grocery carts or on the ground where people have removed them and just left them there.  I think many of us get aggravated when we see that.  But as a nurse, when I see that I just shake my head because I can tell the way they are laying that the person didn't remove them correctly.  So add to the fact that they left them there, they didn't even know how to correctly remove them and put themselves at greater risk.  Honestly, they just wasted a pair of gloves and may have unwittingly contaminated their bare hands by removing the gloves improperly.

Here is a link to an article that discusses wearing gloves.  It does have a section toward the end that talks about how to properly remove gloves.

https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/should-you-wear-gloves-to-the-groce... 

[bandaidinmysalad]

Many of us have the top of our hands bleeding from constantly washing them.  My husband for one.  I have had bleeding along the joints of my fingers off and on from our dry climate.  Bandaids don't stay very well on the top of the hands nor on knuckles.  Some are lucky and their hands never bleed nor has the skin on their hands gotten thinner as they've gotten older. That's not the case here.   We know how filthy gloves get and after we remove them and throw them away we wash our hands, wrists, etc.  The bleach wipes that stores used to have to wipe down the carts are non existant now not that it ever was a good idea to bathe your hands in that.  When I used bleach wipes at home, when I had them, I wore disposable gloves before using them.  

[pitdakota]

@denisemb, to follow up this is what I do and I have to laugh because it does take me some time to get organized to go the grocery.

I have a small travel size container of hand sanitizer & I have to wear a top that has pockets.  Jean or pant pockets are out for me.  In one pocket I put 2 different disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer goes into the other pocket.

I mask up right before going in.  Here our grocery carts are sanitized when they are brought back into the store.  Someone is standing there to give you a cart and they spray it down again and give that cart to you.

Once I get into the store there is no way I am going to reach into my purse, touch a cell phone, or touch my face.  Period.  

If I have to open a door for something like a refrigerated item (orange juice)  I use the wipe on that handle to open the door.  Mainly it provides protection from my bare hand touching what multiple other people have recently touched.  If I need the wipe at any time in the store, it is there to use.

After I have my items placed on the belt, I reach into pocket and get the hand sanitizer and use it on my hands before getting anything from my purse.  I also use it after if I have to touch the key pad in any way. And no matter what, when I get home before even unloading the groceries I wash my hands with soap and water.

[Zhills]

Goatmilk soap has saved my hands!

[SeaMaiden]

so when wearing these rubber gloves, don't your hands sweat? Especially with the Summer heat? 

[hckynut]

@denisemb 

I bought several dozen of different weight cotton and cotton  mixtures garden gloves over the last 2 years for when I do my ice skating. More for saving my hands when I fall than for warmth, but some days the rink is exceptionally cold.

I now use them for when I go anywhere and when we receive packages from the mail/UPS/FEDX etc. After I use them I throw them in the wash. Most were less than a Buck a pair. Glad I tried different weights, now we have plenty.

hckynut 🏒

[bandaidinmysalad]

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@SeaMaiden wrote:

so when wearing these rubber gloves, don't your hands sweat? Especially with the Summer heat? 

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Don't know if you are addressing me but we don't have summer heat yet.  My hands/fingers will no longer be breaking open and bleeding then so I may stop wearing latex gloves. My husband is pretty adamant though about always wearing them.  He has a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol from CVS and sprays down the steering wheel and the door handles after we get home.  

[pitdakota]

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@bandaidinmysalad wrote:

Many of us have the top of our hands bleeding from constantly washing them.  My husband for one.  I have had bleeding along the joints of my fingers off and on from our dry climate.  Bandaids don't stay very well on the top of the hands nor on knuckles.  Some are lucky and their hands never bleed nor has the skin on their hands gotten thinner as they've gotten older. That's not the case here.   We know how filthy gloves get and after we remove them and throw them away we wash our hands, wrists, etc.  The bleach wipes that stores used to have to wipe down the carts are non existant now not that it ever was a good idea to bathe your hands in that.  When I used bleach wipes at home, when I had them, I wore disposable gloves before using them.  

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@bandaidinmysalad, boy been there done that at times.  I can certainly empathasize with having dry, cracked hands from handwashing and hand sanitizer.

If you have any open areas on your hands you should wear gloves.  Mainly because of other bacteria is out there.  If the coronavirus gets into an open excoriated area of the skin, it can't produce disease since it is a respiratory virus.  So you need to be protected from other bacteria out there than can enter those areas and cause an infection.  

But if shopping, you might think about having a second clean pair of gloves in a pocket, remove the first pair properly, dispose of them, and then put on a clean pair before you start getting into personal articles in order to pay for groceries.  That is if you are concerned about possibly transmitting any potential virus from respiratory droplets you might have picked up in the grocery from touching a possibly contaminated article.

Good luck!  It is havoc for those that have really sensitive, dry skin.