I’m curious about how widespread the term PPE was before the current pandemic. It’s very common in the military where it is usually referring to items that protect from injury rather than illness. I believe I heard it there first but it’s also used in police jargon. Were you familiar with the term?
Nope. I don’t think I ever heard the term before. If I did, it didn’t register.
Been a dentist over 30 years, knew what it was.
We had some protective equipment used in making IVs in the hospital pharmacy, especially if it was chemotherapy or some other potentially hazardous drug. The abbreviation “PPE” was used a lot in the media during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, so I heard it a lot back then.
Same.
Worked 13 years in water damage mitigation, was quite familiar with the term when COVID-19 came to town.
In Accounting, it’s property, plant, and equipment.
Yes. In my job I have to take lab safety training every couple of years, and the term comes up there. Our PPE is different from what medical professionals would use, but I knew what the term meant.
I’ve been in and out of hospitals in the last couple of years, and am also familiar with the term from dialysis.
I’ve been in and out of hospitals in the last couple of years, and am also familiar with the term from dialysis.
Never heard of it. I’d think it was some new economics theory.
Wikipedia lists 16 different meanings, none of which I had ever heard of.
I design industrial controllers and controls for a living. PPE is a common term in our business, though like the OP, the term is generally used to protect from injury rather than illness.
Typical PPE for industrial use is a hard hat, safety glasses, steel toed boots, and gloves, but can be other things, depending on the site. Face shields, masks, respirators, tyvek suits, gas detectors, ear protection, and safety harnesses are just a few examples. I have worked in pharmaceutical research facilities where required PPE included a labcoat, and I have worked in other facilities where booties, rubber gloves, and head coverings were required.
So yeah, when I heard PPE in reference to Covid-19, I knew immediately that it meant masks, gowns, face shields, rubber gloves, etc.
This is the relevant one for this thread:
When I had a job, I worked in an area where industrial sewing machines were busy whirring away all day, so PPE (safety glasses) are required.
I specifically didn’t specify to see the responses. I am referring to Personal Protective Equipment which has been in the news lately.
In the military it’s usually eye protection, hearing protection, helmet, gloves. Add body armor when around things that go boom or pow.
As a police officer it usually doesn’t refer to things like body armor. It’s been used mostly when referring to equipment to protect against blood borne pathogens. The medical aspect of it is firmly cemented in the jargon now.
Work in a drug testing lab where we make our own reagents, so PPE is a word used all the time.
I have worked with manufacturing of energetics (explosive and propellant compounds), fiber composites, battery electrolytes and cathodes, electronics, electro-optical systems, and various forms of metal welding and joining, as well as field operations. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a common term across all of those different areas although what actually constitutes appropriate PPE varies. For energetic compounds and electronics, we wear CD (conductive sole) boots or ankle strap, grounding straps, and conductive smocks. With fiber composites we wear gloves, polypropylene smocks, and depending on the resin system a respirator mask. With electro-optical systems and batteries, we wear bunny suits, caps, and masks. With welding, we wear wool smocks, leather gloves, ANSI/OSHA-certified footwear with steel or composite toe caps, and welding shields/glasses. In the field, we wear said protective footwear with slip-resistant soles, hard hats, gloves, rain or snow gear as appropriate, hearing protection when required, and on an elevated platform a harness and lead. When I am clearing trail or cutting up firewood, I wear chainsaw chaps, helmet with integrated hearing protection and a face mesh, cut-resistant gloves, and composite-toed boots. In all cases protective eyewear is recommended because it sucks to get stuff in your eyes. Some people balk at the cost or inconvenience of PPE, but all you have to do is consider the cost of a single trip to the ER room and the inconvenience of losing an appendage or an eye, and the value becomes evident.
I’m not a medical professional but I do have a NOLS Wilderness First Responder certification so I knew what basic medical PPE like gloves, eye protection, and protective masks was, but I didn’t really know how N95 respirator masks actually worked until the PPE shortages came up and I was part of a project to find suitable replacement materials for improvised masks. I was surprised to discover that a) there are no real suitable replacements to polypropylene (PP) microfiber when it comes to filtering out virus-sized particles, b) there are only a handful of companies that can actually make N95-grade PP microfiber cloth, and c) nearly all of the companies that actually produce that grade of PP microfiber are in China because it just isn’t cost competitive to maintain the machines and remain certified to make this material without the assurance of being able to sell billions of units. In retrospect we should have had strategic stockpiles of PPE to protect medical workers, first responders, and other essential workers, but I can understand why that would seem an extravagant expense in a country that hasn’t experienced a truly out-of-control epidemic in over half a century, and most disposable PPE like masks does have a shelf life although that limitation is quite conservative and soon-expiring stocks could be rotated out for field use or reserved for secondary/contingency usage. Medical PPE is relatively bulky but inexpensive when purchased in volume, and we should be looking at ways to produce and stockpile PPE (respirator masks and face shields especially) domestically as a national security issue. For the cost of a few of F-35s we could have enough PPE on hand for several months of demand.
Stranger
Yup. Hobby welding (which includes a lot of angle grinder use) for a few years, so it comes up often. 3M face shields, ear/eye protection, welding helmet, gloves, heavy jacket, mask etc.
PPE is talked about pretty regularly on most welding channels on youtube.
It’s also used in hotels/restaurants.