My great-grandmother died when I was around eight years old. I don’t really have a clear memory of her, but one thing I do remember is that she ALWAYS wore white cotton gloves when she was out in public. Not when she was on the porch of the house, or fiddling in her garden, but whenever she went shopping or ‘visiting’ or such.
I’d asked why, and my mother told me that she did it because that’s “what ladies did” when she was growing up, because they didn’t want to touch railings or door handles or other things that other people were always touching and so they didn’t want to get their hands dirty.
Lately I’ve seen and heard many warnings about washing your hands frequently, and trying not to touch your face or especially your eyes/lips, to avoid transferring the Corona virus to yourself. Which personally I find hard to remember to do, just rubbing an itch or brushing hair out of my eyes is just such an instinctive action I’m almost unaware I’m doing it.
It might also help bolster the suggestions not to shake hands.
Do you suppose just wearing gloves could be a useful protective measure? Not rubber gloves or leather or knit winter type gloves. I mean what used to called ‘ordinary’ gloves, finely woven cotton fabric, generally white. Would they serve as a protective barrier of at least some value?
I know that when I wear gloves in the winter I generally don’t touch my face – the fuzzyness of the gloves feels unpleasant against my lips and positively painful if I were to try to rub my eyelid or anything, so they might at least serve as a helpful reminder to keep your hands away from your face, even if the virus could easily pass through them to your skin if you shook the wrong person’s hand or whatever.
Hmmm. I wonder if they even sell those gloves any more?
The virus is transferred from what you touch to your fingers and then to your eyes, nose & mouth. If your fingers are covered with cloth gloves, that just means you’re wearing something that will also transfer the virus, but is much harder to clean.
It’s probably possible to make gloves that act as an inhospitable environment for this and other viruses.
However, the only antiviral gloves I could find right now are G-VIR but those seem more aimed at reducing the chance of viral transmission *through *the glove, rather than transmission by rubbing the eyes or nose.
Gloves that were really effective at killing viruses in water droplets on their surface would be very useful I think*, but don’t seem to be a thing yet.
I am living in China. I have needed to wear a mask for several hour stretches several times recently, and it’s harder than you think. Sooner or later you find yourself touching your face, or the inside of your mask, having previously touched some exposed surface on your body or environment.
Even if you wore gloves, viruses and bacteria will transfer to the glove material and can survive for hours. If you touch your face area with contamination, being gloved or bare-handed makes no difference to risk of infection.
If you want to wear gloves as reminder not to touch your face, that might work but I wouldn’t be too confident considering the number of times we unconsciously touch our faces. And good luck wearing those all day. Can’t imagine how you would work, or cook, or do anything where you need tactile sensation.
I think that gloves like my great-grandmother’s generation wore, also helped to remind you not to touch things. So that you didn’t get your gloves dirty or torn. I’ve got an idea that you actually took your gloves off to touch things.
If you do wear gloves, you have to be careful when taking them off so you don’t contaminate your skin. Imagine if the gloves are covered in paint and you have to get them off without getting any paint on your skin. I would think non-porous gloves would be better than cloth, since I would expect the cloth would be a great place for the virus to stick to and possibly get through. Non-porous gloves could also be sterilized easier. Spray them with a disinfectant before taking them off.
There are many options for improvised gloves and handcoverings you can use if necessary. Use a paper towel at the gas pump. A produce bag at the grocery store. Even a dog poop bag will work (make sure it’s unused!) The poop bags are actually surprisingly useful for this. You can get them on a roll and they fold up well. You can easily fold up a few and tuck them into your purse or that 5th pocket in your jeans and have it handy at anytime.
If you wanted to go the glove route, your best bet would be disposable vinyl or disposable nitrile gloves.
The point of them being disposable is that you can throw them out and use new ones from time to time.
Even if you never wash your hands and still touch your face, or at least do both of those with the same regularity that you previously were, peeling off gloves and putting on a new pair every hour or two will certainly help reduce the chances of contracting something. If you do touch something contaminated there’s a better than zero chance you’ll change, or at least remove, your gloves before the next time you touch your face or eat.
Normal gloves, like you spoke about in the OP, I’d think would only serve to make things worse. If they pick something up, it’s not likely they’ll get washed and sanitized before you put them back on and continue spreading it around.
TLDR, get a pack of nitrile gloves with a diamond grip pattern. As soon as your hands get sweaty, throw them out, wash your hands and use new ones.
Regarding any style of face mask, or gloves for that matter, remember that what most people (healthy people) are currently attempting to do is prevent themselves from getting sick, which is different than wearing them to prevent others from getting something they have.