[notacoward]

I love how everyone wants to talk about masks and hand sanitizer, but not about gloves or good old soap and water. To me, it's a sign of wanting to score internet points more than to actually inform. The best information I've seen so far suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can survive 2-3 hours as aerosol, 2-3 days on some surfaces. You're much more likely to be exposed or to expose others by touching something than by walking around. The "hottest" thing you've been around recently is probably the door handle or the credit-card terminal you touched when you went to buy a year's worth of toilet paper. And what's the surest way to prevent infection via touch? A physical barrier.

People who walk around wearing masks but not gloves are making a fashion statement. People who are serious about the issue (including health-care workers) wear both.

[simiones]

What does wearing a glove really achieve? You can't get the virus through direct skin contact, so virus living on your skin is not going to infect you. Touching your face while you have virus on your skin is how you get infected, and touching other surfaces while your hand is dirty is how you help spread the infection. Both of these work just as well if the virus lives on a glove rather than your skin.

So no, gloves are entirely useless for protection from this kind of virus. They are much more useless than masks, which could at least temporarily prevent some amount of virus-filled water droplets from reaching your nose.

[notacoward]

You're exhibiting exactly the kind of non-science-based attitude I was talking about. Droplets, oh no, run away!

Let's say you're unknowingly infected, like all of those people who were hanging out at bars as though they're invulnerable this weekend. So you have virus on your skin already. Are you more likely to pass it on to others via surfaces if your skin is bare or if you put a glove on it? The answer's pretty obvious. If you touch your face then the probability of infection either way increases again, but (a) people touch their faces less often with gloves on and (b) every time you change gloves the probability drops back to near zero. So yes, gloves do protect you somewhat, and they protect others even more. Just as importantly, there's no sane scenario in which they'd make things worse or deny resources to those who need them more (as with masks). It doesn't make much difference whether the surface transmission route is directly on skin or via face touching. That's why health care professionals use gloves even when dealing with respiratory diseases like COVID-19.

[simiones]

> people touch their faces less often with gloves on

Is that true? I would assume people usually touch their faces because something itches or to adjust glasses/hair/a mask. I would expect gloves to have a minimal impact on this compared to just paying attention to never touching your face. I am open to seeing numbers on this, but don't know where to look for any.

> every time you change gloves the probability drops back to near zero

I think that's only true if you handle the gloves somewhat carefully (not that it's hard to do, but you do have to pay some attention). But washing your hands or using hand sanitizer also achieves the same. So the question comes back to "how often do people wash their hands/use hand sanitizer compared to how often they change gloves?", which is an empirical question I have no clear intuition for, but do expect for differences to not be that large.

> That's why health care professionals use gloves even when dealing with respiratory diseases like COVID-19.

I think healhcare professionals wear gloves for a number of reasons, chiefly because, if you're used to it, you can be more efficient when changing gloves than when washing your hands: medical professionals normally put on a new pair of gloves before touching you, then throw those away after they are done. Most people are not used to it, they do not constantly change gloves, and do not have to deal with moving from patient to patient. So just as I don't think it's useful to tell people to wear surgical overalls and change them every hour, I don't think we can tell them to use gloves the way they are used in a hospital.

[notacoward]

Simple thought experiment: you're about to be in a situation where, despite any efforts to the contrary, you expect to be in contact with a hundred other people. It's not that uncommon e.g. in retail. Would you prefer that to be skin to skin, or glove to glove? Would you literally bet your own life and others' on that "entirely useless" claim, or would you take that cheap and basic precaution?

[simiones]

I would definitely prefer free hands IF I also have access to hand sanitizer. I would be much more confident that I have successfully covered my entire hand in sanitizer than if I were to sanitize gloved hands.

I would admit that I would probably feel safer with a mask on though, despite the problems with wearing masks as well.

[notacoward]

So you're going to use hand sanitizer a hundred times, on average every five minutes? Color me skeptical.

[michaelt]

> The answer's pretty obvious.

It's not particularly obvious to me how gloves are all that different to hand-washing.

In both cases, your hands are disease-free until you touch something that isn't disease-free.

[notacoward]

> It's not particularly obvious to me how gloves are all that different to hand-washing.

Only in the sense that hand-washing is more effective. In fact, most recommendations to use gloves also recommend hand-washing immediately after removal. However, it's not practical to wash hands every few minutes, literally hundreds of times a day. Gloves can provide protection between less frequent washings.

[ncallaway]

> So no, gloves are entirely useless for protection from this kind of virus.

Gloves, even if they do nothing else, act as a strong reminder not to touch your face. Breaking that habit alone can strongly reduce your risk of transmission.

[notacoward]

Also to change them (and/or wash your hands) if you touch your face anyway, or forget and sneeze/cough into your hands, etc. They're often brightly colored to reinforce this "reminder" function. They certainly don't have to be. Pretty sure their natural color would be off-white or grey.

[remmargorp64]

You know what else stops you from touching your face?

A face mask.

[ncallaway]

...ok?

I was more responding to the person about gloves, but what you say is also true.

[remmargorp64]

Just trying to combat all of the people discouraging face mask use, since apparently everyone in America is of the opinion that face masks are useless.

[shalmanese]

Hubei mandated that anyone who was outdoors wears a mask. They didn't mandate that anyone who was outdoors wears gloves.

Disposable latex gloves are cheaper and easier to access in China than masks and yet China prioritized masks.

[notacoward]

It's not either/or. They're complementary, and in a situation of adequate supply for the anticipated demand it would be wise to use both. What I'm objecting to is the fact that people only talk about masks, dismissing with extreme prejudice and hostility any concerns about either effectiveness or supply. Then some of them turn right around and make up objections to glove use. The fact is that no one thing by itself will save us. We need to use all the tools at our disposal, not fixate on one and ignore others.

[tinus_hn]

The virus cannot enter you through your hands. Unless you are switching gloves more often than you are washing your hands how are they going to help?