Avoid wearing gloves while grocery shopping

Owing to the growing number of coronavirus cases worldwide, it has been made mandatory to wear a face mask in all public places to keep oneself protected. Maintaining six feet distance and practising proper hand hygiene, especially after touching a contaminated surface are a few other things you can do to ensure your and your family’s safety. Considering the rampant spread of COVID19, it is obvious to wonder what else you can do to avoid coming in contact with the virus when visiting public places like local grocery shops or pharmacy. You might even come across people wearing gloves and wonder if that’s a good precautionary measure.

A simple answer to this question is no.

While wearing a mask, face shield or sanitising your hands multiple times are fine, gloves are not an outright solution to reduce the risk of infection. Even the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not made any such recommendation except in certain situations like before touching the buttons or handles of a gas pump, cleaning and disinfecting surfaces, handling dirty laundry or trash from someone who has the virus. Even in these circumstance, gloves are only effective when they are discarded properly, followed by handwashing. But when it comes to grocery shopping, gloves are really not that effective.

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When you wear gloves and touch any contaminated surface, the virus gets transferred to your gloves as it would stick to your fingers. Moreover, gloves give a false sense of security and people go on touching everything like their face and mouth, which could lead to self-contamination. So, gloves do not provide any protection.

The most tricky part of wearing a pair of gloves is when you have to remove it. If you are not cautious, the germs may get transferred to your hands and other parts of your body. When you remove the gloves, they should be disposed of properly and then you must wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds.

Gloves do not reduce the risk of coming in contact with the virus or save you from frequent hand washing. You are equally vulnerable to infection while wearing a pair of gloves as you are when working with naked hands.

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The virus is transferred through tiny respiratory droplets of an infected person talking or sneezing near you. Touching food products in the grocery store will not cause infection. Just practise social distancing norms. Keep your shopping list ready so that you can purchase what’s required and can come out fast. For your safety, clean your hands with sanitizer and wipe the handle of the shopping cart with disinfectant when you enter. Avoid touching any products that you do not intend to take. After coming back home, wash your hands properly for 20 seconds and also clean your phone.

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