Wife made a quick trip to Food Lion, just to top off. By way of background she is the former Chief of Death Investigations for a major east coast Medical Examiners office. Started in NYC, worked at the first AIDs clinic there, at Sing Sing as well, hospitals, etc.
Older lady, outside of Food Lion, keeps pulling her mask off her nose, touching her face. Wife asks her what is she doing? She replies it is too hard to breath. Wife explains doing that won’t protect her. That type of mask was not meant to be worn for long periods, it is used to visit patients, spend some time with them, then discarded.
She explains the PPE training she received, in the day, when first treating TB patients. Your mask has to be individually fitted to your face. You put it on, then they put a hood over you and spray a scent. If you can smell it, your mask isn’t fitted and has to be adjusted. They spray your fingers with a UV liquid. You put your mask on, take it off. They put it under a UV light. If you touched the mask where you shouldn’t you need more practice. Poor lady doesn’t know what to make of all of this.
Then wife sees a Food Lion employee, gloves on, going case to case, touching one thing, then another. Basically transferring whatever microbes are on one thing to another. Touches her face. Wife wants to bash her, wants to tell her that she should be using hand sanitizer not gloves and wiping case handles. But she turns and leaves and doesn’t touch a thing the employee did.
Wife gets home in a rant. Says if they recommended masks it will be a farce. People aren’t trained to use them, it will be worse then just keeping basic sanitizing procedures in place. And don’t get her started on gloving protocol!!! She has pretty much seen every type of death known to mankind up close and personal.
Big argument ensures. I say everyone needs to wear masks. Bot not to protect yourself by wearing one. I agree people won’t use them correctly. But the reason is to have something, ANYTHING, ON THE FACES OF THE INFECTED who are out and can’t get tested or are asymptomatic. Any interference with the release of infectious vapor is better than nothing. She knows we are talking about homemade masks, bandannas or scarves. She can’t believe she is hearing this. It goes against all her medical training and life and death experience. I say when you have messed up so completely, actually inculcated failure upon failure, as we (i.e. CDC, politicians, local governments) have so stupendously with this virus, then gross measures, however inane and in artfully applied is all you have in your toolkit. What a country.
Your view?
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
A lot of experts can’t deal with that simple fact—when they don’t see perfection, they freak.
It’s a tough one. It’s all about education. My husbands’ employees will be wearing masks now, but will be trained on how to take them on and off properly. Plus they are wearing gloves now, but they found a way that they will not have to touch anything a customer has touched.
As for touching their masks, in my opinion I’d they touch their masks, they would have touched their face. So what’s the difference? If it made them touch their faces less, it’s an improvement.
My elderly father in law would never be able to handle a mask. That’s why he’s at home and we bring groceries, wiped down with bleach, to him
I’m in the safe boat where you the wear a mask, gloves, don’t touch anything you don’t need to, carefully discard and use whatever sanitizer you have - twice - on you and whatever you eventually bring inside to your family.
Better yet, stay home. It isn’t that difficult. Why are people still going to the store every few days? That’s insane. Buy enough to last til summer and don’t go back again.
A couple of other little things that might help is to use conditioner on your hair so it doesn’t fly onto your face as much and put it up into a ponytail or bun. At the very least, don your sunglasses for eye protection. Use a scrub for your face so the skin is smoother and less likely to catch dust, fur or whatever that floats by that makes you touch your face.