Replies

For what it worth ... I am a dialysis patient and as such I need to wear a face mask when I get connected/unconnected from a dialysis machine. It's an over the ear face mask. It protects me from breathing onto an open catheter which terminates in the right atrium of my heart. The dialysis tech wears the same. Infections are a great concern since it spells quick death in a lot cases. But, this style of face mask does not stop breathing in anything. Think of it as protecting others, but not yourself ... most people don't have to worry about breathing on an open cath.

So think about your prep and it's effectiveness. You need a serious filter and a tight fitting mask to stop breathing bad bugs. Of course, there's nothing wrong with protecting others.

An aside: I saw a woman on my last trip to the grocery store wearing an over the ear mask and disposable Nitrile gloves. She was frantic, seriously worried about getting the ChiCom flu as she picked up TP. (no joking - there was TP in the store last weekend.) I didn't have the heart to tell her that the mask and gloves do very little to protect her. The gloves are disposable because they are only used temporarily, very temporary. Back to dialysis protocol, a tech goes through three sets of gloves in five minutes when connecting a patient to a dialysis machine. Once you touch a surface with the glove, it's infected. It's not effective going to the grocery store, people are touching stuff all over the place and it is almost guaranteed that they would touch their face, eyes, ears or something that a bug will catch a hold of. Think of full bunny suit and then you are protected.

"But, this style of face mask does not stop breathing in anything."

No mask will keep all of the units of a virus out, or even all of the micro-droplets of moisture from someone else's breath. Did you know that?

It's a matter of stopping some of the tiny vapor droplets from someone else's breath from being ingested by you. Decrease the viral loads being ingested from other people.

But yes, a mask, if properly used, will keep the same virus-filled moisture from getting on other people nearly as much. Don't think absolute filter. There's no such thing in paper mask filters. Think baffles. They slow the mist down, so that it will fall downward more.

And yes, gloves can help if used correctly. I don't have time to go into that for now. At least half of the people out there should be able to figure it out with some forethought and practice.

This is really best done between two people as a team, but...

After using gloves, use the first glove to pull on the cuff of the other glove, pulling it inside-out off of the hand. Use the outside of the inside-out glove to pull the other glove inside-out, until it's off the hand. The pair of gloves should fall into the trash receptacle, which should then be sealed as well as feasible and carefully dumped outside in another trash receptacle. Then wash hands and sanitize doorknobs again before touching anything else. There's more but not time right now.
Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in anything and am only babbling. Do anything that I wrote about at your own risk.

"The gloves are disposable because they are only used temporarily, very temporary. Back to dialysis protocol, a tech goes through three sets of gloves in five minutes when connecting a patient to a dialysis machine. Once you touch a surface with the glove, it's infected."

That's worth showing here again, by the way, and very applicable to what the med tech is doing. It illustrates the level of risk involved and how easy contamination happens. Sincerely, thank you!

"It's not effective going to the grocery store, people are touching stuff all over the place and it is almost guaranteed that they would touch their face, eyes, ears or something that a bug will catch a hold of."

Well, no, it won't protect the herds of zombies around us. Wish we could save them all, but, well, see my tagline. :(

It will keep *some* of the zombie cooties off of my hands and out of my house, though, if I otherwise use the gloves properly. By the way, it's best to dispose of gloves, clothing and everything contaminated outdoors before entering the home. Then straight to the shower, and sanitize the shower and bathroom afterwards while wearing fresh, clean protection, bathroom door closed and window/exhaust fan open. Just be sure to avoid being publicly nude while doing it putting clothing and etc. in the laundry tub with a lid and full of warm water and laundry detergent outside.

Look, I've kept a large supply of those gloves (well, large from the perspective of a small family, a box of a hundred or so) for about ten years now. That's because we wore them for six of those years every time we did the unpleasant chore of emptying or servicing a travel travel trailer waste tank. Oh, and there were the times that deer mice got into the trailer or a shed (Hantavirus). Oh, and the endless sea of prairie dogs that were connected all the way across the Rockies (the Plague), our dog, etc.,... We only used cheaper nuisance dust masks for those chores involving pests, by the way. Without using them as well as we did, we probably would have been dead before now, thanks to the animal worshipers, HOA queens, local government regulators, gigantic, global NGOs, big corporations with their marketing claims about protective equipment and other groups trying to drive the rest of humanity into the ground.