HOW HAZMAT SUITS THEMSELVES CAN CONTAMINATE MEDICAL WORKERS
Not a bad article. The achilles heel of PPE is indeed the removal process. Getting the suit off and disposed of without the outside of the suit coming into contact with any part of the body is really tough.
The most effective approach is to thoroughly decontaminate the outside of the suit before doffing it. But that generally requires specialty facilities and often specialty suits.
For an eight hour shift, a person normally needs 2 to 4 suits. The more elaborate the donning and doffing process, the more it eats into the time available for whatever work you’re trying to do.
Given the considerably reduced production rate of someone while actually wearing PPE, their production per day for a given procedure is often well under half that of a person doing the same task without IPPE. When you factor in donning and doffing time, etc.
There is also the fatigue factor. Working in PPE is much more tiring that the same duration and type of work done without it. Tired people make mistakes, including mistakes with how they use their PPE.
So if the workers can be contaminated by particles that have landed on their hazmat suits should they be taken off inefficiently, why wouldn’t they still be contaminated by the particles themselves landing on their clothing or skin while not wearing the suits?