Many people are starting to wear a lot of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for their everyday activities including visiting their local grocery store for all essential supplies like the new “white gold” toilet paper. If you have wandered out of your at-home quarantine recently you probably have noticed that a large amount of people are wearing gloves and mask when perusing through Kroger or Publix. Something else you might have also noticed is that many people are incorrectly using both masks and gloves. So that’s why the Doctors at inTune Chiropractic Clinic are here to help guide you in the right direction on proper CDC and WHO recommendations for PPE use to keep you safe during this global Pandemic if you need to venture out of quarantine for supplies.

First and foremost, the best thing that you can do to help stop the spread of Covid-19 and help reduce the amount of time of this quarantine is to just STAY HOME! If we all work together and only go out when we really need to like going to the grocery store for supplies or coming to your Chiropractic appointment at our intensively cleaned and sterilized office, then this will all pass much quicker.

A little background into how Covid-19 actually spreads according to the CDC, is the virus is spread from person to person contact (within 6 feet) through respiratory droplets released from an infected persons cough or sneeze. It is also known that Covid-19 can be spread through touching an object or surface that has the virus on it and then proceeding to touch your mouth, nose, or eyes without properly washing your hands first. But the latter way is not the main way the virus is spreading! Now let us get into the proper use of gloves and masks, so that you know the best way to prevent yourself from getting sick.


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Originally, the CDC recommendation for wearing a mask was only if you are sick or think you may be sick in order to stop the spread from you to another person. Because of this current pandemic the CDC has changed its recommendation to wearing cloth masks when out and public and coming into contact with other people in order to slow the spread. See how I said wearing a cloth mask? That is because surgical masks and N95 masks should be strictly reserved for healthcare professionals who are in dire need of those PPE while on the front lines of their fight against this novel Coronavirus. What we have noticed is that many people are wearing N95 masks out at grocery stores or driving around in their cars. PLEASE, if you have surgical or N95 masks donate them to your local healthcare facility, they are in urgent need of these supplies. For the average everyday person a cloth mask made at home can suffice if there is a need to go out into public.

The CDC has a beautiful article explaining the proper way to wear a cloth mask, clean a cloth mask, and even tutorials into making your own at home cloth masks (Cloth Face Masks)

Now moving onto the recently hotly debated topic of whether you should wear gloves when out in public spaces and whether or not gloves will help protect you from contracting the virus. According to the CDC, WHO, and some other valuable sources including Health.com, the use of gloves by everyday people will NOT help prevent you from getting sick. Many healthcare professionals have stated that wearing gloves gives the person a false sense of security and will cause contamination to other objects and surfaces that were previously not contaminated. The best thing that you can do is to properly wash your hands for 20 seconds and do not touch your face especially after coming into contact with any objects or surfaces that you are unsure about how sterilized it is.

The CDC states there are only two times that a person should be wearing gloves and that is if they are cleaning and disinfecting their homes or if they are a healthcare professional who is dealing with a patient who is confirmed as a Covid-19 patient or suspected as a Covid-19 patient. For those worried if they touch something that has the virus on it, don’t fret! The virus cannot be absorbed through the skin, as long as you do not touch your face and properly wash your hands after touching said object you will be just fine!

If your still adamant about wearing gloves when you go out into public, there is a certain analogy I like to use to explain to people how to properly wear gloves and reduce the risk of cross-contamination. When wearing gloves, pretend that everything you touch is covered in feces…gross right? But it will help you reduce the risk of contaminating other objects with the virus. If you are wearing gloves and touching all the different things in the grocery stores the gloves have been contaminated or covered in “feces”. When you check out and still wearing the gloves you will contaminate any credit cards, wallets, purses or money that you touch. When you go out to your car and proceed to touch your keys and the door handles you are contaminating your car. When you continue to wear the gloves and drive home touching the car steering wheel your wheel is now contaminated. Congratulations! You have successfully covered your car and everything else you have touched with feces…figuratively, but you have successfully contaminated everything you have touched wearing those gloves. You may think you are being safe, but you are just contaminating more objects potentially with Covid-19. It is better to just wash your hands or if you cannot get to a sink, carry around a travel hand sanitizer and sanitize before touching any new objects or surfaces in order to reduce the spread of the virus.

Here is an info-graph from the CDC on proper glove use if you still want to wear gloves: Proper Glove Use. Remember to always dispose of gloves properly after use and do not just throw them on the parking lot ground for someone else to pick up and possibly become exposed to the virus.

Thank you for reading this post about proper PPE use for the everyday person, a few take away points is to just stay home as much as possible, do not touch your face, always properly wash your hands, and properly use the PPE the way that it is supposed to be used in order to stop further spreading this virus. We are still open and accepting patients, we have taken all the proper steps to clean and sanitize our office and we have staggered appointments so no two patients will be in the office at the same time. To schedule an appointment call us at 615.553.2268 or visit our website at inTune Chiropractic Clinic

If you have any further questions feel free to call us!

We are also now doing TeleHealth appointments so you do not even have to leave the comfort of your own home! We can virtually give you stretching/strengthening exercises, nutritional advice, and just general advice on how to live a healthy lifestyle, especially staying healthy while at home in quarantine!


Visit us at: inTune Chiropractic Clinic

Call us at: 615.553.2268

Like/Follow us @inTune_Chiropractic

For more CDC reccomendations visit: CDC Covid-19

More info on glove use: Should you Wear Gloves to the Grocery Store

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