Should We Be Wearing Gloves for Coronavirus Protection? Experts Explain

First we got good at washing our hands. Then we leaned into social distancing. Then we bought masks.

Now many people are wondering—should we be wearing gloves for coronavirus protection? If coronavirus can live on surfaces and travel on hands, would an extra layer of protection—like the ones health care professionals use—help keep us safe?

“There is no need for the public to wear gloves during their essential errands,” says Rachel Norton, a traveling critical-care nurse who works for NurseFly, a company that brings health care workers to areas with urgent staffing needs. “Gloves become just as dirty as, if not dirtier than, bare hands. Additionally, they provide a false sense of security to those who wear them, which could perpetuate the spread of the virus even further.”

That’s…not what I assumed. But Norton’s opinion is echoed by other medical experts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend glove usage for people who aren’t medical professionals.

Basically, gloves don’t protect from coronavirus the way masks do—it’s important to protect your mouth and nose because those are potential entry points. The issue with hands is that the virus can travel on them, which is why we wash them. If you do wear gloves, unless you're washing them every time you touch something (which isn't how gloves work) or changing them (that’s a lot of gloves), chances are you’re just spreading germs from place to place.

The moment a person wearing gloves touches a door handle or ring of keys, “the gloves become useless,” says Norton. “They turn into a vector for coronavirus, and people donning them can unintentionally contribute to the spread of COVID-19.” Think about it this way: When a doctor examines you, she puts on gloves just before she touches you, and then takes them off and throws them away the second she’s done. Now, imagine if your doctor was giving you an eye exam, then paused to pick up her phone or type on her computer, and then stuck her gloved fingers back in your eye.

Gloves can be a good measure for regular people—but only for emergencies, not for day-to-day precaution. “I think it’s important to remember that people should have gloves, especially when dealing with a sick family member with COVID-19,” says Shuhan He, M.D., cofounder of the online network Get Us PPE. “There is a large difference between using supplies when you go out without any clear contact with COVID-19, versus risk when you deal directly with someone with a high chance of having the disease. The key is that people should buy and use what they need. Just like people should buy and use toilet paper, but not keep a 10-year supply in their closet.”

His group, Get Us PPE, is an extraordinary online network that connects networks to bring PPE—personal protective equipment, including gloves and masks—to workers in need, and that advocates and facilitates PPE manufacturing. He says disposable gloves, especially during the shortage, should generally be allocated to essential workers. “Washable gloves could be quite useful for someone who is just looking for some protection when they go out and about,” he says. “For the material, it doesn’t really matter; any sort of physical barrier will do.” If you do wear gloves, you still need to wash your hands carefully after removing them.

Still feel like this antiglove energy might be a plot from Big Hand Sanitizer? Molly Lixey, a nurse in Michigan, made a viral video that breaks down why gloves are “fine” for normal people to wear, but illustrates that they can transmit the virus just as bare hands can.

There’s nothing technically wrong with wearing gloves. “Do whatever makes you feel safe, but remember—there’s some science here,” Lixey cautions. In other words—if you want to wear gloves, you can. But you can’t treat them as if they repel coronavirus, because they don’t. As Lixey says, “There’s no point in wearing gloves if you’re not going to wash your hands every time you touch something. There’s no point, friends.”

Instead of investing in gloves, Norton recommends, go back to basics. “Bare hands with frequent sanitization is the best method to prevent spreading and contracting coronavirus,” she says.

’Kay, so why do doctors wear gloves then?

Now, hold on just a sec, you might think, pointing a gloved finger. If gloves don’t stop the spread of coronavirus, why are there so many headlines about health care workers desperate for PPE, which includes gloves? If gloves help doctors stay safe from coronavirus, wouldn’t they help me? Shouldn’t I try to replicate what the most medically knowledgeable people are doing to stay safe?

Actually, no.

“If health care providers did not wear gloves, they would have to wash their hands every few minutes in order to prevent spreading it to their other PPE, patients, and clean patient equipment,” Norton explains. Basically: Health care providers don’t have special hand protection that you lack; they lack the ability to wash their hands every time they touch something. Also, as Norton points out, “Medical providers wore gloves for patient care before this pandemic as standard precautions against the biohazardous bodily fluids. They need to continue to wear gloves for those exact same reasons. That has not changed.”

The protective equipment you should really be focusing on, the experts say, is masks. “These are actually quite critical, and more so than gloves,” He says. "A widespread mask policy will become increasingly important as we try to transition from social distancing to a more normal semblance of society. It will be critical to wear masks when we go out to ensure we are not infecting others if we’re not even aware we’re infected. Wearing masks ensures that we keep essential workers to minimal exposure to ourselves when we go out. Gloves do not really have that same effect.”

If you do buy reusable gloves, are you taking them away from health care workers?

“Demand is unprecedented at this time, as every country is having issues with COVID and thus need PPE all at the same time,” says He. “It’s the classic ‘snugtoilet paper problem,’” meaning that when everyone scrambles to buy something at the same time, it runs out. The supply chain—i.e., the system of companies that use materials to make things like gloves and masks—breaks down.

This problem is putting essential workers in danger. “I have heard from nurses all over the country that they have been reduced to one surgical mask per shift, or even worse, per week,” Norton says. “New York City nurses are literally wearing garbage bags because they are out of protective gowns. Nurses in Michigan are out of Tylenol. This is not a joke—this is happening, and the United States needs to do better.” Grocery store workers, delivery people, and others who are on the front lines are also at greater physical risk if they don’t have access to appropriate PPE.

So is there a moral obligation to avoid buying gloves, or to donate any extra gloves that you own? “It depends,” says He. “Nitrile gloves are very useful for health care workers, but also grocery store workers, nursing home members, people who work closely with high-risk populations like homeless shelters or jails and prisons. We can’t forget these places, or COVID will spread. So I do usually advocate for these places to get the disposable gloves.”

If you do buy reusable gloves, the key, He says, is for people to “buy and use what they need.” The worst thing you could do is to hoard PPE.

Okay, but what if I will just feel better if I wear gloves?

If you do choose to wear gloves, there are best practices, according to the CDC guidelines for health care workers (you can also apply these tips to the reusable gloves that He recommends):

• Gloves should be the very last thing you put on.

• Gloves should fit snugly around the wrist.

• Take them off if they are torn.

• Never wash or reuse disposable gloves.

The CDC's guidelines for health care workers, for properly removing gloves

Generally, you need to treat your gloved hands as you would your ungloved hands—know that every time you touch something with gloved hands, like your cell phone or your car door, you may be using contaminated hands. And of course, you need to wash your hands after using gloves.

I’ve been seeing gloves everywhere...on the ground.

If you do decide to wear gloves, and you take them off before touching another thing to avoid spreading germs, that’s great! If you take them off and throw them directly on the ground in a public space, that's litter!

Highly populated areas are reporting a huge uptick in street trash in the form of disposable gloves that are being thrown on the ground. If you do that, you’re not helping keep yourself safe—you’re just littering, and potentially endangering sanitation workers.

If essential workers can risk their lives to keep us safe and healthy, we can do the brave, selfless, heroic thing…and throw our trash in the trash can.

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.

Originally Appeared on Glamour