I don't know what the current thinking is on gloves, but I've been wearing either work gloves or disposable ones since this shit started in March. I've got a few very very old N95 masks, one that's a few months old and only used now and then, and a stash of the cheap disposable paper ones. The new mask sucks because it just doesn't cover my face, it's too damn small so it either exposes my nose or slips off my chin and exposes my mouth. I only wear it when I go into Walmart because it's always packed with people who either aren't wearing a mask or only have it covering part of their face. Any other time I use a paper one.
You'd think after more than half a year of this there would be a a ready supply of PPE out there, enough for everyone, but oh fuck NOOOOOOOO. Can't have that.
The most galling is that this was by fucking design, because orange fuckshit said "science is stoopid, me big braine no best, sicky cough go away soon, money me nao!".
From what I've read since the beginning, catching something from a surface is the least-likely way you'll get exposed. You're not going to absorb it through your skin, so gloves are to be used where you can change gloves, but can't wash your hands, so that you can remove your gloves and have clean hands underneath. The way you would catch it from touching something is by touching something, gloved or not, and then bringing it to your mouth, eyes, nose. To protect yourself, you'd either have to change gloves before touching your face, or washing your hands before touching your face.
From an updated page on the CDCs website:
"Spread from touching surfaces is not thought to be a common way that COVID-19 spreads"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...c77e28-13c3-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html
According to a study from UC Davis, it can actually live longer on gloves than on bare hands because skin has it's own microbial defenses (to a point).
Up through yesterday, when we come home from the grocery store, our process is to put the bags only on the floor (not the counters). One of us washes our hands, and opens the cabinet doors and refrigerator doors as necessary, and rearranges items so that the new "dirty" items go to the back, so we could still use anything that self-time-cleaned without touching dirty stuff, and then not using any of the cardboard items for a day (because that was frequently reported to be one of the shortest deactivation times). Anything else, we'd give at least three days, or wash the package. Last night, we bought hamburger buns for burgers. I opened the bag with my already-"dirty" hands, and she retrieved them with her "clean" hands. We leave all mail to decontaminate for a day. In case of packages that arrive, we rip open the package, and dump the contents out if they've spent enough time in transit to have self-cleaned (3-4 days).
However, we've realized that this has LIKELY been excessive, but didn't feel the real need to cut back until there was actual updated direction/clearances, and i *think* this most recent CDC update is enough to push us over the edge of cutting back on our defensive procedures.
As for masks, my mom made me 4 early on when I couldn't find any for sale anywhere, and I had literally donated ALL extra clothing and bedding, like, 2 weeks prior, so I'd have to cut into "good" clothes.
Since then, I've bought 7 more. This gets us through about 2 weeks of grocery store stops, her site-walks for work, and a couple other small incidental trips like Target, gas station, hardware store, etc. I have a 10-pack of disposable ones in my car in case of emergency, but we use reusable fabric ones otherwise. For the cost of disposable ones, the reusable ones are way way more comfortable on ym ears and well worth it. If I get 30-50 uses out of a $10-15 mask, I've saved that many masks from going into the landfill, kept them available for those that needed them, and like I said, are more comfortable on my ears. I can send a couple links if you'd like. We used up our N95 months ago, but don't find ourselves in situations where we don't feel safe enough. The very VERY few stops we make are all in pretty controlled environments, and people here are mostly compliant except for the oblivious "dick-noser", or the people that feel the need to pull down their mask, and shout into the gab under the plexiglass screen when talking to a cashier, because they are old and maybe aren't quite all-together there.