SASKATOON -- As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, more and more people are choosing to wear gloves when they venture out into public, but a Saskatoon clinical microbiologist says people still need to be careful.
“If you have a glove on and it's contaminated, and you're touching your face, particularly your vulnerable areas like your eyes, your nose and your mouth. Just because you have a glove on doesn't necessarily mean it prevents you from moving an organism from another surface to yourself,” said Dr. Jospeh Blondeau, a clinical microbiologist at Royal University Hospital. That’s why when you’re done with your gloves, it’s important to remove them properly.
Blondeau said people should avoid touching the outside of the gloves and turn them inside out when taking them off. However, he said the key step is to wash your hands after removing the gloves.
He said germs can spread very quickly depending on what environments and what people you come into contract with.
"We touch surfaces so often and don't realize it and when we stop and think about it, we recognize how many points of contamination potentially exist in our day to day lives,” Blondeau said.
So, I tried an experiment to see how far germs can spread even in your own home. I wore rubber gloves and put red syrup on them to symbolize germs.
I went around my apartment making coffee, doing work on my laptop, making a call, turning on the television and switching on the lights. I even went out to my car to see how the syrup showed up on things like the steering wheel, gear shift and door handle.
I touched more than 40 different surfaces and objects while shooting.
Blondeau said sometimes germs can be dangerous.
"We know that we all carry microorganisms as a normal part of our bodies, and they're supposed to be there. But, under the right circumstances, those same microorganisms can actually become pathogens."
Those pathogens, otherwise known as “bad bugs” can be transmitted by shaking hands, hugging, coughing and sneezing, or by touching contaminated surfaces.
"Hand washing is still the simplest, most effective measurement that we have in order to reduce the spread of organisms. Decontaminating surfaces that are high touch surfaces: doorknobs, tables, light switches, electronics, all of those things that somebody else may have potentially touch that you might touch,” Blondeau said.
