HAND SAFETY: SHOULD WE ALL WEAR GLOVES AGAINST COVID-19

Though the greatest site being attacked by Covid-19 is the lungs but the parts of the body to be more careful of are the hands (palms) and the nose (nostrils). An understanding of the meaning of risk helps us to understand which of the two parts to be given more protection. The hands pick up the virus more than the nose however the harm is less likely to occur at the hand compared to the nose - the real example of probability of hazard occurring and the likelihood of causing harm in the definition of risk.
Why should we given concern to our hand safety at this point? 1. The virus can survive for 4hours on copper, 24hours on cardboard, 2days on plastic and 3days on stainless steel. Meaning that the door handle you touch, the surface of table, the wall, the floor, the currency, the wrappings of snacks and food packages are more likely to be vector for the virus. A typical scenario of virus on every surfaces around us! Should we all wear gloves? The practical and workable answer is NO. You will only need gloves if you are a health care worker and such glove must be disposed properly and incinerated. To the rest of us, wearing a glove would increase the risk than solving the problem - everyone is expected to be trained before using any PPE because wrongly used PPE is more dangerous than no PPE. So what then is our defence: 1. Avoid handshake. 2. Have a pocket size hand sanitizer with you, sanitize your hands frequently. 3. Wash your hands as often as possible with soap and running water. 4. Disinfect surfaces regularly with Bleach, Izal, Dettol etc. Let us please treat this virus with more serious concern. It is a global pandemic, a very serious incidence in our lifetime. Do not compare it to Ebola, Lasser fever - they do not belong to the same category. So far over 200,000 deaths have been reported globally - after 6 months (Covid might stay for more 6months or 1years, either continously or at intervals). The death tolls and infection would have been worse if not for the extreme measures the global community have taken to curb it. Let us cooperate to stay alive and healthy against this virus. It would turn out to be the best managed global pandemic in the history of humanity and we should do our best to live to tell the story and not to be the story. Stay Safe.