Protecting yourself with the best Medical Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is your first defense against harmful viruses, materials, and more. Whether you’re supplying your organization’s needs for Medical PPE or just wanting to keep your family safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now with COVID-19 and its variants spreading like wildfire and case numbers rising daily, PPE is more important than ever.
Medical Face Masks
The key feature of the coronavirus is respiratory symptoms, such as dry coughing, and it spreads primarily through droplets or discharges from the nose or mouth when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
This is why Medical Masks (and even protective medical face shields) are essential – for the infected and those around them.
While it does help to cover your cough or sneeze and face away from others, covering your mouth with your elbow or sleeve does not fully contain saliva droplets flung into the air.
A Medical Face mask keeps droplets contained, protecting those around you.
In addition, face masks protect healthy individuals by preventing them from breathing in the droplets of an infected person.
Medical Masks should be placed on your face correctly and disposed of properly.
How to put on a Medical Face Mask
- Clean your hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer before touching the mask.
- Remove a mask from the box and make sure there are no obvious tears or holes in either side of the mask.
- Determine which side of the mask is the top. The side of the mask that has a stiff bendable edge is the top and is meant to mold to the shape of your nose.
- Determine which side of the mask is the front. The colored side of the mask is usually the front and should face away from you, while the white side touches your face.
- Follow the instructions below for the type of mask you are using.
- Face Mask with Earloops: Hold the mask by the ear loops. Place a loop around each ear.
- Face Mask with Ties: Bring the mask to your nose level and place the ties over the crown of your head and secure with a bow.
- Mold or pinch the stiff edge to the shape of your nose.
- If using a face mask with ties: Then take the bottom ties, one in each hand, and secure with a bow at the nape of your neck.
- Pull the bottom of the mask over your mouth and chin.
How to remove a Medical Face Mask
- Clean your hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer before touching the mask. Avoid touching the front of the mask. The front of the mask is contaminated. Only touch the ear loops/ties/band. Follow the instructions below for the type of mask you are using.
- Face Mask with Earloops: Hold both of the ear loops and gently lift and remove the mask.
- Face Mask with Ties: Untie the bottom bow first then untie the top bow and pull the mask away from you as the ties are loosened.
- Throw the mask in the trash. Clean your hands with soap and water or hand sanitizer.
Protective Medical Gloves
According to the National Institutes of Health, the coronavirus can stay stable on surfaces.
On plastic and stainless steel, for example, scientists found viable traces of COVID-19 two to three days after exposure.
Coronavirus is a virus that cannot necessarily be killed by disinfecting surfaces the way you would kill germs.
Protective Medical Gloves are critical PPE because they prevent your hands from being exposed to the virus on surfaces.
We use our hands for everything, and because the virus can live without a host for quite some time, it’s astonishingly easy to spread the virus via touch.
Granted, touching someone with infected gloves is no better than touching them with your bare hands, but gloves do protect the wearer from exposure – as long as you remove and dispose of them properly.
How to remove Protective Medical Gloves
- Remove one glove at a time. Start by taking your non-dominant hand and pinching the outside of the glove at the wrist of your dominant hand.
- Stretch the glove away from your body and pull it inside out and off. Continue to grasp the now-removed glove with your non-dominant hand.
- Bunch up the glove in the palm of your still-gloved hand. Take care to not touch it with your bare hand. Close your fingers in a fist around the glove.
- Slide two fingers under the edge of the remaining glove at your inner wrist, not touching the outside.
- Using your two fingers as a hook, pull the remaining glove inside-out and off your hand, capturing the first glove inside. You should now have a little pocket containing the first glove.
- Safely dispose of the soiled gloves. Single-use gloves should not be re-worn. If you’ve been disinfecting your home, they can go in the trash.
- Disposable gloves are most effective when combined with proper hand hygiene, so always thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water after removing gloves.
Whether or not you are feeling sick or have COVID-19 symptoms, there is evidence that if you have the virus, you may be able to transmit it to others when you speak, cough, or sneeze. Wearing a Medical Mask and Protective Medical Gloves protect the people around you. If everyone combines wearing a Medical Mask and Protective Medical gloves while in public, combined with social distancing, the risk of spreading the coronavirus can be greatly reduced. Our hope is to one day see the world free of this global pandemic and that we are able to take our lives back into our hands…only glove-free.
Do your part to protect yourself and others by wearing proper Medical PPE such as Medical Face Masks, Protective Medical Gloves, Protective Face Shield, & Protective Medical Gowns. Follow your local guidelines and stay safe.
*This article is not meant to be taken as medical advice. Please follow the advice of your local health authorities when making decisions about your own health and the people around you.
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