All the years I worked in the hospital, all the times I went into rooms with patients with highly infectious diseases, I never considered the act of gowning, gloving, and fitting the mask to filter every molecule of air that entered my lungs while in the room as anything more than what was needed at that moment. Little did I know those skills of containing the disease to that room would stand me in good stead during a global pandemic, the likes we only imagined in horror movies and books back then.

I see people in public with masks placed on their faces with huge gaps that allow free passage of air around the mask, gaps that allow free passage of virus around the mask. You may as well not be wearing a mask if that is how you do it. It is a waste of time and resources.

Gloves are a good idea if you keep your hands away from your face. This includes, answering your cell phone and holding it to your face as you exit the grocery store as I saw one woman do on the evening news. She touched her face with the phone, which she handled with the contaminated gloves on her hands. If the virus was on the glove, it transferred to her face. From there, it could make its way to her nose, mouth, or eyes as the woman again and again unwittingly touched her face after removing the gloves.