Please stop wearing gloves in the grocery store.

Erica Kaufman West, MD
3 min readJun 16, 2020

As an infectious diseases physician I have been asked a lot of questions throughout this pandemic. I’ve never been a part of something that changes so rapidly, and it’s both exciting and terrifying. I’m always rereading websites to see if they’ve been updated, if new guidelines have been posted. I’m constantly double checking to see if advice I gave yesterday is suddenly outdated — or worse — wrong.

One thing that has never made sense to me from the beginning of this ordeal is wearing gloves in the grocery store. I understand wanting to protect yourself. I completely understand the urge to use hand sanitizer at the end of every aisle. But putting on gloves mystifies me.

This virus is spread through droplet transmission for the most part. There are some aerosolizing procedures in the hospital that we worry about, but mostly it’s one person’s spit getting into someone else’s eyes/nose/mouth. Traditionally, we think of that as coughing or sneezing on or around someone. But, as we’ve learned, talking and singing are wonderful ways to produce droplets. “Say it don’t spray it” talkers are the obvious culprits here, but even a hearty laugh can get some droplets going. And those droplets can fly — up to 100mph in one study. Those droplet are heavy by particle standards and typically fall with gravity within about, you guessed it, 6 feet.

Masks helps you keep your droplets to yourself. No one wants your droplets.

But then there are the gloves, which have nothing to do with droplets. Early on, at the end of March, I went to the grocery store and saw a well-intentioned gentleman and his lady friend check out in front of me. I packed the conveyor belt with the last of my items and pulled my hand sanitizer from my pocket. I hadn’t touched my face through the entire store. I hadn’t handled my phone in the store. All germs that I may have picked up on my hands stayed on my hands. Then the hand sanitizer, done the proper way for 20 seconds, removed the germs.

The gentleman in front of me had gloves on, his lovely lady did not. He handled all the groceries, as a gentleman should. He then removed his baseball hat and wiped his forehead with his forearm, obviously having worked up a sweat (it was a big cart load). He then, still wearing the dirty and contaminated gloves, put the hat back on and reached for his wallet. He pulled out his credit card, handed it to his lucky lady to hold for a second, then put his wallet away. He swiped his card, put it back in his wallet, and then proceeded to pack his cart up with the newly bagged groceries.

What was the point of those gloves?!??

Any germs on the gloves are now on his hat, possibly his forehead, definitely his wallet and credit card and most likely his partner’s hand, since she handled the credit card that he soiled. I get that he is worried SARS-CoV-2. I personally am more worried about antibiotic resistant bacteria in our meats. Walking by the meat section with blood tinged wrappings on meat from cows and pigs that have been pumped full of inappropriate antibiotics terrifies this infectious diseases doctor beyond COVID-19 fears. That’s the time to wear some gloves and promptly discard them after handling those nasty packages. But I digress.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has to get into your eyes/nose/mouth. If there were a bucket of the virus, go ahead and swirl your finger around in there. Heck, dip your whole hand in, and then immediately wash with soap and water. I’d probably wash twice, but we’d both be fine. SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t go under your nails, in your paper cut or crawl up your arm. You have to put it in your mouth. And SARS-CoV-2 isn’t afraid of a gloved hand. It’s going to sit on your gloved finger and wait for you to forget you’re wearing gloves and rub your eye. If you can’t avoid touching your face, it doesn’t much matter if you’ve got 6 pairs of gloves on. Self-innoculation will happen regardless.

So, please, stop wearing gloves in the grocery store. It’s giving you a false sense of security. Instead, focus all your efforts on not touching your phone or your face. And use some hand sanitizer when you’re done. Let’s all stay safe.

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Erica Kaufman West, MD

Infectious Diseases physician via Georgetown University School of Medicine and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, writer.