Asepsis 101

From Comments:

"I follow pretty strict aseptic procedure - what I learned in microbiology class 42 years ago... but *very* few others do that. If everybody wears a mask, there's no reason for lockdown or quarantine, because the mask can prevent you from passing on the virus to others, something that people just don't seem to get, and the other thing is that it stops you from touching your mouth and nose... and there are simple instructions for making masks from common household materials online."

Yes, but.

You learned this in a higher-level class when Reagan or Carter was president.
That was a different world then.

Dipshits from later generations, by actual firsthand observation:

Wearing mask and gloves, touching everything with said gloves, transmits virus to everything he touches (his car, cell phone, wallet, everything else).
Then, can't get cell phone screen to work with gloves on, so
a) pulls mask down
b) pulls infected contaminated glove off with mouth
c) touches infected contaminated cell phone screen with bare finger
d) puts glove back on and pulls up mask when finished.

Assume afterwards:
e) Can't figure out how he got Kung Flu, and asymptomatically carried and spread it to his entire office group, apartment complex, or dorm.



Fine for everyday use.
Not so bright with nitrile gloves and surgical
 masks, during a pandemic. Sorry if this is news
to you, Common Core grads.
"Virus on my fingers? Wait, whut?"

If you therefore want to require an IQ test and mandatory sterile procedure class, with 100% as benchmark for pass/fail, for being let out of quarantine, I will march in your parade and subscribe to your newsletter.

Otherwise, most people are too stupid to let loose without a keeper, or at minimum, a class on how to do this right run by Dominican nuns with 3' sections of rebar in lieu of rulers.

Hints For Morons:
Do whatever you want. We'll be on lockdown forever. Fuck everybody else, amirite?
Suture self.

Hints For Non-Morons:

After you put it on, the outside of the mask is contaminated.
After you wear them once, the gloves are contaminated.
PERIOD.

You can remove the mask after wearing it for prolonged periods, and put it inside a bag, if you're going to decontaminate/sterilize it, using heat or disinfectants. If you don't do that, don't bother wearing the mask at all, and revert to the instructions for Morons.

The gloves are single use. You may put them on, but once you touch things (doorhandles, products in stores, counter tops, etc.) out in the Big Wide Nasty Infectious World, you cannot touch or handle anything else from the Clean World (like your cell phone, car door handles, steering wheel, wallet, glasses, keys, money, debit card, etc.) You can take the gloves off*, discard them, and then and only then touch your personal items.
You must re-glove with a fresh pair of gloves before touching new contaminated things in the Big Wide Nasty Infectious World, and the same rules for putting them on and taking them off apply, EVERY TIME, WITHOUT FAIL.

Period.

Some of us had personal decon beaten into us by wearing MOPP-4 and going through a gas chamber a time or five, and some of us learned it in well-run microbio classes, like a our commenter. And a subset got it both ways. Those who didn't get it either way ought to pay serious attention.

Don't have a BOX (or BOXES) of gloves? Every day? For every trip outside your personal bubble? Until the lockdowns end?
You can't play this game.

We tried to tell you that long, long ago. Most of you don't have enough supplies for this.
Like the honey badger, a viral pandemic doesn't give a shit.
Do it right, or stay your ass home.

Or else you're going to infect people, and possibly kill some of them with your needless, thoughtless, callous stupidity.

This is why you can't have nice things, and why we're all, most of us (okay, most of you), locked down until further notice. Because Joe Average can't handle the truth, nor follow simple directions. This is what happens when stupid people breed, and there are no saber-toothed tigers handy 24/7 to winnow out the less-than-bright. Kung Flu is standing in for the tigers this year. Mind the pathogen, folks.

The problem is the Gilligans don't have signs on their heads, or we could simply throw them into the volcano right off, and be done with it. Instead, they'll kill us all without realizing it, and have that stupid look on their face after they realize they've done it, but too late to save the non-Gilligans.

And the very worst of them will blame the non-Gilligans for being susceptible.
Like they do.

But if you can master asepsis, and follow it, your chances of having a problem with Kung Flu approach 0% very rapidly.
Now, see if you can see both a way out of quarantine, and spot the Not-So-Hidden Flaw in this approach.







*(Approved glove removal method: Put your dominant hand in your non-dominant hand. Curl it slightly. Peel the dominant-hand glove near - but not under - the cuff, stripping it off that hand and rolling it with the non-dominant hand into a little ball. Take the ungloved hand, slip a finger under the cuff, and strip it off the other hand, turning it inside out, so the sweaty, but clean, inside is now the outside of the whole ball. You now have a dirty glove bundle you can touch with bare hands. Discard it appropriately in the trash. Which does not mean "wherever you feel like throwing it down". In the trash means in the trash, please. No one else wants to handle your nasty contaminated glove ball either.)