I’m not going to argue with you. If food handlers are properly trained they will use gloves correctly. When I was working for a short while in food service, I double gloved; whenever I touched something other than food, or someone touched my gloves, they were immediately thrown away, with new ones put on. I know all about cross contamination, how to use gloves properly, etc. Worked in a medical foods manufacturing facility as well. We were scrupulous. We did have surprise inspections. But everyone was trained well. That is key. Agree with @BoneAppetite, that it is in fact aerosolized viral particles that are a big threat with Covid, unless of course a Covid positive person coughs into their hands, gloved or not. One hopes, if gloved, they’d change them after washing their hands first, and if ungloved, would wash hands, then re-glove. No guarantees either way.
Not to hassle anyone but this has started to resemble that classic argument: How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin?
I’m sorry for fueling this tangent.
What I saw this morning was two guys making scores of sandwiches with no PPE anywhere in sight. In 2018-2019, if either of them coughed while making those sandwiches it might be “innocent” and no one would get sick. Or, die. IMO, Covid19 changes that innocence to “threat”.
Yes, @RedJim, I feel the same way since Covid. Not to worry, don’t think there’s a tangent going on, @Auspicious, and I are just sparring a bit in a friendly way.
Gloves have been hard to find, and the last two boxes I scored were at 3x usual price.
Still? Wow. Are they not available online at reasonable prices? They’re all over the place here (NYC/Brooklyn) at more or less pre-pandemic pricing (I think, ~$7-8 for single boxes of 100 latex and nitrile) (As far as I recall pre-pandemic pricing anyway, and allowing for a couple of years of inflation. I’m still working on the boxes I bought a couple of years ago.) And while I haven’t been paying close attention to them (any of them, really) I think I’ve seen the thin poly foodservice gloves, too, at commensurately lower prices…
We go to lunch today and a drive around town and when we left it was forecast SW of Houston and when we got back it’s Louisiana.
“Bless it’s pointed little heads,” Jefferson Airplane reference, but the Hurricane Center uses the same global models that can’t predict your local weather correctly.
I had high hopes when the state of Texas started the mask mandate and it seemed to be working the last month or so. Not with convenience stores of course. Gas, beer, wine, cigarettes and energy drinks. With that crowd in my area you wouldn’t have any customers left if you tried to enforce it. Other stores like WM require masks upon entry but after that well they can take them off.
Stopped off at Spring Market today (they’ve taken over a lot of the old WM Express locations). They used to have a person up front telling people they had to wear masks to enter the store. Not anymore. After I was sixth in line with no one wearing a mask in front of me, when it was my turn and they left, I quietly asked the cashier if they didn’t require masks anymore. She looked from side to side to make sure no one was listening and said they’d had so many complaints and people threatening not to come back that the sign on the front door was it.
You really can’t blame them. I certainly wouldn’t want to confront someone over not wearing a mask. Not on their salary.
On the flip side ~ We go to Specs liquor store and I usually wait out in the car. I have yet to see anyone go in or come out of the store without a mask. I figure the last place anyone wants to get turned away from is the liquor store😀
Thank you for your contribution to the discussion here @Miss_belle
Weirdness prevails all over the country. Here in Michigan, students are starting to return to college campuses. Guess what’s happening…
Also they probably like wearing masks at the liquor store, so as not to be recognized there! That would definitely happen at some places I’m familiar with - they’d also have hats and sunglasses on, maybe a trench coat too 
In my area those would be church people 
Oh please don’t get me started on that…,
Same in the area I’m thinking of @Miss_belle…
DD2’s former Director’s daughter, in school at MIT, got appendicitis, tested negative for Covid, was able to have successful surgery, but tested positive post op, when she wasn’t recovering well. So far, her symptoms are a fever and extreme fatigue. Her roommates are gone, so she’s alone. If she develops any respiratory effects, her dad will fly out to be with her, thankfully.
Wearing a mask isn’t a political statement. It’s an I.Q. test.
Well dang, send me a case! A friend had picked up extra at normal price a few months ago and I’m just now on my last box of those so hadn’t been looking too far and wide. The current price at Cash & Carry/Smart Foodservice is $26.45 per box of 100 nitrile gloves. Usual price is as you say, around $7-8.
Latex gives me a rash so that’s a last resort. I guess the thin loose ones are fine for some things but I need dexterity for all my little bite sized pieces, packing bonbons and placing garnishes.
Oh well, I’ll just look at it like vanilla, every so often the price goes crazy but I need it anyway.
I think California, or some part of it, got over the glove mandate several years ago. Don’t feel like searching right now but it might have been motivated by the desire to lessen single use items and solid waste. I recall applauding them.
And there are exceptions, sushi chefs have developed an acceptable hand washing protocol for bare hand contact. I saw a version at a chocolate factory that was several steps but they had to have it so they could sprinkle those few grains of salt with precision as the truffles came out of the enrober.
I found it - July 2014 https://cchealth.org/eh/food/ca-glove-law.php .
Page 4.8 of https://www.smchealth.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/servsafe_handwashing_guidelines.pdf?1485884271 is relevant.
“Google Fu is strong in this one.” grin In general it seems that the use of gloves in food service is not driven by science. It’s driven by public perceptions that are ill-informed. It is another case of people confusing their own opinions with fact.
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-gloves-can-come-off-as-far-as-im-concerned/2012/06/11/gJQAR7YuXV_story.html . You can find the studies cited in the article in http://scholar. google.com .
The takeaway is wash your hands more when cooking at home, arrange your order of preparation to minimize cross-contamination risk, avoid fast food places where staff are dominated by teenagers, and be picky about other commercial food preparation. From the article “A clean hand is better than a dirty glove.”
That’s gotta have an effect on the gene pool…
Does she work in a non-clinical area? I work in the IT dept. of a large hospital, and the lack of clinical knowledge (and, let’s face it, common health care sense) in the IT area, for the most part, is astounding to me. I was drafted in there from a clinical/ancillary area. Likewise a lot of other departments that don’t interact with the clinical side, like Business offices, purchasing/materiels, facilities, etc. don’t necessarily need a lot of health care knowledge to perform a lot of the jobs.
Am I understanding your comment correctly?
That’s funny to me! I “practice” medicine, and when I call IT, I am usually left feeling they must think the reverse.
