As the country continues to battle the spread of the coronavirus, South Africans are urged not to wear gloves, but rather sanitise their hands regularly.
Health NGO, Right to Care, says the coronavirus can remain on gloves for a long period of time, therefore increasing the chance of infection and spreading of the virus.
The country is on level-4 of the nationwide lockdown and it is now mandatory to wear a mask when leaving your home. Senior Technical Advisor at Right to Care, Dr. Julia Turner, has also cautioned the public to avoid touching their masks.
People have been urged to sanitise their hands after taking off their mask and to also put it back on with sanitised hands.
Turner explains the reasoning behind the call not to wear gloves.
“Coronavirus sticks to gloves and can stay on there for a long time, so if someone’s wearing gloves and touching one thing then another they’re just potentially spreading coronavirus from one thing to another. If they touch something with their gloves and then they touch their face they’ll get coronavirus. So, its not really protecting you and you would ideally need to change those gloves after touching anything so that you don’t move it from one place to another. It’s actually better to just wash your hands because no one has enough gloves to change them after anything you touch.”
The graph below outlines the level 4 rules
The Department of Health says the number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in South Africa have increased by 304 to 5 951.
In a statement, the department says the number of fatalities from COVID-19 has risen by 13 bringing the total number of deaths to 116. The Western Cape has the most cases at 2 507, followed by Gauteng on 1 507.
More than 217 000 tests have been conducted in the country and over 9 000 tests were conducted in the last 24-hour period.
The graphics below has the latest COVID-19 statistics
