Mask and glove mode accelerates infection - Academician of RAS

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The coronavirus COVID-19 does not persist on surfaces for a long time, so wearing gloves is not only useless, but also harmful: you can earn fungal diseases, Vitaly Zverev, head of the Department of Microbiology, Virology and Immunology of the Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Interfax.

"All experiments determining that the coronavirus lives 24-72 hours on surfaces, in fact, show not a live virus, but traces of its activity, the genome, the virus itself is not viable. Simply arranged viruses, such as poliomyelitis, can be very long, as long as you like, in principle. And such complex viruses - no, they do not live long, but decompose, "Zverev said.

Any gloves spoil the skin

In this regard, he noted, wearing gloves does not make sense, on the contrary, it is even harmful. "We collect on them everything we can - and fungi, and bacteria, and allergens, and we drag it all home, and in the same way - we drag it to the face. This is a senseless measure. And, of course, any gloves damage the skin, and this is our defense mechanism, part of the innate immune response, "Zverev explained.

According to the scientist, "the skin protects much better than gloves." "Now dermatitis will go, because gloves spoil the skin. It's good that it was cool, but now it will become hot - and what will happen to your hands, can you imagine? The same applies to antiseptics, they spoil the skin, destroy beneficial microflora," Zverev said.

On the street, a mask is not just useless, but harmful

He also spoke out against wearing protective masks on the street: "When I see that children are wearing masks on the street, I want to ask a question - who will treat their emphysema after wearing this mask? Or when people ride a bicycle in a mask … On the street the virus does not fly. If you maintain a social distance, nothing will be passed on to you."

According to him, the mask really needs to be worn in crowded places, in the subway, shops, "and on the street the mask is not just useless, but harmful."

“And after two hours it turns from a means of protection into a means of spreading infection: apart from coronavirus, we have a lot of everything else in the air - bacteria, fungi that settle on the mask and then can infect you. And grandmothers, for example, will not buy new masks, they will use one all the time, Zverev said.

The result of the mask and glove regime will be the growth of a number of diseases - Zverev

The scientist noted that he expects growth as a result of these measures of diseases such as pulmonary emphysema, bronchial asthma, fungal, allergic, bacterial diseases.

He questioned the feasibility of disinfecting the streets with various drugs. "By treating the city with these substances, we grow bacteria that will necessarily be resistant to them. Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics, they will develop resistance to disinfectants in the same way, and then some Pseudomonas aeruginosa gets into a medical clinic, and you do not use any sanitary methods from there. you won't, "said Zverev.