This nurse demonstrates just how fast germs spread even if you’re wearing gloves

(via: CNN) To stop the spread of coronavirus, many states are under stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions limit where you can go.But that doesn’t mean many well-meaning people may not wind up exposing themselves to germs unwittingly.On a recent trip to the grocery store, Molly Lixey, a former emergency room nurse in Saginaw, Michigan, told CNN she noticed a lot of people wearing gloves, which she thought was great.But what wasn’t so great? All the cross-contamination she saw.In an off-the-cuff Facebook video, Lixey decided to demonstrate just how quick and easy it is to spread germs at a grocery store.”I was doing some painting around the house and it hit me that paint would be a perfect medium to use to explain this (cross contamination),” she told CNN. “It terrifies me to think people believe they’re safe only because they are wearing gloves and not have them be aware that they could still be harming themselves or others,” she said.We know that coronavirus can spread through sneezes and coughs, and new research shows it can be passed from talking, or possibly even just breathing, which makes passing germs from object to object that much easier.In her video, Lixey simulates going to the grocery store and she starts off by putting gloves on her hands, grabbing her cell phone as she leaves her car, cleaning a shopping cart and grabbing some toilet paper. She uses a piece of cardboard as her cell phone and dips her fingers in a plate of paint to symbolize the germs on her hands as a result of grabbing toilet paper.

“But it’s (the germs) on my gloves, that’s fine right? It’s on my gloves,” she said in the video. “But now I’m walking along and my phone rings, so I’ve now touched my hands together a couple times, I reach for my phone and oh I have a text message from my husband.”Lixey continues to pretend she’s walking through the grocery store and as she imitates picking up new items to put in her cart, she dips her fingers back into the paint to mimic the germs she’s picking up throughout this process.”I understand as a nurse I have had extensive training in the use of PPE, but many people in the general public have not,” she said. “They are all so fearful right now they will do anything to protect themselves, but it’s important they do so properly. ”