Hello Rosemary,Regarding your question on classes, I am a lacemaker during the
rare occasions when I actually have some free time! But in my day to day life I
was a clinical microbiologist for 35 years before getting my certification in
the field of infection prevention and control. As you can imagine, our
profession has been completely immersed in the whole COVID-19 issue and the
most effective ways to prevent the spread of the virus for hospitals, nursing
homes, congregate living centers, as well as the average person living at home
and trying to get on with their lives. It has been quite a ride! I thought I
would offer my two cents to the discussion regarding lace classes. I would not
risk damaging the bobbins, pillow, or lace by trying to disinfect. What I would
recommend is class members sit at least 6 feet away from each other and mask.
Each lacemaker should have hand sanitizer available. If an instructor needs to
touch your pins or bobbins, they should sanitize their!
hands first. Correctly sanitized hands will not deposit the virus on
surfaces. When I was 12 years old and my grandmother taught me to tat, she
strongly emphasized cleaning your hands before tatting, and frequently during
tatting if spending more than 30 minutes at it. That helped to keep the lace
clean since it was constantly being handled. When I learned to hand quilt, I
received the same instruction-- always clean hands before starting and
frequently during the process to keep the thread and fabric clean and free from
sweat and skin oils. So even before COVID, clean hands for lacemaking was a
thing! You should sanitize your hands before starting, anyone who touches your
belongings should sanitize first, and as with anything, clean your hands when
you are done!In order for masks to work, people need to mask appropriately and
completely. That means BOTH nose and mouth must be completely covered. Do not
touch the mask while wearing it, or if you have to, then clean your h!
ands afterwards. Remember that wearing a mask below your nose does abs
olutely nothing. If that is how you plan to wear it, you might as well just
take it off. By the same token, if you want the hand sanitizer to work it must
be used correctly. I can't tell you the amount of sanitizer I have seen
completely wasted because it wasn't used correctly so it was ineffective. Use
about a quarter-sized dollop of alcohol sanitizer in the palm of your hand.
Briskly rub it on the ENTIRE SURFACE of both hands. That means front, back,
between fingers, thumbs, finger tips, and wrists. Every bit of the skin of both
hands should be wet. Continue rubbing the entire surface of the front and back
of both hands until they are dry. Do NOT blot away excess with a tissue. Rub
till they're dry. It should take 20-30 seconds. If they dry sooner, you
probably haven't used enough of the product. If it takes longer, chances are
you haven't spread it around sufficiently.Lastly, no one should come if they
are symptomatic. Even if they are sure it is just allergies or just a!
cold, symotoms= stay home. As far as gloves, we strongly discourage the use
of gloves unless you anticipate coming in contact with highly contaminated
objects or liquids. So healthcare personnel wear gloves in specific instances
while providing care for patients, but outside of that, gloves tend to do more
harm than good. Study after study show that people wearing gloves have a
false sense of security and end up with far higher levels of contamination on
their clothing, belongings, and skin than people who just clean their hands
after touching a potentially contaminated surface. Gloves become increasingly
permeable when they get wet-- and that includes the moisture from your hands
sweating inside the glove. So unless you are going to be exposed to blood or
are providing wound care or some such thing, frequent hand sanitizing is far
preferable to gloving.So if you communicated that everyone would need to
djstance appropriately, wear a mask correctly for the entire time t!
hey were in class, made sure everyone knew not to come if they had sym
ptoms, and had everyone hand sanituze upon entry and before touching anything
belonging to another, you should be able to have a class. Most people know all
this anyway, they just may need reminders about how to wear the mask and hand
sanitize correctly. Hope that helps!Elise in Maine-- CIC, M(ASCP)Sent from
my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
Original message From: "N.A. Neff"
Date: 8/14/20 5:17 PM (GMT-05:00) To: Rosemary ,
Arachne Subject: Re: [lace] Return to class Hi Rosemary,I am
not a teacher but I've kept up on some of the relative risks, and
theeffectiveness of some mitigation steps, and perhaps can offer a
fewsuggestions.Transmission via touching surfaces appears to be very rare for
this virus.If two things were done, everybody could handle everybody else's
bobbinswith very close to zero
