14:13
[In reply to Mint Chip]
Follow up too since theres a lot of stuff out there about hand sanitizer and washing your hands.
Hand Washing: Washing your hands helps because Coronavirus is surrounded by a layer of lipids (fat) which both protects it and contains the pathway it uses to infect humans. Soap dissolves this layer (its the same reason why they use dish soap to clean up birds in oil spills. Water can't effectively dissolve lipids or non-polar things like oil because they're non-polar. SOAP HOWEVER IS ALSO NON POLAR WHICH MEANS IT CAN DISSOLVE LIPIDS). This means simple soap both reduces the virus' protections, if not outright killing them, BUT ALSO DESTROYS THE MECHANISM THEY USE TO INFECT YOU! That plus the sheer mechanical motion of water and washing your hands just washes off a lot of the viruses even if it doesn't neutralize them. It's the single number one best defensive outside of just social isolating.
Hand Sanitizer: Hand Sanitizers are not all made equal. DO NOT JUST RELY ON HAND SANITIZER, IT HELPS BUT ITS LESS EFFECTIVE THAN WASHING YOUR HANDS. MOREOVER, THE HAND SANITIZER ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO ALCOHOL BASED AND IT HAS TO HAVE AN ALCOHOL CONCENTRATION OF AT LEAST 70% TO BE EFFECTIVE. Make sure you double check any hand sanitizer you might be buying. I've been keeping my eyes out and A LOT of hand sanitizers are either NOT ALCOHOL BASED or DO NOT HAVE AT LEAST 70% ALCOHOL. One I accidentally picked up has 62%, which means its not effective enough. Alcohol dissolves the virus membrane but it needs to be in high concentration. Hand Sanitizer is also basically just rubbing alcohol, a thickening agent, and MAYBE some scents or aloe vera to stop it from drying your hands out. If you don't have any hand sanitizer and cant find any, just buy some 70% rubbing alcohol and it'll have the exact same effect.