You’ve been told the same thing a million times: The best way to prevent the spread of coronavirus is to wash your hands.
It’s true. But why?
It’s because soap — regular soap, fancy honeysuckle soap, artisan soap, just any soap — absolutely annihilates viruses. It has to do with how the soap molecules interact with the virus.
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As Covid-19 cases in the US surge, there’s one consumer product critical to our great national battle to “flatten the curve,” or slow the pandemic: soap. Humble, ancient, cheap, effective soap.
Respiratory viruses — like the novel coronavirus, the flu, and the common cold — can be spread via our hands. If someone is sick, a hand can touch some mucus and viral particles will stick to the hand. If someone is well, hands act like sticky traps for viruses. We can pick up droplets that contain the virus, and they’ll stay on our hands, and perhaps enter our bodies if we touch our hands to our faces.
That’s why our hands are the front lines in the war against Covid-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing hands with soap and water as the top way to clean our hands. “But if soap and water are not available, using a hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol can help,” the CDC says.
The CDC prioritizes soap. Yet, per news reports, people have been stocking up and hoarding sanitizer. The sanitizer situation has grown absurd: The Atlantic reported on a man who sold a bottle of Purell on eBay for $138. Hand sanitizer containing over 60 percent alcohol works against Covid-19 and is a good option when you’re not near a sink. But it’s getting harder to find than a hypodermic needle in a haystack.
