3 ms·

It’s not even better. Washing with soap and water is effective but rubbing alcohol (Both 70% and 99%) takes seconds to kill coronavirus. It is almost instantane

It’s not even better. Washing with soap and water is effective but rubbing alcohol (Both 70% and 99%) takes seconds to kill coronavirus. It is almost instantaneous in terms of effectiveness. Soap and water take a few mins to reach the same level of effect as rubbing alcohol. There was a recent study by Stanford that measured the effectiveness of various cleaning methods.

gojomo 6y ago
Per the article, which seems thorough & authoritative, calling 73%-100% isopropyl alcohol solutions ‘rubbing alcohol’ is a misnomer. (This was news to me, but seems a precision important to respect when making hygienic recommendations.)
robbrown451 6y ago
That's not what I get from these articles, which say it takes 30 seconds for alcohol to kill it (on surfaces), while soap and water (with scrubbing) will do the trick with 20 seconds. https://www.uchealth.org/today/why-soap-and-water-work-better-than-hand-sanitizer-to-remove-the-coronavirus/ https://www.uchealth.org/today/why-soap-and-water-work-bette... https://www.uchealth.org/today/ins-and-outs-of-disinfecting-coronavirus/ https://www.uchealth.org/today/ins-and-outs-of-disinfecting-... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deadly-viruses-are-no-match-for-plain-old-soap-heres-the-science-behind-it-2020-03-08 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deadly-viruses-are-no-matc... If you've got a better reference I'd be interested in seeing it, but this is what I've found.
- remote_phone 6y ago
  https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30003-3/attachment/bfda5654-ca06-42d3-8beb-5f3aa5fc2df0/mmc1.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30003-3/... Table C lists the various disinfectants they tried including ethanol at 70%. All of them found undetectable levels of SARS-CoV-2 after 5 mins except hand soap, which took between 5 mins and 15 mins. I was off in my recollection that the study showed that alcohol killed the virus immediately. I may have confused that with a press conference several weeks ago but that data is probably suspect. All we know is that within 5 mins alcohol killed it to undetectable levels. Also note that the 20 second rule has never been tested. There is some value in washing in a sink with running water since it is physically removing the virus off your hands. And it’s been socialized that is will work in general for bacteria but no one has actually tested to see if 20 seconds of hand washing with soap will clean you of coronavirus specifically. The study above actually tested for coronavirus although I don’t think the soap test was for running water.
  - robbrown451 6y ago
    Interesting thanks for the link.
  - mtrower 6y ago
    This link is not at all working for me (brings up the Lancet site with no content). Is it possible to get a link to the actual file?

gojomo 6y ago

Per the article, which seems thorough & authoritative, calling 73%-100% isopropyl alcohol solutions ‘rubbing alcohol’ is a misnomer. (This was news to me, but seems a precision important to respect when making hygienic recommendations.)

robbrown451 6y ago

That's not what I get from these articles, which say it takes 30 seconds for alcohol to kill it (on surfaces), while soap and water (with scrubbing) will do the trick with 20 seconds. https://www.uchealth.org/today/why-soap-and-water-work-better-than-hand-sanitizer-to-remove-the-coronavirus/ https://www.uchealth.org/today/why-soap-and-water-work-bette... https://www.uchealth.org/today/ins-and-outs-of-disinfecting-coronavirus/ https://www.uchealth.org/today/ins-and-outs-of-disinfecting-... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deadly-viruses-are-no-match-for-plain-old-soap-heres-the-science-behind-it-2020-03-08 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deadly-viruses-are-no-matc... If you've got a better reference I'd be interested in seeing it, but this is what I've found.

remote_phone 6y ago
https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30003-3/attachment/bfda5654-ca06-42d3-8beb-5f3aa5fc2df0/mmc1.pdf https://www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30003-3/... Table C lists the various disinfectants they tried including ethanol at 70%. All of them found undetectable levels of SARS-CoV-2 after 5 mins except hand soap, which took between 5 mins and 15 mins. I was off in my recollection that the study showed that alcohol killed the virus immediately. I may have confused that with a press conference several weeks ago but that data is probably suspect. All we know is that within 5 mins alcohol killed it to undetectable levels. Also note that the 20 second rule has never been tested. There is some value in washing in a sink with running water since it is physically removing the virus off your hands. And it’s been socialized that is will work in general for bacteria but no one has actually tested to see if 20 seconds of hand washing with soap will clean you of coronavirus specifically. The study above actually tested for coronavirus although I don’t think the soap test was for running water.
- robbrown451 6y ago
  Interesting thanks for the link.
- mtrower 6y ago
  This link is not at all working for me (brings up the Lancet site with no content). Is it possible to get a link to the actual file?