Has anyone seen the film of oil that may appear on the surface of the water when washing dishes? You add a little bit of washing liquid, and kind of like a popped balloon, the surface retreats to the edges of the sink pretty fast?
On the BBC yesterday they had a virologist who said the envelope would be destroyed by soap, sanitiser, alcohol and bleach.
Later there was a different expert, and she said that it would have to be anti viral specifically, anything with 60%+ alcohol.
I know this is getting into the details a little but I wondered about this discrepancy.
Small study about virus in mucus but hand washing without any soap at all works by physically removing the virus, alcohol based sanitizer by destroying it in place. The study found mucus allowed the virus in question to survive alcohol based gel for longer than expected until the mucus dried.
https://msphere.asm.org/content/4/5/e00474-19
Soap is a surfactant [0], and one of its most useful properties is that it reduces the reluctance of oils and fats to disperse in water, which is why soaps are useful at cleaning your dishes, hair, and skin. Many viruses like coronavirus (so called "enveloped" viruses) are only held together by a thin lipid (fatty) layer, so in the presence of soap and water, they basically just fall apart.
On the BBC yesterday they had a virologist who said the envelope would be destroyed by soap, sanitiser, alcohol and bleach.
Later there was a different expert, and she said that it would have to be anti viral specifically, anything with 60%+ alcohol.
I know this is getting into the details a little but I wondered about this discrepancy.