‘Any old soap’ will do, just wash your hands

Wash your hands, wash your hands again, and wash your hands some more is the ongoing litany from health organisations from around the world in an effort to quell the spread of Covid-19.

But why this basic step in 2020?

Simply put, despite its rate of infection and ability to kill, the coronavirus has an incredible vulnerability – a fatty membrane which breaks down under “any old soap”.

That’s according to University of New South Wales’ School of Chemistry Professor Palli Thordarson, an expert in supramolecular chemistry and the assembly of nanoparticles, who noted on marketwatch.com that soap worked “better than alcohol and disinfectants at destroying the structure of viruses”.

“Soap dissolves the fat membrane, and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and ‘dies’, or rather it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive,” Thordarson said.

“Viruses can be active outside the body for hours, even days. Apart from alcohol and soap, antibacterial agents in those products don’t affect the virus structure much.

“Consequently, many antibacterial products are basically just an expensive version of soap in how they act on viruses,” he said.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that, to date, “studies have shown that there is no added health benefit for consumers [this does not include professionals in the healthcare setting] using soaps containing antibacterial ingredients compared with using plain soap”.

“As a result, the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] issued a final rule in September 2016 that 19 ingredients in common ‘antibacterial’ soaps, including triclosan, were no more effective than non-antibacterial soap and water and thus these products are no longer able to be marketed to the general public.

“This rule does not affect hand sanitisers, wipes, or antibacterial products used in healthcare settings,” stated the CDC.

The FDA stated on its website some “short-term animal studies have shown that exposure to high doses of triclosan is associated with a decrease in the levels of some thyroid hormones”, however the significance to human health was yet to be established.

What are the differences between the Covid-19 and flu viruses?

• The speed of transmission is an important point of difference between the two viruses. Influenza has a shorter median incubation period (the time from infection to appearance of symptoms) and a shorter serial interval (the time between successive cases) than Covid-19. The serial interval for Covid-19 is estimated to be five to six days, while for influenza, the serial interval is three days. This means that influenza can spread faster than Covid-19.
• Transmission in the first three to five days of illness, or potentially pre-symptomatic transmission – transmission of the virus before the appearance of symptoms – is a major driver of transmission for influenza. In contrast, while there are people who can shed Covid-19 24-48 hours prior to symptom onset, at present, this does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.
• The reproductive number – the number of secondary infections generated from one infected individual – is understood to be between two and 2.5 for Covid-19, higher than for influenza. However, estimates for both Covid-19 and influenza are very context and time-specific, making direct comparisons more difficult.
• Children are important drivers of influenza transmission in the community. For Covid-19, initial data indicates that children are less affected than adults and that clinical attack rates in the 0-19 age group are low. Further preliminary data from household transmission studies in China suggest that children are infected from adults, rather than vice versa. – World Health Organisation

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