Does Hand Sanitizer Kills Covid-19
A Twitter user claimed that Hand Sanitizer is just an anti-bacterial and that Covid-19 is a virus, that hand sanitizer would do no effect on Covid-19. But the issue appeared to be a false claim, and was the deleted but not without causing confusion among social media, and the people who saw it. The U.S. Center for Disease control and Prevention says that hand sanitizers that has 60% alcohol can be used to help prevent contracting and spreading the virus.
I recently came across a tweet that was posted by a user called @jasminjoestar who tweeted “Hand sanitizer is antibacterial. The coronavirus is a virus. A bacteria and a virus is not the same. Wash your hands. Sanitizer will do nothing for the corona virus. Sincerely a scientist who is tired of this shit” dating back to (Mar 1, 2020).
Ever since COVID-19 emerged, hand sanitizer has been on high demand to help fight off COVID. The tweet is correct by pointing out the importance of washing the hands to minimize the risks getting COVID, but is making false claims by saying that hand sanitizer does not work against COVID-19. It is no suprise that a tweet making this claim would cause confusion and chaos to some extend among people, the tweet quickly gained more than 340,000 likes and was retweeted more than 100,000 times.
According to a 2019 ruling by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), certain products can be marked as hand sanitizer if they contain ethanol, isopropanol, or benzalkoniem as active ingredients.
Raina Maclntyre who is a professor of Global Biosecurity at UNSW Kirby institute, said that “viruses fall into two groups — those with an envelope and those without. The ones without are notoriously hard to kill. Fortunately, coronaviruses are enveloped, so will be killed by standard disinfection methods such as alcohol or bleach.”
Mary Louise McLaws , whom is a hand hygiene, and also a professor at UNSW says “Simply ethanol 70% or more, is the active antiviral ingredient and isopropyl alcohol, 60% or more, is an effective antibacterial”.
After the confusion stated spreading and getting so much attention, the Twitter user @jasminjoestar made an effort and helped clarify the issue by tweeting “I’m not a biochemist, never said i was. I also did clarify it, as i said, in this post. I’ve also been retweeting informative tweets that help prevention and raising awareness, making sure the timeline has the right information.”
Since hand sanitizer has been on high demand, it might be sometimes difficult to find, which is why I am recommending this do it yourself (DIY) recipe i found on parade.com by Stephanie Osmanski.
The ingredients are the following:
1 cup of 91% isopropyl alcohol
1/2 cup of aloe vera
15 props of essential oil (use tea tree or cinnamon for antibacterial properties).
Instructions:
1 cup of 91% isopropyl alcohol
1/2 cup of aloe vera
15 props of essential oil (use tea tree or cinnamon for
antibacterial properties).
Instructions:
“In a larger bowl, combine all ingredients and whisk until homogeneous gel is formed. Pour into squeeze, spray, or pump bottles and label. How easy is that!
Social media is here to stay, and there is a lot of wrong information that misleads people. It could be very easy to believe anything we see online, we just have to be aware so that we don’t fall victims to false news. I am pretty sure that @jasminjoestar learned her lesson after her misleading tweet got so much attention from the public, hopefully she sets an example for others.
resources:
Osmanski Stephanie, March 24, 2020, https://parade.com/1010530/stephanieosmanski/how-to-make-hand-sanitizer/. Accessed March, 6, 2021.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) April 11, 2019, https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-issues-final-rule-safety-and-effectiveness-consumer-hand-sanitizers, accessed March 2, 2021
Maclntyre Raina, https://youtu.be/VzoDVP2G2C8, https://kirby.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-raina-macintyre accessed March 2, 2021
McLaws, future4200 (borysses), Marc 2020, https://future4200.com/t/im-getting-rid-of-all-of-my-alcohol-and-making-hand-sanitiser-to-donate-to-hospitals/79116/12, accessed March 3, 2021.
Photo Credit:
Press associated, AUG 31, 2020. https://www.wcax.com/2020/08/31/artistic-hand-sanitizing-stations/, accessed March 2, 2021.
[jasmin] March 1, 2020, https://mobile.twitter.com/jasminjoestar accessed, March 2, 2021.
