Livre d'Or

Dear internet: we need to have a word about alcohol.

Alcohol is NOT a magic potion for warding off viruses!

Yes, in some circumstances, concentrated alcohol will destroy the Coronavirus, because it has a lipid coating (that is, in fact, the "corona" part of a corona virus). Vaguely waving alcohol around will not protect you from catching the disease, nor from transmitting the disease if you have it, nor from serious symptoms of the disease. If you've become impure from touching a taboo thing, touching alcohol won't make you holy again. If you soak an item covered in virus particles in alcohol for several minutes, then yes, probably most of the virus will be denatured. But that's not what you're doing if you squirt some magic fluid on your hands or a surface.

The main point of using alcohol is to make your hands and any surfaces you touch less dirty. Any dirt that has been touched by an infected person may have live virus particles in it that could infect another person. We use a lot of fancy Greco-Latin words like "hygiene" and "sanitizing", but basically all these words mean: in a potential pandemic, keeping yourself and your environment clean is the best protection you have. It's still not magic, you might be the cleanest person ever and you might still be unlucky and catch the disease, but the spread is likely to be a lot slower if everybody ups their cleaning game.

Alcohol is a good solvent. Alcohol mixed with water at about 75-80% concentration is an even better solvent. Yes, you read that right, slightly dilute alcohol is better than pure alcohol. A decade or so working in biological labs with cancer cells really drummed this into my brain. If you carefully clean a surface with a good solvent, most of the dirt, and hopefully most virus particles that have become attached to the surface via the sticky dirt, will be dissolved. If you merely put some alcohol on a dirty surface without actually removing the dirt, all you've done is make it easier to absorb the dirt through your membranes when you touch the dirty, wet surface and then touch your face. (Try not to touch your face. I know, it's basically impossible.)

Similarly, if you vaguely squirt some alcohol onto your hands, your hands will probably still have viruses on them that they have picked up from touching dirty surfaces. You need to actually use the alcohol to clean your hands thoroughly, making sure to include every crevice and fold of skin.

There is a massive pile of evidence showing that soap and water is better than alcohol for cleaning your hands and preventing infection spread. Alcohol-based hand gel is used in circumstances where proper washing with soap and water is infeasible for some reason. Don't "sanitize" your hands instead of washing them thoroughly, with soap, under running water. Sanitizing your hands is better than doing nothing, but it's worse than washing. And if you are in a situation where you can't wash your hands (most obvious example: in the middle of a journey by public transport), you still need to use the hand gel properly, by actually rubbing it across all parts of your hands and then drying them or allowing them to dry before touching any dirty surfaces. Don't wash your hands and then immediately grab the door handle or handrail or press the button when they're still wet (or even worse, still sticky with soap or gel), otherwise you will pick up more dirt than if you did nothing in the first place.

If you're a private individual, you can wash your hands with soap and water the same way you always do, just more frequently and more thoroughly. You do not need to stockpile hand gel, and you certainly don't need to attempt to make your own personal supply. My guess is you won't succeed anyway, unless you have fairly serious experience and equipment for dissolving alcohol in a gel. Same goes for antibacterial soap: yes, it is somewhat effective against the lipid-based corona which the virus shares in common with bacteria. But it's still not a magic potion, you still need to wash your hands thoroughly, rinse them thoroughly, and dry them thoroughly. Personally I disapprove of antibacterial soap for general use because it creates a selection pressure for resistance, but you might think that a ongoing pandemic is reason enough to make that tradeoff. But if you are using antibacterial soap, the main point is still that it is soap, which cleans things. You have to actually make the effort, not just buy the special protective potion.

Now, if you're someone with a skin condition and you can't safely use ordinary soap, you won't be able to do this, but you probably already have your own working alternative to soap and water. Nothing good will come of switching to alcohol-based or antibacterial products.

If you're someone who feels his masculinity is threatened by properly cleaning his own body and his environment, well, you're probably not going to listen to some scientifically trained female with a sense of social responsibility. But you might, just possibly, want to consider whether it's worth the risk of getting a nasty novel respiratory virus just to prove you're too manly for housework and personal hygiene.

When you have finished cleaning your hands or potentially dirty surfaces, you want to get rid of the wipe that you use to do this cleaning. Throw your paper towel or your chemical wipe or your rag or whatever it is away. Don't leave it lying around, covered in virus-bearing dirt that you removed from the offending surface. Yes, I know that goes against ecological principles, but again, you are making a trade-off between reducing the harm due to a pandemic, and wasting resources.

Also, if you end up in lock-down or self-isolation or your normal daily life goes to shit for whatever pandemic-related reason, you may well choose to drink a lot of alcohol to get through that situation. That's fine, that's your personal choice, but don't kid yourself that getting drunk will act as a magic anti-virus talisman because you read somewhere that alcohol kills viruses. My personal opinion is that if I'm facing a potential novel illness, I want my liver and my immune system to be in as good shape as possible, but obviously it's up to you.

And if you are feeling smugly superior because you're not "panicking" over something with a lower fatality rate than the common flu, well, I advise you to read and ponder this brilliant post by siderea about denial. And then consider improving your washing habits.