I doubt anyone’s going to see this (and I’ve got the post notificationblocked so I won’t see if anyone does), but I wanted to address this reply.
This isn’t, like, a callout or anything, but there’s a lot of misinformation about antibiotics out there.
Antibacterials and antibiotics do not matter against viruses.
Bacteria are complete cells. They’re alive; if you put them in an environment that they like, they’ll peacefully reproduce until they run out of food. They’re generally big enough to see with a reasonably powerful microscope, because they have to carry around everything they need to stay alive and make more bacteria.
Viruses, on the other hand, are just a little bit of genetic material packaged up and tied with a bow. They can’t reproduce on their own; instead, they hijack the machinery of a living cell to make more copies of themselves. Since they don’t have to carry around anything but some genes and a way to get them into a cell, they’re much, much smaller- think “fleas on a dog” size comparisons.
Consequently, since these are such totally different things, things that work on one won’t consistently work on the other. Things labeled “antibiotic” or “antibacterial” contain chemicals that kill bacteria: for instance, penicillin works by screwing up the ability of bacteria to make their cell walls, so when they try to divide to make more bacteria they kind of fall apart. But viruses don’t care about that; they’re hanging out in your cells, and couldn’t care less about what happens to some bacteria somewhere.
This is why doctors don’t give you antibiotics for the flu or a cold. Both of those are caused by viruses, so antibiotics won’t do jack except possibly kill off the bacteria in your gut that you actually need to keep your digestive system happy.
(Fun fact, some public health professionals are actually a little bit leery about people outside of hospitals using antibacterial soap as a matter of course, because they’re worried it will lead to more bacteria evolving resistance to those chemicals.)
Coronavirus is, well, a virus. So you don’t need to go out and panic-hoard absolutely everything that says “antibacterial” on the bottle, which a lot of people will definitely be doing: even the cheapest off-brand bar soap will work just as well.
Soap works on this particular virus because it has a fat-based membrane around it that soap breaks down, while something like bleach is just so ridiculously nasty that it’ll destroy practically anything.
I’m also seeing a lot of people in the notes talking about vinegar, and while vinegar certainly kills some stuff I have no idea if it’ll kill coronavirus, or what concentration it has to be to do it reliably. 10% bleach, though, I can confirm will scorch the earth.
(SUPER don’t mix vinegar and bleach, BTW. That’s one of the many, many things bleach likes to react with to make horrible gas.)
romaincrisis
pixelskylines
janainaart
yousharknotpass
kaledo-art
baratheonpilled
stormborns
izzy806
