How do soap and sanitizer differ in how they work? Which on is better in situations like now and why?

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How do soap and sanitizer differ in how they work? Which on is better in situations like now and why?

In: Chemistry

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fwiw: do a search on cv19 and it’s cell structure. Tl;Dr: fatty membranes. Soap disolves the fat more efficiently than alcohol.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Both work equally.

The coronavirus is protected by a lipid (fat) shell. Soap removes this shell. Alcohol does too. Both do. No shell, virus dies.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Soap lifts bad stuff off of your hands, sanitizer kills stuff on your hands.

Soap is Shaggy and Scooby dumping a big barrel of marbles on the floor so the bad guy slips and slides away, arms flailing. He isn’t necessarily dead, but he is far away from you and can’t hurt you anymore.

Sanitizer is Neo from the Matrix. It effortlessly kills everything in the room and leaves the dead bodies where they lie. They are still there, but dead now and can’t hurt you.

Deciding which one to use depends on the situation.

If you have access to soap and water, wash your hands. Especially if they are actually dirty or you sneezed gloopy globs all over them. Get the contaminants off your hands. It only works if washed correctly though.

If you can’t wash your hands, sanitizer will kill what it can reach. If you dipped them into a corona virus ward spit bucket first, it isn’t going to work. The contaminant layer needs to be extremely thin for the sanitizer to do its job.

Edit: a word

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you are talking about how they affect bacteria, soap doesn’t kill bacteria but does help to break up the biofilm that bacteria lays down to protect itself and hold itself on surfaces. So soaked washes away bacteria provided you use water to rinse it away.

Sanitizers like alcohol do directly kill bacteria and viruses, but they don’t necessarily work against biofilms they might be protecting those microbes from the sanitizer.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Purpose of soap isn’t to kill germs. It’s to remove them and their excrement from your hand by binding to oil and allowing the water to rinse if off and down the drain.

Sanitizer’s goal is to kill the germs as they lie on your hand. Germs are killed, but their bodies and fluids and excrements remain on your hand.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The general recommendations of the medical community, including the CDC, are to wash your hands with soap and water when it is available, and to use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol in situations where it is not available or impractical.

Hand sanitizer is generally less effective than soap and water on hands that are heavily soiled, that is to say, visibly dirty/noticeably greasy. People often also use insufficient amounts or remove it prematurely from their hands (although this can also be the case with soap). They also aren’t as effective for removing all forms of contamination and don’t kill all germs.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Soap sticks to greasy stuff and pulls it away when water runs over it. It’s better for the problem right now, because COVID-19 has greasy stuff on its outsides.

Sanitizer makes little living things die. Since COVID-19 isn’t really alive, it works a bit, but soap works much better. And there’s more soap around usually, so use soap first.