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This is stupid on two levels. The first is that obviously this guy is a crook, profiteering from a crisis.

The second is that hand sanitizer isn't even necessary, soap and water is better, and people paying $7 for a bottle of hand sanitizer are ignorant when they could just buy a bar of soap.




Hand sanitizer is really useful in office's and when you're out and about at the moment though.

You basically can't get out of an office bathroom without realistically touching several surfaces of questionable cleanliness for a contagious pathogen, for example.


You take a new paper towel and use it to open the door.


Takes 4 minutes of hand sanitizer to remove viruses.


Most sources [1] say that alcohol-based hand sanitizer can deactivate targetable viruses within 30s. The CDC recommendations for coronavirus are to apply a suitable amount and take at least 20s to spread it over your hands completely.

Coronavirus's are a class of viruses well known to be susceptible to deactivation by alcohol exposure [2].

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019567011...

2. https://www.livescience.com/how-long-coronavirus-last-surfac...


"Takes 4 minutes of hand sanitizer to remove viruses."

No it doesn't. The study you refer to was one specific virus (influenza-A) that simulated essentially coughing directly onto your hands. Where the virus was encased in large volume of mucus.

That isn't how people use sanitizer. It's for dry contact displacement, and there it is incredibly effective. You should still wash your hands when you can, of course, but these misleading claims aren't helping anything.


> soap and water is better

How about when you get off the subway and need to grab a quick lunch at small establishment that doesn't have bathrooms?

In NYC, many lunch places have only maybe 4-10 seats at a window or something. The law says they don't need to provide a bathroom, and they usually don't (no space).

Or even if you go to McDonald's or something, there's often a line of like 5 people each taking 10 minutes inside the single bathroom. (Welcome to New York.)

Hand sanitizer is literally the only way many times not to get the virus from your hands into your mouth when eating.


soap and water is better

Sanitizer is useful in situations where you can't wash your hands. Like when you get out of the subway system.


The virus can not pass through skin. Wear a mask, even a cheap fabric one if nothing else is available, to prevent yourself touching your face. Then wash your hands when you get to a bathroom.


I've tested this on myself. I keep touching my face to adjust the mask, so that wouldn't work for me.

On the other hand, putting gloves helps me avoid touching my face, so I'd go for that.


A fool and his money...


For home sure, but when you’re out hand sanitizer is very convenient.


A true capitalist, banning him outright is detrimental, just limit his markup and get done with it.




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