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Why soap is preferable to bleach in the fight against coronavirus

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For Nearly 5,000 years, humans have concocted cleaning products, yet the simple combination of soap and water remains one of the strongest weapons against infectious diseases, including the novel coronavirus. Even so, when outbreaks like COVID-19 occur and panic sets in, people rush to buy all sorts of chemical cleaners, many of which are unnecessary or ineffective against viruses, the National Geographic website quotes.
Foam hand sanitizers are disappearing from store shelves, even though many lack the necessary amount of alcohol—at least 60 percent by volume—to kill viruses. In countries hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, photos show crews in hazmat suits spraying bleach solutions along public sidewalks or inside office buildings. Experts are dubious, however, of whether that’s necessary to neutralize the spread of the coronavirus.
Using bleach “is like using a bludgeon to swat a fly,” says Jane Greatorex, a virologist at Cambridge University. It can also corrode metal and lead to other respiratory health problems if inhaled too much over time.
“With bleach, if you put it on a surface with a lot of dirt, that dirt will eat up the bleach,” says Lisa Casanova, an environmental health scientist at Georgia State University. She and other experts instead recommend using milder acidic soaps, like dish soap, to easily sanitize a surface indoors and outdoors.
To fully understand why health officials keep coming back to soap, it helps to know how the coronavirus exists outside the body, and what early research is saying about how long the virus can linger on common surfaces.

The hard surfaces made for coronavirus
The primary way people become infected with the coronavirus is from person-to-person transmission. This close contact in the form of a hug, handshake, or being in a packed public space enables infected individuals to easily spread their respiratory droplets, which are typically sneezed or coughed.
But because respiratory droplets are heavy, they typically fall to the ground easily. Depending on where they land, they could persist on a surface before being touched by a hand that carries the virus to a nose or mouth, leading to infection.
All viruses are bits of genetic code bundled inside a collection of lipids and proteins, which can include a fat-based casing known as a viral envelope. Destroying an enveloped virus takes less effort than their non-enveloped compatriots, such as the stomach-busting norovirus, which can last for months on a surface. Enveloped viruses typically survive outside of a body for only a matter of days and are considered among the easiest to kill, because once their fragile exterior is broken down, they begin to degrade.
Yet every enveloped virus is different, and scientists around the world are aggressively researching SARS-CoV-2,to understand how it stacks up.
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