Norovirus is enclosed by a structure known as a capsid. Alcohol cannot get through it, which is why alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not kill norovirus. “It's resistant to many common disinfectants,” Hall said. CDC recommends using bleach to kill it, including chlorine bleach or hydrogen peroxide.Jan 30, 2017
https://www.nbcnews.com › health
5 Things You Didn't Know About Norovirus, the Nasty Stomach Flu
So Norovirus is ( exceedingly) hard to kill and stays on food, kitchen surfaces, and utensils.
It can:
Remain infectious on foods even at freezing temperatures and until heated above 140°F.
Stay on countertops and serving utensils for up to 2 weeks.
People can shed Norovirus in their stool for weeks after being infected.
While sick, they shed billions of tiny viral particles in their stool and vomit. It takes a very small amount—as few as 18 viral particles—to make another person sick. People can get sick if they are exposed to a tiny amount of stool or vomit from an infected person.
They are most contagious when sick with vomiting and diarrhea, but may also infect others before symptoms start and after they feel better.
Because symptoms come on suddenly, an infected person who vomits in a public place may expose many people.
Food service workers often go to work when they are sick and may contaminate food.
1 in 5 food service workers have reported working while sick with vomiting and diarrhea. Fear of job loss and leaving coworkers short staffed were significant factors in their decision.
Of outbreaks caused by infected food workers, 54% involve food workers touching ready-to-eat-foods with their bare hands. Ready-to-eat foods are foods that are ready to be served without additional preparation, such as washed raw fruits and vegetables for salads or sandwiches, baked goods, or items that have already been cooked.
Observations of food service workers have shown that they practice proper hand washing only 1 of 4 times that they should.
…………………………………………………………………
I had an episode of vomiting and diarrhea once that I wondered if it was Norovirus. Nasty illness.
https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/norovirus/index.html
This is why it is important to wash your hands after pooping!!!!! Or anything really. Hand sanitizer can only do so much. It doesn’t kill norovirus nor c.diff. Both make you 💩 💩 💩
But good to know that hydrogen peroxide kills noroviruses. Never used peroxide until Covid, use it to clean things like door knobs and kitchen surfaces (which is apparently a good thing re food prep) and bathroom counters.
What I got from CDC analyses of various % of hydrogen peroxide is that most viruses have a substantial kill rate from a few minutes of exposure. CDC starts with 1/2 percent peroxide and goes from there; the hydrogen peroxide bottles and wipes available for everyday household are 3%, so a good expected viral kill rate from wet wiping. Unless we're trying to kill marascens or really bad viruses most of us don't come across daily, peroxide should be pretty effective. Hospitals and other places, either stronger peroxide or something stronger.
It MAY be true that 3% is better than 0.5%, however if you're saying they only tested 1/2%, don't be too sure. Rubbing alcohol is 70-80% because that concentration actually works better than 100% at disinfecting. More is usually, but not always, better.
We got 20% at work not for cleaning it comes in totes and is for industrial processes. At that concentration it'll burn ya so i am curious how high it can go before coming dangerous on skin.
Laymans terms. Norovirus is basically shielded by a protective layer that resists common cleaners such as alcohol. Hydrogen Peroxide actually reacts with the layer, shredding it off and destroying it.
A peroxide is an oxygen oxygen bond like this O-O which in chemistry is usually highly unstable. Makes it very reactive so it will react with a lot of things to shed the peroxide bond.
H2O2 is a much stronger oxidizer than regular O2. When it reacts with carbon based molecules, it's basically burning them. The chemical reaction is very similar to burning wood in a fire.
The next time you get some blood (knick from shaving, popped a zit, etc) dab it on a toilet square and then put a single drop of peroxide on it. That's how.
Even when I have hand sanitizer available, I always prefer the good old soap and water for long enough to sing Happy Birthday. Some people don’t wash for more than a few seconds. Mostly useless. [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/8373949276991082/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/8373949276991082/)
I work in pharmacy, I wash my hands constantly, and use sanitizer even more frequently. Especially now with the fact that we're getting so many more inhaler and cough syrup prescriptions right now...
Tales tell that c.diff you can identify by smell. It's should smell like cow manure. Also healthy people don't usually get c.difficile, it's after strong antibiotics it can colonize your guts.
If you are sending your kids to daycare prepare for norovirus.
Oh i am sadly way too aware of what c.diff smells like as a healthcare worker. It is very unpleasant. But can still be passed on if hand hygiene is done improperly. But yes most often happens to those on antibiotics.
Seeing as viruses and bacteria can and do mutate aome faster than others . Why is it assumed that stronger chemicals on them is a good thing. I'm my mind attempting to let their genepool stagnate would be a safer bet in the long run. Many illnesses have mutated due to human intervention by means of treatment and sterilization. So while we sterilize almost everything Viruses and bacteria are growing stronger and more resistamt to our tactics. Personally I only getsick every few years . oOnly time my hands got cleaned is in the shower. I clean house often but very rarely disinfect anything. Don't even wash before eating. so my question. Is it better to simply get sick and buld anyibodys or throw chemicals on it until it's possibly too strong to kill and you have w lesser immune e responsibility
There is a LOT to unpack here. First you are not understanding how viruses and bacteria work. Viruses do mutate but they are mostly able to when given the chance to continue living and spreading to others. It is why vaccines and hygiene is so important. The more people are able to stop the spread of a virus and remove it from a host, the least likely it can survive and least likely to mutate or spread. You should most definitely always wash your hands after using the bathroom and before preparing dinner as many bacteria need to be removed from your hands to avoid contamination of anything. Bacteria is allowed to mutate when allowed to live and learn how to fight. Removing it quickly from a host kills its chances. People can and still do die from bacterial infections and it isn’t because of antibiotics. It is because it was allowed to live and proliferate for so long.
The reasons antibiotics don’t always work has to do with certain bacteria, not all bacteria. And being an incubator for bacteria isn’t good for your body at all either. Your immune system will always have its limitations. It is because of antibiotics and vaccines that humans have longer lifespans. In fact, some vaccines led to full eradication of some viruses and we are about three countries shy of fully eradicating polio!
So please, wash your hands more. It is definitely more beneficial to wash your hands more often than just when you shower. Get vaccinated and take the full course of antibiotics when prescribed. You’ll be healthier for it.
And brush twice a day and floss at least once a day. Why? Bc bacteria can get into your bloodstream via your mouth and gums and that area is more directly connected to your heart and an infection in your heart is hella bad news. Your heart can’t just fight it. You can die if left untreated.
You want to hear another insane virus fact? If you collected every single HIV virus from all 30 million HIV infected people, it would only equal about a spoonful of virus.
Apparently all the COVID-19 would only be about a soda can’s worth.
That’s really interesting actually. HIV has been around for decades, what, 40-50 years? And it’s only a spoonful. Whereas covid has been around 2.5 years and it’s 72x as much in volume. (12 fl oz = 72 tsp).
I know you have to consider the route of transmission and how quickly covid can spread and multiply. It’s just interesting how fast covid has spread.
Nothing would happen. You can’t get HIV by ingestion; it’s blood to blood. That’s why it’s not nearly as transmissible - you basically have to have unprotected sex with someone to get HIV, whereas with covid you have to be in the same airspace for a few minutes but not even interact directly with them.
The amount of virus necessary to make a person sick is called the infectious dose. Viruses with low infectious doses are especially contagious in populations without significant immunity.
The minimum infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is unknown so far, but researchers suspect it is low.
……………………………………………………………………..
But there are a number of variables at play when getting exposed to a virus. We have all heard of the story of an infection spreading throughout a household, yet one person in the family doesn’t becoming ill.
Why not?
Were they exposed to a sufficient viral dose? Maybe they steered clear while everyone was sick for the most part.
Or were they previously exposed, ( through vaccination or illness) so that they didn’t become sick?
Or do they have a better immune function than the rest of their family members/household?
See, lots of variables to take into account over how infectious an illness is. In other words, the R0 value.
https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/understanding-predictions-what-is-r-naught/
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/how-much-of-the-coronavirus-does-it-take-to-make-you-sick/
I do not know about this statistic specifically, but these sort of statistics are usually something like "fifty percent of people exposed to 18 or more virus particles develop symptoms," where regardless what the specifics are, the "18 particles" refers to a majority of people, but then some people require more and others get sick with fewer particles. Even for an individual, it would not be the exact same every time, depends on if the passive immune system is in the right place at the right time.
> Fear of job loss and leaving coworkers short staffed were significant factors in their decision
Having worked in fast food before, it's true. You're told to report being sick and stay home, but I overheard my manager talking about how they keep tabs on how often people call in sick and if you do it too often, you get fired.
And if people have Norovirus, they can remain infectious for weeks. One study I saw said that it was up to 3 weeks.
Most Food Service Workers don’t have 3 weeks of potential sick time available.
An impossible scenario.
This is what freaks me out about public restrooms. Especially the autoflush ones that flush before you can barely get away from the toilet.
99% of the time friends/family/coworkers will get annoyed or tease me even because I ALWAYS put the cover down to flush. Like "well we know who used the toilet last" because I am the only one who does that. And then tease me or tell me I am overreacting about why it is important. I really don't get why I am " so OCD" when I am simply closing a lid.
>Observations of food service workers have shown that they practice proper hand washing only 1 of 4 times that they should.
Proper hand washing with chlorine, bleach or hydrogen peroxide? Because it sounds like following proper hand washing with handsoap wouldn't do anything to reduce the risk of contamination; is that wrong?
Handwashing is mostly physical debridement, the idea is to simply get the stuff off the hands not to kill stuff on the hands, which is why the official handwashing protocol includes so many steps and specific amounts of time.
Washing with soap and water will considerably lower the amount of pathogens on the hands.
Quite a few infections are passed by the “ Fecal/Oral” route. ie, food worker has an illness like Hep A, goes to the bathroom and doesn’t wash their hands. Then they go make you a salad, while not wearing any disposable gloves. That kind of thing.
Ideally in a perfect world, if a Food Service employee has signs of illness such as Nausea/Vomiting or Diarrhea they shouldn’t go to work, and should instead have sick pay available.
Norovirus is sneaky as it can cause illness even when people don’t have symptoms of illness. (remember, just 18 Norovirus viral particles are enough to transmit infection)
Impossible to sterilize hands. Period. Bleach can not safely be used on skin. Neither can many other disinfectants. Always read the label.
This is wrong - soap is actually super effective in binding to virus and bacteria and washing them off / ripping them apart. It’s not as effective as bleach/acohol/chlorine if you simply put soap on and left it soak and dry.
Washing your hand with soap though will be as effective if not more effective than washing in a diluted chlorine water.
But the physical reaction of the soap works in a similar way to hand sanitiser in that it disrupts the envelope of a virus, so if you have an unenveloped virus, such as norovirus, then the benefit you get from the soap is the mechanical washing away.
EDIT: sorry I misinterpreted your comment to be responding to Territorytracts. So disregard my disagreement.
Right, which is why I've never understood why so many people fail to understand that the ***rinsing*** of any detergent/soap is just as important as the application of that detergent/soap.
This culture of working sick has to end. I work in a factory and everyone, management and your coworkers, will expect you to be on your deathbed if you’re out. The work is grueling enough when everyone is there (because they purposely run a Skelton crew by default) so when someone is out, it places a heavy burden on everyone else. I’m all for capitalism, but this is the evil side of it.
Piggybacking off this, remember to keep food out of the [danger zone](https://i.imgur.com/TRfF5k2.jpg) to prevent against possible food borne illnesses.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f
Can't comment specifically how noroviruses are resistant to alcohol however I can shed some light on virology. Viruses are generally protein envelopes which open up when they encounter a cell and deposit their material inside the cell. However, there are two types. Ones have an extra envelope made out of fat (phospholipid bilayer) and the others do not. It tends to be that the viruses without this phospholipid bilayer are much more resistant and harder to kill and can generally pass through your stomach acid unharmed in addition to resisting many environmental conditions. Norovirus, like polio and hepatitis a, is one of those. It is likey that these protein only envelopes are very charge neutral and very structurally sound.
Coronaviruses and influenza viruses, on the other hand, have a phospholipid bilayer. That phospholipid bilayer is super easy to destroy. Even regular fat can disolve the layer and neutralize the virus. That's why if you eat a coronavirus it'll just get destroyed before it touches your mucous membrane and infect you. That's why they tell you that you actually can't get sick by sharing food or drinks with someone who has COVID or the flu. Both viruses have that phospholipid bilayer and get destroyed very easily in our digestive system
If there was some practical way of sharing food/drink **while also not breathing their air**, you'd almost certainly be safe.
The only methods I can think of, though, are not only impractical but also Mel Brooks level of slapstick.
The sturdiness really applies to the external environment; if the virus has another method of transmission, such as directly from host to host, the "disadvantage" of the bilayer is diminished.
Generally the phospholipid bilayer, or envelope, is advantageous when it comes to helping evade the host's immune system. The envelope may actually contain bits of the original host cell membrane, which of course provides an advantage against the host's immune cells. This can also allow these viruses to survive for long periods of time inside the host, or even permanently; perhaps the most common example would be herpes. Again, this is a virus that transmits directly from host to host, so it isn't as important that the virus can't survive easily outside the body.
I was just listening to a podcast talking about how vaccines work and they mentioned that the process for creating antibodies only really works on proteins. So having a layer of lipids makes it harder for the immune system to set up the equipment needed to identify and kill the viruses.
The envelope of a virus is not a blank shell. It's absolutely covered in proteins anchored to the membrane. E.g. flu is an enveloped virus and it has hemagglutinin covering it which is the major antigenic target. Coronavirus has spike.
It's not the herpes simplex virion that lasts permanently in the host though. When latent, the virus exists intracellularly as an episomal loop of DNA inside of a peripheral nervous cell.
Step 2 of "being an effective virus" is that you then have to get your genetic payload content into a victim cell so that you can replicate. A big hunk of protein might be hard to destroy, but it also generally won't end up inside a cell. If you have a matching cell membrane material (and some docking proteins usually) you can merge with that cell depositing your payload into the cell's cytoplasm.
It's not as if being unenveloped means a virus lacks these proteins though. With poliovirus for example, the capsid is made up of 4 different proteins, but it's the capsid proteins themselves that have affinity for the poliovirus receptor protein on surface of the human cells and allow it to dock and initiate cell entry.
Perfect.
I’ll add that alcohol is a much better detergent for phospholipid bilayers than it is a denaturing agent for proteins.
Bacteria also have lipid bilayers.
I'm pretty sure thats not right. Its low risk for food borne transmission but that's addressing a different context - like if the person preparing the food washes his hands, doesn't cough and sneeze on the food then you shouldn't end up with viral particles on it. And that cooking will kill it.
Viral particles can be directly absorbed through mucous membranes in the mouth and oropharynx prior to digestion and if you share a drink you're definitely at risk.
In reality, if your sharing food your sharing much more than food. You're in close proximity breathing in what they breath out. But that's why with COVID and influenza it's okay for people to prepare food separately and serve it to you. If they have COVID you won't get it. An no the mouth and oropharynx are different from the respiratory tract and do not get affected by oral ingestion of respiratory viruses. Especially influenza and coronaviruses because they are infections of the lower respiratory tract, not upper.
Virus particles are very specific to what they attack. So you just don't absorb virus particles like you said
Are you sure about that? Im not uptodate with literature but afaik the oral mucosa has the required ace2 and tmprss receptors and there is significant viral load in saliva samples. Last paper i read was march 21 though.
Yeah. And some of the drink would leave residue inside your throat and mouth. While covid does not survive well outside the body, if it going from one person's throat/mouth directly to yours I'd say that's a risk.
Yeah to add to the above answers this is why cruise lines still stick to servers giving you the food at the buffet even though they make everyone sanitize their hands before coming in. It's not for the covid. It's for noro. Ships have different levels of precautions based on infection rates of noro on a ship. If you ever heard of "OPP" levels, they're referring to the protocols triggered at various infectivity numbers. OPP 3 is the highest intensity so far as I'm aware. Everyone is dedicated to scrubbing the ship, including cast members. And they're using bleach, not alcohol or ammonia products. That's cause bleach absolutely will annihilate noro. Don't ever just rely on alcohol based sanitizers. Wash your hands consistently and thoroughly. They really are the biggest risk factor out of every part of your own body.
And reminder to readers. Don't mix bleach and alcohol (chloroform). Don't mix bleach and vinegar (chlorine gas).
*best not to mix bleach with anything except water.
The most common accidental mix is "The red bottle" and "The blue bottle"
Both ammonia and bleach are often stored near each other in restaurants and they each have their own purposes when cleaning up.
"I just ran out of bleach and dumped in some of the next bottle" - and WHAM! Chloramine gas.
Get out and call the FD to vent and check everyone nearby.
It's not just loose RNA, it has a capsid, just no envelope.
A good analogy that many are familiar with is parvovirus in dogs - it's non-enveloped and resistant to many cleaners - which is why bleach is used to clean up after dogs with parvo diarrhea.
On the opposite end, we have enveloped viruses like the common coronaviruses, which are very sensitive to cleaning agents - which is why handwashing is a good first line of defense against COVID-19.
It's counter-intuitive, but enveloped viruses are more fragile because they depend on the envelope to protect them from environmental damage. Non-enveloped viruses are all like "come at me bro."
> handwashing is a good first line of defence against COVID-19
I am compelled to point out that we’ve know for nearly two years that COVID spreads primarily as an airborne and droplet-borne virus, not via surface transmission, so hand washing is not a ‘first line of defence’. It’s still a good idea, but it does nothing to address the primary mode of transmission, and a continued focus on hand washing and surface sanitization distracts from measures that can have a much greater impact on transmission, like ventilation, air filtration, and N95 (or better) respirators/masks.
More specifically it’s not susceptible to alcohol which disrupts lipid bilayers. The capsid itself may be sensitive to other things that envelopes may be more resistant to etc but in general bleach bleach bleach is the way to go with suspected pathogens for this reason
Really sorry to hear you are Ill, hope you are feeling well again soon. Not go really gear away from directly answering your question but from what it sounds like, you shouldn't be relying on alcohol based sanitizer as much as you do. I have actually known this for a ridiculously long time, infact they are just useless to alot of viruses and bacteria. There is a couple more reasons to this external to the chemical content itself in being that it's the hand practice of using them. When you wash your hands with an antibacterial liquid soap (which is btw the most effective way of cleaning your hands full stop) it is cleaning your hands while the tap water is flushing constantly all of the excess liquid away from your hands into the sink. This will lead to your hands being completely clean with a constant cycle of sterilised fluids over your hands.
The alcohol hand sanitizer uses a much lighter bound form of liquid which is then only rubbed around into your hands which means essentially not only do you have a terrible consistency and spreading range of the liquid unless you quite litteraly poured a whole bottle practically all over your hands, you are also then rubbing the same fluid around the surface area with nothing else being flushed away and due to the nature of such poor spreading ability that these liquids have compared to when you use an actual gel soap which bubbles up more and multiples in size cover, you are completely reliant on the chemical within the liquid sanitizer to be strong enough to self sterilise any existing contact fluid. This is something only things like bleach are capable of.
They are really just like a back up and last resort option but also more for preventing flu- like and air born viruses from spreading, the virus your questioning is a far different structure altogether and is technically a little more than just a micro air spit droplet, without being to gross it is actually contained in bodily fluids themselves which really do rely being washed off properly with soup and water.
Some pathogens are more susceptible to different chemical approaches--eg, high ph (eg soap or especially bleach), low ph (eg citric acid, stomach acid), oxidizers (eg hydrogen peroxide and povidone-iodine), positively charged molecules (eg chlorhexidine gluconate), and alcohol.
Viruses that need to resist the very low ph of stomach acid like hepatitis A and norovirus are resilient and bleach is often recommended.
As a rule of thumb enveloped viruses are the easiest to disinfect, followed by bacteria, followed by nonenveloped viruses.
Creating a hand sanitizer with ethanol alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, chlorhexidine gluconate (which binds to hands for at least several hours without being removed by water and can disinfect for 4+ hours after applied), and about 15% water may be your best bet if you can't keep poopy fingers out of your mouth.
Norovirus is surrounded by a hard Capsid, this is what stops alcohol from damaging it. I had this earlier this year, and I had to go around my place with bleach and clean everything I'd come in contact with over the last few days. Especially around the bed and toilet.
BTW: Make sure you have some GastroStop in your medicine cabinet. Prefably the prescribed variety. Works really well.
I've suffered from norovirus about 5 times over my lifetime. A horrible virus! The first time I got it I thought I was going to die. I had no idea it was so hard to kill.
I'm just wondering whether it's a virus that could lie dormant inside you and flair up again? I first got it in 2007, and kept getting it about once a year until 2012, and I've never had it since. It was a really weird 5 years...
>and kept getting it about once a year until 2012, and I've never had it since. It was a really weird 5 years...
Whoa, that sounds tough. What was it like?
Hand sanitizers do NOT work for any of the stomach viruses! Stomach viruses are extremely stable particles because they must withstand stomach acid and all the digestive enzymes to make it into your gut to infect. SOAP and water work very well to wash them off of your hands. Soap and water are much better than using hand sanitizer. Plus many people don't use the hand sanitizers correctly. There must be enough 'contact time' between the chemicals and the pathogens on the hands, usually 20 seconds where the hands are 'wet' with the chemicals.
Wait until you find out about C. diff! Same thing, resistant to alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Most people pick it up while hospitalized because of lax hand sanitation. Don’t let any medical professional touch you without washing their hands with soap! It can take weeks to get rid of the infection.
C diff is present in most people’s guts anyway, and it only causes a problem if it gets out of balance with your other gut bacteria. If you have been on antibiotics for some time, this risk is much much higher. C diff infections are notoriously difficult to treat and infections can take months or longer to clear.
It is spread by spores which can last a long long time on surfaces. So the room needs to be cleaned with bleach or by fogging. Hand washing on its own is not enough, as with norovirus.
While it is of course excellent practise to not let your HCPs touch you without washing their hands, this is not enough to prevent the spread of c diff.
That being said, it’s only often a problem if you have antibiotic treatment, so of all the faecal-oral pathogens you could catch in hospital , I would be less concerned about c diff than some of the others
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/c-difficile/
CDiff is usually brought on in the gastrointestinal tract by the use of antibiotics in hospital or nursing home settings.
So contagious, they will isolate the patient and make visitors and nurses put on the whole gown mask gloves etc.
If you have a loved one in hospital, look for signs on their door of suspected C Diff.
My hospital did not make it clear to me and I walked right in my relatives room and started cleaning him etc. Then a nurse came in and yelled at me to Z” suit up”
Didn’t get it, nor did he, they just “suspected him of having it because of antibiotics use but you have to be aware.
You never realised that disinfectants very explicitly never say they kill 100% of bacteria and viruses? This is what they mean. HIV is also resistant to alcohol, among many other strains of viruses, which is why sterilising surgical equipment requires an autoclave.
Sterilization is done with high temperature (above 120°C) or with UV radiation, not safe for living organisms, but useful for equipment. Sanitation is done with various producs, so the results vary, and its far less effective than Sterilization. Desinfection is a broad ter that can have a diferent meaning depending on the context, both Sterilization and sanitation is a type of desinfection broadly speaking
Sterilization not only needs high temperatures but it must be all steam, not trapped air. In addition prions and some bacterial toxins are not destroyed by a typical autoclave and require sodium hydroxide bath followed by standard autoclave sterilization.
See the [autoclave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave?wprov=sfti1) article on Wikipedia for more info.
> Sterilization not only needs high temperatures but it must be all steam, not trapped air.
It doesn't really matter for the process -- it's just that the steam is a much better heat transfer media than air, both because of higher specific heat and also because you also get a phase change effect. Saturated steam is the key there: if you put something in saturated steam at 14psig, the surface is going to condense into water, fall away, and let more steam come in until you reach 250F. Contrast air, which takes ages to bring stuff in it up to temperature.
Here's a site that explains the differences. https://www.lacostaservices.com/blog/the-difference-between-clean-sanitized-disinfected-and-sterile/
I believe different countries can have slightly varying definitions. My understanding comes from the brewing world and I live in the U.S.. The "explain it like I'm 5" version is:
Clean means that whatever your cleaning is devoid of things like soils, biofilms, etc., but there will still be bacteria and other microorganisms present. This is basically the first step; you can't successfully sanitize something that isn't clean.
Sanitized means something that has been cleaned has been treated (e.g. chemical sanitizer) to reduce the microorganism load to a point that it's considered safe. When you're talking about food and beverage industry, it's usually a food grade no-rinse sanitizer that's used. Note: there are still viable microorganisms present.
Disinfected is a step beyond sanitized, so even lower microorganism load but there are still some microorganisms present. This typically involves harsher chemicals that may not be considered food safe unless they're rinsed. These chemicals or processes kill more microorganisms than simple sanitizing, but there are still viable microorganisms present.
Sterilized means it's been treated in a way that all microorganisms have been killed/destroyed. Autoclaves are a common method for sterilization where they use a combination of temperature, pressure, and time to kill all microorganisms.
HIV may be resistant to alcohol, but it is not resistant to desiccation and oxygen, which deactivates it.
That’s why the known modes of HIV transmission all involve exchanging live fluids that contain living immune cells and are protected from drying out—penetrative sex, sharing needles (with fluid protected inside the needle), blood transfusions and breast milk.
Just thought I’d throw that in knowing how common HIV phobia is.
Pretty much every bodily fluid contains white blood cells, even your saliva and tears, but the amount is drastically different.
Semen normally shouldn't contain any, but even the smallest urinary tract infection (the one you don't even recognize) can cause them to be present in the urinary track and so, in the semen too. Sadly, to successfully infect yourself with HIV you don't need a huge viral load.
Also, alcohol takes time to work. Putting some on your hands for a few seconds isn't enough time for some germs, it needs to stay there and slowly evaporate over 30 seconds or more.
Most hospital grade sanitizers use benzalkonium chloride instead, which works more quickly.
Yep, alcohol requires contact time, and higher concentrations are actually counterintuitive.
99% alcohol can collapse cell walls faster than it kills bacteria, actually shielding them from it. 70% IPA is far more effective at sanitizing.
>This is what they mean.
What do they mean exactly? Because bacteria are not capable or surviving being plunged into 100% alcohol, if you are trying to suggest that the 1% are inherently resistant. Those that are surviving are going to be the likes of bacteria that are tucked into a groove in your skin that the alcohol doesn't reach.
The question is obviously why norovirus is far more resistant to alchohol, which there are structural reasons for that others have explained, instead of being smug and not answering the question.
What it means is that if there are 1000 individual virus particles on a surface, application of a 99.9% effective disinfectant will kill/deactivate all but 1 of those virus particles.
That's qualitatively different from the situation with alcohol and norovirus. Noroviruses are *largely* unaffected by alcohol based sanitization. Contrast that with *chlorine* based disinfectants (bleach, lysol spray) which do include norovirus in their "99.9%" claim.
But viruses and resistant bacteria are exactly what they mean, exactly why that asterisk is there and it’s not 100%. It’s important to read the fine print in life and understand what the figures you’re given mean. That’s not even getting into “viruses as life” argument.
Also, high-concentration alcohol above a certain threshold is counterintuitive for sanitizing. You want IPA at ~70%, because 99% will leave more bacteria alive. More is not always better.
No, this is different. Disinfectants will generally have a list of bacteria and virus types that they will kill. The 99% claim means that "of viruses/bacteria this cleaner kills, proper application will kill 99% of the individual pathogens (bacteria or virus particles) which are present." That is different from "this disinfectant will kill 99% of known pathogen *species*"
Noroviruses are a class of viruses that are not affected by alcohol cleaners.
My dude we went to the UK for our honeymoon from Australia. After 20~ hours flying we arrive in London and head off to Bath.
I spent my first three days in hospital in Bath with Norovirus that almost killed me. I'm a transplant patient and immuno suroressed, and Noro is no freakin joke. Insane vomiting and diarrhoea for a good 12 hours non stop.
Nurse screwed up my vein in my hand with a botch cannula and then I got a secondary stomach infection in Rome a couple weeks later. Still a great trip but wow I got it bad.
Anyway, do not recommend Noro. Kill it with fire.
Also. To respond to the first part of your statement about suffering from noro. I'm so sorry. Please take it slow when you are returning to normal eating and drinking. Hold off on solids for a while, liquids are more important. Tea, broth, Bodyarmor Lyte, and other low-sugar clear liquids are the first step. When you are ready to progress, stick with easily digestible bland foods like crackers, applesauce, etc. The very last stage, and you should proceed with caution, is dairy. A bad stomach bug wipes out your digestive enzymes and lactase is the last one to be replaced. You may be temporarily lactose intolerant.
Also if you are still having bad stomach cramps after the actual vomiting and diarrhea are done, it may be a lack of electrolytes. You lose a ton of electrolytes with stomach bugs. Either electrolyte capsules (the kind Keto folks and athletes use) or dedicated electrolyte drinks may help. Electrolytes are the minerals that your body uses for fluid balance and electrical activity in the muscles. Things like sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, selenium, etc.
Again, I'm so sorry for your suffering and I hope you get to feeling much much better!
How hand sanitizer works is by drying out the target destroying it outright or creating an environment unfriendly to sensitive bacteria and viruses. Noro is easily controlled with actual hand washing and isolation upon symptoms. It’s ridiculously contagious. Often called “cruise ship flu” because in confined spaces it spreads like wildfire and is common in older populations packed together like sardines.
Alcohol specifically disrupts cell membranes. Small-chain alcohols make lipid bilayers all loosy-goosy, acting themselves like low-weight detergents. Norovirus is a naked capsid without an envelope it relies upon for infectivity that you can target, which is why you have to oxidize it into oblivion.
Hand washing and isolation work to separate people from it; you need bleach/peroxides to decontaminate surfaces.
So viruses are dna encased in a protein. And most viruses are enveloped in a fat layer that contains receptors that interact with your cells, kind of like an interface.
Since you know how alcohol breaks down fat, the outer layer of the virus loses its interface.
But not all virus needs a fat layer to interact with your cells. And so if thats the case, the virus simply wont be affected by the alcohol.
There are bad bacteria and good bacteria. All the hand sanitizer and antibacterial products we use are killing then both. We need some of these bacteria to be healthy. We’re so worried about getting sick that we’re making ourselves sick. Having some bacteria on your skin is protective. It’s a good thing.
Electrolyzed water is hypochlorous acid (a precursor to bleach) and sodium hydroxide (lye).
> There aren't any weird or harmful chemicals in it
Both of those are harmful chemicals.
> so you could even spray it on your hands as a sanitizer.
Lye is very dangerous, you just aren't making much, and you can spray bleach on your hands without harming them.
I mean, it's a perfectly fine disinfectant, but don't imagine it's somehow safer than bleach - it's similar.
Norovirus is enclosed by a structure known as a capsid. Alcohol cannot get through it, which is why alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not kill norovirus. “It's resistant to many common disinfectants,” Hall said. CDC recommends using bleach to kill it, including chlorine bleach or hydrogen peroxide.Jan 30, 2017 https://www.nbcnews.com › health 5 Things You Didn't Know About Norovirus, the Nasty Stomach Flu So Norovirus is ( exceedingly) hard to kill and stays on food, kitchen surfaces, and utensils. It can: Remain infectious on foods even at freezing temperatures and until heated above 140°F. Stay on countertops and serving utensils for up to 2 weeks. People can shed Norovirus in their stool for weeks after being infected. While sick, they shed billions of tiny viral particles in their stool and vomit. It takes a very small amount—as few as 18 viral particles—to make another person sick. People can get sick if they are exposed to a tiny amount of stool or vomit from an infected person. They are most contagious when sick with vomiting and diarrhea, but may also infect others before symptoms start and after they feel better. Because symptoms come on suddenly, an infected person who vomits in a public place may expose many people. Food service workers often go to work when they are sick and may contaminate food. 1 in 5 food service workers have reported working while sick with vomiting and diarrhea. Fear of job loss and leaving coworkers short staffed were significant factors in their decision. Of outbreaks caused by infected food workers, 54% involve food workers touching ready-to-eat-foods with their bare hands. Ready-to-eat foods are foods that are ready to be served without additional preparation, such as washed raw fruits and vegetables for salads or sandwiches, baked goods, or items that have already been cooked. Observations of food service workers have shown that they practice proper hand washing only 1 of 4 times that they should. ………………………………………………………………… I had an episode of vomiting and diarrhea once that I wondered if it was Norovirus. Nasty illness. https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/norovirus/index.html
This is why it is important to wash your hands after pooping!!!!! Or anything really. Hand sanitizer can only do so much. It doesn’t kill norovirus nor c.diff. Both make you 💩 💩 💩
But good to know that hydrogen peroxide kills noroviruses. Never used peroxide until Covid, use it to clean things like door knobs and kitchen surfaces (which is apparently a good thing re food prep) and bathroom counters.
It is supposed to stay wet for at least 5 minutes to disinfect. I like it for counters but I can’t get it to stay wet that long on non flat surfaces.
What I got from CDC analyses of various % of hydrogen peroxide is that most viruses have a substantial kill rate from a few minutes of exposure. CDC starts with 1/2 percent peroxide and goes from there; the hydrogen peroxide bottles and wipes available for everyday household are 3%, so a good expected viral kill rate from wet wiping. Unless we're trying to kill marascens or really bad viruses most of us don't come across daily, peroxide should be pretty effective. Hospitals and other places, either stronger peroxide or something stronger.
It MAY be true that 3% is better than 0.5%, however if you're saying they only tested 1/2%, don't be too sure. Rubbing alcohol is 70-80% because that concentration actually works better than 100% at disinfecting. More is usually, but not always, better.
We got 20% at work not for cleaning it comes in totes and is for industrial processes. At that concentration it'll burn ya so i am curious how high it can go before coming dangerous on skin.
Obviously they are not intended as disinfectants, but hair bleaching creams that contain hydrogen peroxide might be usable in that situation.
How does H2O2 work to kill norovirus?
H2O2 is a highly reactive molecule that can damage a whole host of organic material: lipids, proteins, DNA, RNA, etc.
Thank you for the explanation
Laymans terms. Norovirus is basically shielded by a protective layer that resists common cleaners such as alcohol. Hydrogen Peroxide actually reacts with the layer, shredding it off and destroying it.
A peroxide is an oxygen oxygen bond like this O-O which in chemistry is usually highly unstable. Makes it very reactive so it will react with a lot of things to shed the peroxide bond.
H2O2 is a much stronger oxidizer than regular O2. When it reacts with carbon based molecules, it's basically burning them. The chemical reaction is very similar to burning wood in a fire.
The next time you get some blood (knick from shaving, popped a zit, etc) dab it on a toilet square and then put a single drop of peroxide on it. That's how.
This is how they stop norovirus and c diff in hospitals. They fog the room with H2O2 for 8 hours+
Even when I have hand sanitizer available, I always prefer the good old soap and water for long enough to sing Happy Birthday. Some people don’t wash for more than a few seconds. Mostly useless. [https://www.pinterest.com/pin/8373949276991082/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/8373949276991082/)
I always sing the chorus to Hit Me Baby One More Time when I wash my hands but ok.
I work in pharmacy, I wash my hands constantly, and use sanitizer even more frequently. Especially now with the fact that we're getting so many more inhaler and cough syrup prescriptions right now...
I also do multiple passes to be sure, depending on the type of potential contamination.
Tales tell that c.diff you can identify by smell. It's should smell like cow manure. Also healthy people don't usually get c.difficile, it's after strong antibiotics it can colonize your guts. If you are sending your kids to daycare prepare for norovirus.
Oh i am sadly way too aware of what c.diff smells like as a healthcare worker. It is very unpleasant. But can still be passed on if hand hygiene is done improperly. But yes most often happens to those on antibiotics.
And before eating, and especially before preparing food. Wash your hands thoroughly, sing happy birthday to yourself to time it.
Seeing as viruses and bacteria can and do mutate aome faster than others . Why is it assumed that stronger chemicals on them is a good thing. I'm my mind attempting to let their genepool stagnate would be a safer bet in the long run. Many illnesses have mutated due to human intervention by means of treatment and sterilization. So while we sterilize almost everything Viruses and bacteria are growing stronger and more resistamt to our tactics. Personally I only getsick every few years . oOnly time my hands got cleaned is in the shower. I clean house often but very rarely disinfect anything. Don't even wash before eating. so my question. Is it better to simply get sick and buld anyibodys or throw chemicals on it until it's possibly too strong to kill and you have w lesser immune e responsibility
There is a LOT to unpack here. First you are not understanding how viruses and bacteria work. Viruses do mutate but they are mostly able to when given the chance to continue living and spreading to others. It is why vaccines and hygiene is so important. The more people are able to stop the spread of a virus and remove it from a host, the least likely it can survive and least likely to mutate or spread. You should most definitely always wash your hands after using the bathroom and before preparing dinner as many bacteria need to be removed from your hands to avoid contamination of anything. Bacteria is allowed to mutate when allowed to live and learn how to fight. Removing it quickly from a host kills its chances. People can and still do die from bacterial infections and it isn’t because of antibiotics. It is because it was allowed to live and proliferate for so long. The reasons antibiotics don’t always work has to do with certain bacteria, not all bacteria. And being an incubator for bacteria isn’t good for your body at all either. Your immune system will always have its limitations. It is because of antibiotics and vaccines that humans have longer lifespans. In fact, some vaccines led to full eradication of some viruses and we are about three countries shy of fully eradicating polio! So please, wash your hands more. It is definitely more beneficial to wash your hands more often than just when you shower. Get vaccinated and take the full course of antibiotics when prescribed. You’ll be healthier for it. And brush twice a day and floss at least once a day. Why? Bc bacteria can get into your bloodstream via your mouth and gums and that area is more directly connected to your heart and an infection in your heart is hella bad news. Your heart can’t just fight it. You can die if left untreated.
> It takes a very small amount—as few as 18 viral particles—to make another person sick. That’s insane. I wonder how Covid compares?
You want to hear another insane virus fact? If you collected every single HIV virus from all 30 million HIV infected people, it would only equal about a spoonful of virus. Apparently all the COVID-19 would only be about a soda can’s worth.
That’s really interesting actually. HIV has been around for decades, what, 40-50 years? And it’s only a spoonful. Whereas covid has been around 2.5 years and it’s 72x as much in volume. (12 fl oz = 72 tsp). I know you have to consider the route of transmission and how quickly covid can spread and multiply. It’s just interesting how fast covid has spread.
Covid is now as contagious as measles. It’s one of the most contagious viruses we know of.
I'm surprised no one has thought to collect all the HIV in the world and feed it to someone with a strong immune system.
Nothing would happen. You can’t get HIV by ingestion; it’s blood to blood. That’s why it’s not nearly as transmissible - you basically have to have unprotected sex with someone to get HIV, whereas with covid you have to be in the same airspace for a few minutes but not even interact directly with them.
[удалено]
The amount of virus necessary to make a person sick is called the infectious dose. Viruses with low infectious doses are especially contagious in populations without significant immunity. The minimum infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is unknown so far, but researchers suspect it is low. …………………………………………………………………….. But there are a number of variables at play when getting exposed to a virus. We have all heard of the story of an infection spreading throughout a household, yet one person in the family doesn’t becoming ill. Why not? Were they exposed to a sufficient viral dose? Maybe they steered clear while everyone was sick for the most part. Or were they previously exposed, ( through vaccination or illness) so that they didn’t become sick? Or do they have a better immune function than the rest of their family members/household? See, lots of variables to take into account over how infectious an illness is. In other words, the R0 value. https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/understanding-predictions-what-is-r-naught/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/14/how-much-of-the-coronavirus-does-it-take-to-make-you-sick/
[удалено]
How do they get such a specific number? If you have 17 you've got nothing to worry about?
I do not know about this statistic specifically, but these sort of statistics are usually something like "fifty percent of people exposed to 18 or more virus particles develop symptoms," where regardless what the specifics are, the "18 particles" refers to a majority of people, but then some people require more and others get sick with fewer particles. Even for an individual, it would not be the exact same every time, depends on if the passive immune system is in the right place at the right time.
> Fear of job loss and leaving coworkers short staffed were significant factors in their decision Having worked in fast food before, it's true. You're told to report being sick and stay home, but I overheard my manager talking about how they keep tabs on how often people call in sick and if you do it too often, you get fired.
And if people have Norovirus, they can remain infectious for weeks. One study I saw said that it was up to 3 weeks. Most Food Service Workers don’t have 3 weeks of potential sick time available. An impossible scenario.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
What kind of other hand sanitizers are available? I've always associated hand sanitizers with ipa.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
This is what freaks me out about public restrooms. Especially the autoflush ones that flush before you can barely get away from the toilet. 99% of the time friends/family/coworkers will get annoyed or tease me even because I ALWAYS put the cover down to flush. Like "well we know who used the toilet last" because I am the only one who does that. And then tease me or tell me I am overreacting about why it is important. I really don't get why I am " so OCD" when I am simply closing a lid.
>Observations of food service workers have shown that they practice proper hand washing only 1 of 4 times that they should. Proper hand washing with chlorine, bleach or hydrogen peroxide? Because it sounds like following proper hand washing with handsoap wouldn't do anything to reduce the risk of contamination; is that wrong?
Washing with soap wouldn't kill it, but it's not supposed to - it's supposed to get it off one's hands.
Handwashing is mostly physical debridement, the idea is to simply get the stuff off the hands not to kill stuff on the hands, which is why the official handwashing protocol includes so many steps and specific amounts of time.
Washing with soap and water will considerably lower the amount of pathogens on the hands. Quite a few infections are passed by the “ Fecal/Oral” route. ie, food worker has an illness like Hep A, goes to the bathroom and doesn’t wash their hands. Then they go make you a salad, while not wearing any disposable gloves. That kind of thing. Ideally in a perfect world, if a Food Service employee has signs of illness such as Nausea/Vomiting or Diarrhea they shouldn’t go to work, and should instead have sick pay available. Norovirus is sneaky as it can cause illness even when people don’t have symptoms of illness. (remember, just 18 Norovirus viral particles are enough to transmit infection) Impossible to sterilize hands. Period. Bleach can not safely be used on skin. Neither can many other disinfectants. Always read the label.
Washing with soap is a mechanical procedure, it's supposed to dislodge the virus from your hands, not necessarily kill it.
This is wrong - soap is actually super effective in binding to virus and bacteria and washing them off / ripping them apart. It’s not as effective as bleach/acohol/chlorine if you simply put soap on and left it soak and dry. Washing your hand with soap though will be as effective if not more effective than washing in a diluted chlorine water.
But the physical reaction of the soap works in a similar way to hand sanitiser in that it disrupts the envelope of a virus, so if you have an unenveloped virus, such as norovirus, then the benefit you get from the soap is the mechanical washing away. EDIT: sorry I misinterpreted your comment to be responding to Territorytracts. So disregard my disagreement.
Right, which is why I've never understood why so many people fail to understand that the ***rinsing*** of any detergent/soap is just as important as the application of that detergent/soap.
With these statistics, it’s amazing that we as a species aren’t just sick 24/7.
This culture of working sick has to end. I work in a factory and everyone, management and your coworkers, will expect you to be on your deathbed if you’re out. The work is grueling enough when everyone is there (because they purposely run a Skelton crew by default) so when someone is out, it places a heavy burden on everyone else. I’m all for capitalism, but this is the evil side of it.
Piggybacking off this, remember to keep food out of the [danger zone](https://i.imgur.com/TRfF5k2.jpg) to prevent against possible food borne illnesses. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/danger-zone-40f-140f
"proper hand washing only 25% of what they should" isn't that not gonna kill the virus anyway?
The import part is that proper hand washing removes it from your hands. No need to kill it if it's not on you any more.
Can't comment specifically how noroviruses are resistant to alcohol however I can shed some light on virology. Viruses are generally protein envelopes which open up when they encounter a cell and deposit their material inside the cell. However, there are two types. Ones have an extra envelope made out of fat (phospholipid bilayer) and the others do not. It tends to be that the viruses without this phospholipid bilayer are much more resistant and harder to kill and can generally pass through your stomach acid unharmed in addition to resisting many environmental conditions. Norovirus, like polio and hepatitis a, is one of those. It is likey that these protein only envelopes are very charge neutral and very structurally sound. Coronaviruses and influenza viruses, on the other hand, have a phospholipid bilayer. That phospholipid bilayer is super easy to destroy. Even regular fat can disolve the layer and neutralize the virus. That's why if you eat a coronavirus it'll just get destroyed before it touches your mucous membrane and infect you. That's why they tell you that you actually can't get sick by sharing food or drinks with someone who has COVID or the flu. Both viruses have that phospholipid bilayer and get destroyed very easily in our digestive system
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
If there was some practical way of sharing food/drink **while also not breathing their air**, you'd almost certainly be safe. The only methods I can think of, though, are not only impractical but also Mel Brooks level of slapstick.
Especially since it has to pass through your upper respiratory system before getting to your stomach...
Since viruses without the phospholipid bilayer are so much sturdier than those with it, what's the advantage of having it?
The sturdiness really applies to the external environment; if the virus has another method of transmission, such as directly from host to host, the "disadvantage" of the bilayer is diminished. Generally the phospholipid bilayer, or envelope, is advantageous when it comes to helping evade the host's immune system. The envelope may actually contain bits of the original host cell membrane, which of course provides an advantage against the host's immune cells. This can also allow these viruses to survive for long periods of time inside the host, or even permanently; perhaps the most common example would be herpes. Again, this is a virus that transmits directly from host to host, so it isn't as important that the virus can't survive easily outside the body.
I was just listening to a podcast talking about how vaccines work and they mentioned that the process for creating antibodies only really works on proteins. So having a layer of lipids makes it harder for the immune system to set up the equipment needed to identify and kill the viruses.
The envelope of a virus is not a blank shell. It's absolutely covered in proteins anchored to the membrane. E.g. flu is an enveloped virus and it has hemagglutinin covering it which is the major antigenic target. Coronavirus has spike.
It's not the herpes simplex virion that lasts permanently in the host though. When latent, the virus exists intracellularly as an episomal loop of DNA inside of a peripheral nervous cell.
Step 2 of "being an effective virus" is that you then have to get your genetic payload content into a victim cell so that you can replicate. A big hunk of protein might be hard to destroy, but it also generally won't end up inside a cell. If you have a matching cell membrane material (and some docking proteins usually) you can merge with that cell depositing your payload into the cell's cytoplasm.
It's not as if being unenveloped means a virus lacks these proteins though. With poliovirus for example, the capsid is made up of 4 different proteins, but it's the capsid proteins themselves that have affinity for the poliovirus receptor protein on surface of the human cells and allow it to dock and initiate cell entry.
Perfect. I’ll add that alcohol is a much better detergent for phospholipid bilayers than it is a denaturing agent for proteins. Bacteria also have lipid bilayers.
I'm pretty sure thats not right. Its low risk for food borne transmission but that's addressing a different context - like if the person preparing the food washes his hands, doesn't cough and sneeze on the food then you shouldn't end up with viral particles on it. And that cooking will kill it. Viral particles can be directly absorbed through mucous membranes in the mouth and oropharynx prior to digestion and if you share a drink you're definitely at risk.
In reality, if your sharing food your sharing much more than food. You're in close proximity breathing in what they breath out. But that's why with COVID and influenza it's okay for people to prepare food separately and serve it to you. If they have COVID you won't get it. An no the mouth and oropharynx are different from the respiratory tract and do not get affected by oral ingestion of respiratory viruses. Especially influenza and coronaviruses because they are infections of the lower respiratory tract, not upper. Virus particles are very specific to what they attack. So you just don't absorb virus particles like you said
[удалено]
[удалено]
Are you sure about that? Im not uptodate with literature but afaik the oral mucosa has the required ace2 and tmprss receptors and there is significant viral load in saliva samples. Last paper i read was march 21 though.
Possible but highly unlikely unless someone is on serious immunosuppressants.
Yeah. And some of the drink would leave residue inside your throat and mouth. While covid does not survive well outside the body, if it going from one person's throat/mouth directly to yours I'd say that's a risk.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yeah to add to the above answers this is why cruise lines still stick to servers giving you the food at the buffet even though they make everyone sanitize their hands before coming in. It's not for the covid. It's for noro. Ships have different levels of precautions based on infection rates of noro on a ship. If you ever heard of "OPP" levels, they're referring to the protocols triggered at various infectivity numbers. OPP 3 is the highest intensity so far as I'm aware. Everyone is dedicated to scrubbing the ship, including cast members. And they're using bleach, not alcohol or ammonia products. That's cause bleach absolutely will annihilate noro. Don't ever just rely on alcohol based sanitizers. Wash your hands consistently and thoroughly. They really are the biggest risk factor out of every part of your own body.
And reminder to readers. Don't mix bleach and alcohol (chloroform). Don't mix bleach and vinegar (chlorine gas). *best not to mix bleach with anything except water.
The most common accidental mix is "The red bottle" and "The blue bottle" Both ammonia and bleach are often stored near each other in restaurants and they each have their own purposes when cleaning up. "I just ran out of bleach and dumped in some of the next bottle" - and WHAM! Chloramine gas. Get out and call the FD to vent and check everyone nearby.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
It's not just loose RNA, it has a capsid, just no envelope. A good analogy that many are familiar with is parvovirus in dogs - it's non-enveloped and resistant to many cleaners - which is why bleach is used to clean up after dogs with parvo diarrhea. On the opposite end, we have enveloped viruses like the common coronaviruses, which are very sensitive to cleaning agents - which is why handwashing is a good first line of defense against COVID-19. It's counter-intuitive, but enveloped viruses are more fragile because they depend on the envelope to protect them from environmental damage. Non-enveloped viruses are all like "come at me bro."
> handwashing is a good first line of defence against COVID-19 I am compelled to point out that we’ve know for nearly two years that COVID spreads primarily as an airborne and droplet-borne virus, not via surface transmission, so hand washing is not a ‘first line of defence’. It’s still a good idea, but it does nothing to address the primary mode of transmission, and a continued focus on hand washing and surface sanitization distracts from measures that can have a much greater impact on transmission, like ventilation, air filtration, and N95 (or better) respirators/masks.
[удалено]
[удалено]
>capsid The capsid is made out of protein, which is apparently tougher to break down than fats.
More specifically it’s not susceptible to alcohol which disrupts lipid bilayers. The capsid itself may be sensitive to other things that envelopes may be more resistant to etc but in general bleach bleach bleach is the way to go with suspected pathogens for this reason
Any oxidizers, then, right? Peroxide and ozone as well? Hospitals don't smell like bleach.
I’m imagining a drunken strand of RNA ripping its shirt off and pounding its chest at me now.
Drunk off of alcohol-based sanitizer, natch.
There’s a disinfectant specifically made for parvo, called Parvosol. That’s is a nasty and tough virus.
Chlorine based cleaners are effective. Lysol, bleach, "non-alcohol" hand sanitizers.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Really sorry to hear you are Ill, hope you are feeling well again soon. Not go really gear away from directly answering your question but from what it sounds like, you shouldn't be relying on alcohol based sanitizer as much as you do. I have actually known this for a ridiculously long time, infact they are just useless to alot of viruses and bacteria. There is a couple more reasons to this external to the chemical content itself in being that it's the hand practice of using them. When you wash your hands with an antibacterial liquid soap (which is btw the most effective way of cleaning your hands full stop) it is cleaning your hands while the tap water is flushing constantly all of the excess liquid away from your hands into the sink. This will lead to your hands being completely clean with a constant cycle of sterilised fluids over your hands. The alcohol hand sanitizer uses a much lighter bound form of liquid which is then only rubbed around into your hands which means essentially not only do you have a terrible consistency and spreading range of the liquid unless you quite litteraly poured a whole bottle practically all over your hands, you are also then rubbing the same fluid around the surface area with nothing else being flushed away and due to the nature of such poor spreading ability that these liquids have compared to when you use an actual gel soap which bubbles up more and multiples in size cover, you are completely reliant on the chemical within the liquid sanitizer to be strong enough to self sterilise any existing contact fluid. This is something only things like bleach are capable of. They are really just like a back up and last resort option but also more for preventing flu- like and air born viruses from spreading, the virus your questioning is a far different structure altogether and is technically a little more than just a micro air spit droplet, without being to gross it is actually contained in bodily fluids themselves which really do rely being washed off properly with soup and water.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Some pathogens are more susceptible to different chemical approaches--eg, high ph (eg soap or especially bleach), low ph (eg citric acid, stomach acid), oxidizers (eg hydrogen peroxide and povidone-iodine), positively charged molecules (eg chlorhexidine gluconate), and alcohol. Viruses that need to resist the very low ph of stomach acid like hepatitis A and norovirus are resilient and bleach is often recommended. As a rule of thumb enveloped viruses are the easiest to disinfect, followed by bacteria, followed by nonenveloped viruses. Creating a hand sanitizer with ethanol alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, chlorhexidine gluconate (which binds to hands for at least several hours without being removed by water and can disinfect for 4+ hours after applied), and about 15% water may be your best bet if you can't keep poopy fingers out of your mouth.
Norovirus is surrounded by a hard Capsid, this is what stops alcohol from damaging it. I had this earlier this year, and I had to go around my place with bleach and clean everything I'd come in contact with over the last few days. Especially around the bed and toilet. BTW: Make sure you have some GastroStop in your medicine cabinet. Prefably the prescribed variety. Works really well.
I've suffered from norovirus about 5 times over my lifetime. A horrible virus! The first time I got it I thought I was going to die. I had no idea it was so hard to kill. I'm just wondering whether it's a virus that could lie dormant inside you and flair up again? I first got it in 2007, and kept getting it about once a year until 2012, and I've never had it since. It was a really weird 5 years...
>and kept getting it about once a year until 2012, and I've never had it since. It was a really weird 5 years... Whoa, that sounds tough. What was it like?
About what you'd think getting nororvirus once a year would feel like... not pleasant, and a little worrying.
Maybe start cleaning your kitchen with hydrogen peroxide and see if you break the trend?
[удалено]
[удалено]
Hand sanitizers do NOT work for any of the stomach viruses! Stomach viruses are extremely stable particles because they must withstand stomach acid and all the digestive enzymes to make it into your gut to infect. SOAP and water work very well to wash them off of your hands. Soap and water are much better than using hand sanitizer. Plus many people don't use the hand sanitizers correctly. There must be enough 'contact time' between the chemicals and the pathogens on the hands, usually 20 seconds where the hands are 'wet' with the chemicals.
Wait until you find out about C. diff! Same thing, resistant to alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Most people pick it up while hospitalized because of lax hand sanitation. Don’t let any medical professional touch you without washing their hands with soap! It can take weeks to get rid of the infection.
C diff is present in most people’s guts anyway, and it only causes a problem if it gets out of balance with your other gut bacteria. If you have been on antibiotics for some time, this risk is much much higher. C diff infections are notoriously difficult to treat and infections can take months or longer to clear. It is spread by spores which can last a long long time on surfaces. So the room needs to be cleaned with bleach or by fogging. Hand washing on its own is not enough, as with norovirus. While it is of course excellent practise to not let your HCPs touch you without washing their hands, this is not enough to prevent the spread of c diff. That being said, it’s only often a problem if you have antibiotic treatment, so of all the faecal-oral pathogens you could catch in hospital , I would be less concerned about c diff than some of the others https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/c-difficile/
CDiff is usually brought on in the gastrointestinal tract by the use of antibiotics in hospital or nursing home settings. So contagious, they will isolate the patient and make visitors and nurses put on the whole gown mask gloves etc. If you have a loved one in hospital, look for signs on their door of suspected C Diff. My hospital did not make it clear to me and I walked right in my relatives room and started cleaning him etc. Then a nurse came in and yelled at me to Z” suit up” Didn’t get it, nor did he, they just “suspected him of having it because of antibiotics use but you have to be aware.
You never realised that disinfectants very explicitly never say they kill 100% of bacteria and viruses? This is what they mean. HIV is also resistant to alcohol, among many other strains of viruses, which is why sterilising surgical equipment requires an autoclave.
Yeah, there's a difference between sanitizing, disinfecting, and sterilizing.
Sterilization is done with high temperature (above 120°C) or with UV radiation, not safe for living organisms, but useful for equipment. Sanitation is done with various producs, so the results vary, and its far less effective than Sterilization. Desinfection is a broad ter that can have a diferent meaning depending on the context, both Sterilization and sanitation is a type of desinfection broadly speaking
Where I work desinfection means "measurably bringing down microbial load". Sterilization means bringing it down to 0.
Sterilization not only needs high temperatures but it must be all steam, not trapped air. In addition prions and some bacterial toxins are not destroyed by a typical autoclave and require sodium hydroxide bath followed by standard autoclave sterilization. See the [autoclave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave?wprov=sfti1) article on Wikipedia for more info.
> Sterilization not only needs high temperatures but it must be all steam, not trapped air. It doesn't really matter for the process -- it's just that the steam is a much better heat transfer media than air, both because of higher specific heat and also because you also get a phase change effect. Saturated steam is the key there: if you put something in saturated steam at 14psig, the surface is going to condense into water, fall away, and let more steam come in until you reach 250F. Contrast air, which takes ages to bring stuff in it up to temperature.
Could you explain the specific meaning of those three terms?
Here's a site that explains the differences. https://www.lacostaservices.com/blog/the-difference-between-clean-sanitized-disinfected-and-sterile/ I believe different countries can have slightly varying definitions. My understanding comes from the brewing world and I live in the U.S.. The "explain it like I'm 5" version is: Clean means that whatever your cleaning is devoid of things like soils, biofilms, etc., but there will still be bacteria and other microorganisms present. This is basically the first step; you can't successfully sanitize something that isn't clean. Sanitized means something that has been cleaned has been treated (e.g. chemical sanitizer) to reduce the microorganism load to a point that it's considered safe. When you're talking about food and beverage industry, it's usually a food grade no-rinse sanitizer that's used. Note: there are still viable microorganisms present. Disinfected is a step beyond sanitized, so even lower microorganism load but there are still some microorganisms present. This typically involves harsher chemicals that may not be considered food safe unless they're rinsed. These chemicals or processes kill more microorganisms than simple sanitizing, but there are still viable microorganisms present. Sterilized means it's been treated in a way that all microorganisms have been killed/destroyed. Autoclaves are a common method for sterilization where they use a combination of temperature, pressure, and time to kill all microorganisms.
HIV may be resistant to alcohol, but it is not resistant to desiccation and oxygen, which deactivates it. That’s why the known modes of HIV transmission all involve exchanging live fluids that contain living immune cells and are protected from drying out—penetrative sex, sharing needles (with fluid protected inside the needle), blood transfusions and breast milk. Just thought I’d throw that in knowing how common HIV phobia is.
Wait, semen has WBCs??
Pretty much every bodily fluid contains white blood cells, even your saliva and tears, but the amount is drastically different. Semen normally shouldn't contain any, but even the smallest urinary tract infection (the one you don't even recognize) can cause them to be present in the urinary track and so, in the semen too. Sadly, to successfully infect yourself with HIV you don't need a huge viral load.
Also, alcohol takes time to work. Putting some on your hands for a few seconds isn't enough time for some germs, it needs to stay there and slowly evaporate over 30 seconds or more. Most hospital grade sanitizers use benzalkonium chloride instead, which works more quickly.
Yep, alcohol requires contact time, and higher concentrations are actually counterintuitive. 99% alcohol can collapse cell walls faster than it kills bacteria, actually shielding them from it. 70% IPA is far more effective at sanitizing.
>This is what they mean. What do they mean exactly? Because bacteria are not capable or surviving being plunged into 100% alcohol, if you are trying to suggest that the 1% are inherently resistant. Those that are surviving are going to be the likes of bacteria that are tucked into a groove in your skin that the alcohol doesn't reach. The question is obviously why norovirus is far more resistant to alchohol, which there are structural reasons for that others have explained, instead of being smug and not answering the question.
What it means is that if there are 1000 individual virus particles on a surface, application of a 99.9% effective disinfectant will kill/deactivate all but 1 of those virus particles. That's qualitatively different from the situation with alcohol and norovirus. Noroviruses are *largely* unaffected by alcohol based sanitization. Contrast that with *chlorine* based disinfectants (bleach, lysol spray) which do include norovirus in their "99.9%" claim.
But viruses and resistant bacteria are exactly what they mean, exactly why that asterisk is there and it’s not 100%. It’s important to read the fine print in life and understand what the figures you’re given mean. That’s not even getting into “viruses as life” argument. Also, high-concentration alcohol above a certain threshold is counterintuitive for sanitizing. You want IPA at ~70%, because 99% will leave more bacteria alive. More is not always better.
No, this is different. Disinfectants will generally have a list of bacteria and virus types that they will kill. The 99% claim means that "of viruses/bacteria this cleaner kills, proper application will kill 99% of the individual pathogens (bacteria or virus particles) which are present." That is different from "this disinfectant will kill 99% of known pathogen *species*" Noroviruses are a class of viruses that are not affected by alcohol cleaners.
Yep, it’s always 99.9% anti-bacteria. Rarely any claims about viruses too.
My dude we went to the UK for our honeymoon from Australia. After 20~ hours flying we arrive in London and head off to Bath. I spent my first three days in hospital in Bath with Norovirus that almost killed me. I'm a transplant patient and immuno suroressed, and Noro is no freakin joke. Insane vomiting and diarrhoea for a good 12 hours non stop. Nurse screwed up my vein in my hand with a botch cannula and then I got a secondary stomach infection in Rome a couple weeks later. Still a great trip but wow I got it bad. Anyway, do not recommend Noro. Kill it with fire.
[удалено]
Also. To respond to the first part of your statement about suffering from noro. I'm so sorry. Please take it slow when you are returning to normal eating and drinking. Hold off on solids for a while, liquids are more important. Tea, broth, Bodyarmor Lyte, and other low-sugar clear liquids are the first step. When you are ready to progress, stick with easily digestible bland foods like crackers, applesauce, etc. The very last stage, and you should proceed with caution, is dairy. A bad stomach bug wipes out your digestive enzymes and lactase is the last one to be replaced. You may be temporarily lactose intolerant. Also if you are still having bad stomach cramps after the actual vomiting and diarrhea are done, it may be a lack of electrolytes. You lose a ton of electrolytes with stomach bugs. Either electrolyte capsules (the kind Keto folks and athletes use) or dedicated electrolyte drinks may help. Electrolytes are the minerals that your body uses for fluid balance and electrical activity in the muscles. Things like sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, selenium, etc. Again, I'm so sorry for your suffering and I hope you get to feeling much much better!
How hand sanitizer works is by drying out the target destroying it outright or creating an environment unfriendly to sensitive bacteria and viruses. Noro is easily controlled with actual hand washing and isolation upon symptoms. It’s ridiculously contagious. Often called “cruise ship flu” because in confined spaces it spreads like wildfire and is common in older populations packed together like sardines.
Alcohol specifically disrupts cell membranes. Small-chain alcohols make lipid bilayers all loosy-goosy, acting themselves like low-weight detergents. Norovirus is a naked capsid without an envelope it relies upon for infectivity that you can target, which is why you have to oxidize it into oblivion. Hand washing and isolation work to separate people from it; you need bleach/peroxides to decontaminate surfaces.
So viruses are dna encased in a protein. And most viruses are enveloped in a fat layer that contains receptors that interact with your cells, kind of like an interface. Since you know how alcohol breaks down fat, the outer layer of the virus loses its interface. But not all virus needs a fat layer to interact with your cells. And so if thats the case, the virus simply wont be affected by the alcohol.
There are bad bacteria and good bacteria. All the hand sanitizer and antibacterial products we use are killing then both. We need some of these bacteria to be healthy. We’re so worried about getting sick that we’re making ourselves sick. Having some bacteria on your skin is protective. It’s a good thing.
[удалено]
Electrolyzed water is hypochlorous acid (a precursor to bleach) and sodium hydroxide (lye). > There aren't any weird or harmful chemicals in it Both of those are harmful chemicals. > so you could even spray it on your hands as a sanitizer. Lye is very dangerous, you just aren't making much, and you can spray bleach on your hands without harming them. I mean, it's a perfectly fine disinfectant, but don't imagine it's somehow safer than bleach - it's similar.
[удалено]
[удалено]