Today I realized that a good alternative to hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes is a paper towel soaked in alcohol and stored in a small ziplock bag in my pocket. I guess it looks like I’m a cheapskate or something, but I don’t care because it’s a good solution for me, for reasons that I won’t go into now for the sake of brevity. The important thing is that, with just a few discreet movements, I slide open the seal, rub my fingertips on the wet paper, zip it closed and put it back in my pocket, and someone standing next to me might not even notice.
The problem with #41 is that the stores I’ve visited are all out of rubbing alcohol too. Unless I am to use vodka or such.
Yeah, around here, too, and that’s one of the reasons I wasn’t going to go into, this being GQ. Today I found rubbing alcohol at a small store in the neighborhood.
How about it you brainiacs: Would vodka work as well?
Proof is double abv so whatever spirit you’re using needs to be minimum 120 proof.
Most people using hand sanitizer use it wrong anyway and obviate its usefulness. You need to rub the sanitizer all over your hands and keep rubbing til they’re dry. A lot of people do a few quick wipes around their hands and then rinse them off or let them air dry.
Some would say Dos Equis, but many can’t handle two X’s (on is usually enough). Other say Tacate. Personally, to protect myself from Corona, I advise tequila, and go with the Reposado and/or Anejo gold varieties. That is what I’m planning to do.
You guys joke, but Tito’s Vodka actually issued a press release to advise that it did not have sufficient alcohol content for sanitizing hands.
Thanks. I didn’t notice a thread in IMHO that would have been more appropriate for my plastic-bag story. 
I was at my mother’s place and her nurse was tell me I should be washing my hands constantly and wiping down door knobs in my place. It occured me it sound absurd and wasteful. OK I mean if I was going out public and/or to my mother’s I could understand washing myself up beforehand.
But if I am holed up in my apartment all day by myself why I would need to meticulously clean constantly? I mean I live alone so I don’t have contact with anyone who is out in public constantly to be exposed to the virus. Is it really necessary to clean constantly if someone is holed in their residence all day?
For the same reason, you put on a pair of clean underwear each day. If you get killed you won’t gross out the people handling the body.
People handling injured/dead bodies really don’t give a damn about the state of your underwear.
You put on clean underwear everyday because it’s good personal hygiene, so you’re not stewing in your own funk.
I am not talking about normal cleaning or changing of clothes; my mom’s nurse made it sound like I should be scrubbing my own apartment down daily with alcohol based cleaners and/or bleach i.e. wiping door knobs daily and such. Basically “sterilizing” everything in my place; I do clean regularly but I don’t want my small one bedroom apartment reaking of bleach and cleaner. So I am not going to scrub everything in my apartment repeatedly with harsh cleaners instead just wiping everything with a sponge and soapy water.
So all schools here in Ohio are out, people aren’t allowed on the computers (I am on a stand up) yet the Casino is open. priorities.
Sorry, just had to correct this. Autoimmune disorders are not a case of a too-strong immune system; they’re a case where an immune system is unable to effectively fight true threats because it keeps attacking the body. The forces are divided, not multiplied. A person without an autoimmune disorder isn’t going to get one by beefing up her immune system.
Please take the nurse’s word for this. She’s getting this from the CDC. Yes, you live alone (as do I), but every time you leave your apartment, you’re touching surfaces that may be contaminated, then contaminating your own apartment when you return. The COVID-19 virus can remain on hard surfaces for at least 9 hours. If you touch those surfaces and touch your face, you may get the virus and pass it along to your mother when you visit even if you have no symptoms.
Washing your hands and using hand sanitizer are excellent steps, but they don’t prevent your hands from picking up germs a couple of minutes later. (Most hand sanitizers protect for only 2 minutes after application.)
Interesting point on what you can do if you’re going completely nuts indoors, from a Guardian article here:
I’d welcome knowledgeable people’s opinion on whether this seems sensible
I’ve read that increasing humidity will protect you. In low humidity, your body is more susceptible to an infection through dried out nasal passages. However, I read at least one study refutes this idea. Some virologists believe that the masks are effective against viruses by merely increasing your own personal nasal humidity.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
My thought is that it’s too early for anyone to know anything like that as a positive fact. What you describe are guess/hypothesis, not fact.
I saw a decent study showing that you are less likely to get various other infections in more humid air, though. And I have seen articles about why the flu is more common in winter in part because of the dry air. So it seems pretty plausible, even though it obviously hasn’t been studied in COVID-19 yet.
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