Last Monday, I decided my contribution to the cause was going to be making a shit ton of hand sanitizer for my family and friends. So, I did some research and found what we computer science nerds would call the canonical reference: “Guide to Local Production WHO-recommended Handrub Formulations.” This document describes two formulations for 75-80% alcohol hand sanitizer, which is in excess of the CDC’s recommendation of 60%. (Note, too, that the CDC recommends good handwashing as the best way to prevent disease, but there are plenty of situations where you want to sanitize your hands but you’re away from a wash basin.) One is made with 99.8% isopropyl alcohol, the other is made with 96% Ethanol, which is Everclear (97% ethanol). Both use glycerol (a.k.a. glycerin), hydrogen peroxide and boiled or sterile distilled water. I’m going to go into a lot of detail about what I did, and there’s going to be a follow-up post because I haven’t measured the alcohol content yet, so click below if you want to learn more.
First, I had to source the alcohol, hydrogen peroxide and glycerin. What the stores sell as “rubbing alcohol” is 70% alcohol, and the WHO says 99.8%, so I ordered some 99% alcohol from Amazon. I stupidly ordered way too much glycerin, and I also ordered hydrogen peroxide since that’s been hoarded at local stores. Here are the main ingredients:
Once all this stuff arrived, I also found my collapsible plastic container that I use to store water when camping. If you made this as a 1/4 recipe instead of 1/2 to the WHO’s measurements as I did, you could use a gallon water jug. I also boiled a couple of quarts of distilled water for a few minutes, and filled two measuring cups with boiling water to make sure they were clean. Here’s that container, which I just rinsed out, because it had only been used to store potable water and was bone dry. I think it was a better choice than using stirring equipment, since I could just gently shake it to combine everything, and the relatively wide opening, and on/off cap let me avoid using a funnel.
I wiped down all surfaces with a clean cloth in hot soapy water since this process only requires that everything be clean, not sterile. I also put on disposable gloves to protect my hands.
I scaled the WHO recipe to fit what I was making (their recipe was for 10 liters, and I made ~5 liters. I will post more details on that in the next installment on this, when I’m sure it worked, but it took a little basic high school algebra to figure it out.)
Then, I poured all the ingredients into the container and shook it gently. Note that glycerin is somewhat gloppy, so I poured in some alcohol, poured in the glycerin from the smaller measuring cup, used some of the alcohol to wash out the measuring glass, and then poured in the rest of the alcohol. Note that the WHO recipe is basically 20% water, though they don’t mention it in the ingredients list (they just say to fill the mixing container with water until it gets to the 10 liter line).
Initially I thought that one of the issues was that the glycerin would glop up and not go into solution, but there was no issue – it seems to my eye to be pretty well mixed.
Side note: When I was doing this, I had two voices in my head. One was my Dad, who venerates basic advances in medicine and was a thorough hand washer. I’m sure he would appreciate this stuff, especially when used by a midwife in the African bush prior to attending a tough delivery. The instructions by the WHO are clearly designed to be able to be made in half-assed backwoods hospital pharmacies that are no better than my kitchen, and I bet thousands or millions of infections have been avoided by the use of this stuff. The other voice was Cheryl Rofer saying “What the Fuck!” about my crappy little “lab” setup.
Anyway, I decanted this mixture into some cosmetic pumps that I bought from Amazon, a used rubbing alcohol container that I had in my house, and the bottles the alcohol came in. I’m guessing that clean plastic water bottles would work, too. Since the alcohol bottles had a seal on them, I put some Saran Wrap ™ over the tops of each bottle before I screwed on the cap to avoid evaporation. Also, for the pump dispensers, I pumped some of the product through the dispenser, then locked the dispenser, so that any germs in the dispenser pump and pipe would be killed. The idea is that the dispensers are what you use every day, and the bottles are for storage.
I need to wait 72 hours to use it, because the WHO cleverly added the hydrogen peroxide not to kill germs when using the hand rub, but to kill whatever mold, germs, etc. that might have been added in the initial preparation and aren’t killed by the alcohol.
I did try a sample of it, and it is not like Purell. The Purell that I’ve used either is gloppy (comes out from the pump thick like soap) or foamy. This is neither – it has a consistency similar to water. That said, it leaves less residue than Purell, and my hands are a bit softer than they were when I started. Also, it’s clear that this stuff will evaporate really quickly, so it needs to be in a well-sealed container. The WHO people know their shit, and a big part of this exercise is to make something that won’t trigger allergies and will be tolerable for medical personnel, so no “aloe vera” or essential oils or other things I’ve seen in online recipes. You can add that shit when it’s not a life and death situation.
In the next installment, I’ll detail my adventures with an alcometer, which the WHO says to use to determine that the solution has the proper level of alcohol. I’m on my second order of one of these (they’re like $7, so not a big investment), because the first didn’t ship on time from Amazon. Also, all the ingredients I used are sold out at Amazon, but I’m guessing they’ll be back in stock soon, once the initial panic and hoarding has worn off. If my alcometer arrives, I will calibrate it using liquor from my liquor cabinet (Cheryl just shot her computer like Elvis shot his TV reading that), and then keep measuring it in the pump to be sure the concentration is maintained. The WHO’s recommendation is to dispense this in 500 ml capped containers which I’m sure is in part because of how much it’s going to evaporate.
Obviously, I’m just another jackass on the Internet, but the WHO created this recipe for lightly trained medical personnel, so I hope that it works, and I hope it saves a few lives.
Mnemosyne
There are two different WHO recipes. That may be the one that’s meant to be put into a sprayer and sprayed onto your hands, but I’m waiting in line to pick up a new asthma inhaler right now and can’t double-check.
debbie
Bookmarked. Thanks!
West of the Rockies
Anyone read about the pig in Tennessee who hordes 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, some of which he sold online for $70 a bottle? Amazon and EBay shut him down. Sometimes I hate people. But there are many more out there doing good, being empathetic and kind.
Monala
A question I haven’t seen addressed anywhere is this: How does Covid19 end? If we are successful in stopping the spread due to lockdowns and social distancing, what happens when life gets back to normal? If there isn’t yet a vaccine, will there still be a bunch of non-immune people out there, susceptible to another outbreak?
MattF
@Monala: Yes, but the virus won’t spread as far or as fast because of herd immunity. Unless it mutates.
errg
Good to know all this, thanks! I may give this a try if the ingredients ever come back in stock…
West of the Rockies
@Monala:
There likely will be a vaccine. Testing will be more readily available, too.
Oclday
Ok maybe a dumb question, but if this mixture is like water, why can’t you just use straight isopropyl alcohol?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I was working in the liquor store today at the supermarket. A lady actually told me she was buying 120 proof vodka to use to make hand sanitizer with
MattF
I’ve got two 100 count boxes of eyeglass wipes, which is isopropyl alcohol. Not sure why I ordered that extra box six months ago— maybe I got a brainwave from the future.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Oclday: Because rubbing alcohol is hard on your hands, I’m guessing.
Martin
@Monala: There’s basically 3 ways:
Our strategy now is 2, slowing things down enough that we can benefit from 3 when it happens.
It’s possible we can slow it down so much that we get back to 1. where the number of new cases is dropping and we can use testing to start to contain it around the country.
Ken
@Monala: As I understand it, if we don’t develop a vaccine we have to rely on natural immunity. Fortunately it’s been established that we do sero-convert. Once enough people are naturally immune the outbreaks should be smaller and easier to isolate and treat.
Speculating wildly, in the absence of a vaccine this could become a new “childhood disease” like chicken pox or mumps used to be. The small silver lining should that happen is that it appears to not be as deadly among children and young adults.
trollhattan
Missing the all-important first step: put out your cigarette before proceeding.
This has been a BJBlog public service announcement.
I’ll leave before the inevitable LEL/UEL discussion begins.
Monala
@West of the Rockies: right, but I’ve read that a vaccine is probably 12 to 18 months out. We’re not going to isolate everyone for that long. What about in the meantime?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
OH Governor DeWine and the ODH are estimating a peak in late April or early May. Does that track with your estimates?
Cermet
Everclear varies so be very careful that you get no lower than 120 proof (60%.) 190 proof is about 95%.
NotMax
Uncomplicated method.
2/3 cup isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol
1/3 cup aloe vera gel
Mix well, pour into jar or bottle or pump dispenser.
corrected from the original for safety reasons.
dexwood
@trollhattan: Don’t forget to put the bong down first, too.
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Early May? Uk-fay e-may. :-(
trollhattan
@dexwood:
“Hey, I’ve got a beverage here!”
sudden_eyes
@Oclday: I am using that. It’s very drying, I have to say.
charluckles
As an ex-lab rat who regularly worked with hydrogen peroxide (and got on the wrong side of it) I feel compelled to mention that concentrations above the topical 3% you buy in the grocery store get nasty. So if you are buying a more concentrated solution to dilute it down get your gear on and be careful.
dexwood
@trollhattan: So, we’re back to hold my beer.
Roger Moore
If you don’t have anything else around, that seems like a better approach than not calibrating it at all and trusting the factory calibration. The government is pretty strict about labeling requirements, so you’ll have something of reasonably well known concentration. If you have a few different kinds of liquor at different alcohol concentrations (vodka and Everclear) you can make a multi-point calibration. Honestly, I’d be as worried that the presence of hydrogen peroxide and glycerol in your sanitizer could throw off the measurement as I would be about the booze from your liquor cabinet being the wrong thing to use as a standard.
John Cole
@Monala: It ends with herd immunity either through having caught it and survived or being vaccinated when a vaccine becomes available.
West of the Rockies
Thanks for this info, MM. It is clear and useful.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Roger Moore: I have some 70% isopropyl alcohol that I will use too if the alcometer arrives.
RSA
@NotMax: This will miss the recommended 60% minimum alcohol content for hand sanitizer. But I like the simple combination.
trollhattan
@John Cole:
I wonder how the antivaxxer meetings are going these days? Oh to be a fly on the wall….
Ken
@charluckles: John Clark’s Ignition: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants has an entire chapter on hydrogen peroxide. (The link is to the Science Madness library, which has plenty of other material for the budding home chemist.)
IIRC, Derek Lowe’s Pipeline blog also has some posts on peroxides, hydrogen and otherwise, mostly in his Things I Won’t Work With category. I believe chainmail gloves are recommended for anything above 70%, to protect your hands in case you spill it or it randomly decides to explode in the bottle.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
Killjoy.
trollhattan
@dexwood:
Only with gloves!
Cermet
@NotMax:No, otherway around! 2/3 Iso to get 66% alcohal by volume.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
That’s not going to get the alcohol concentration as high as WHO recommends. They’re saying at least 60%, and household rubbing alcohol is only 70%. If you cut it 1 part alcohol to 2 parts aloe vera gel, you’re down in the 20-25% range, which is way too low.
rikyrah
@Monala:
That, and where the hell did it come from?
It just created itself??
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Growing up watching my dad doing various things like painting (lead paint), working on the car, gardening and–swear to god–shingling the house with asbestos shingles, a cigarette was always in his mouth. And it didn’t seem unusual because every other neighborhood dad was the same. And half the moms.
rikyrah
Just came from the grocery store. Got everything that I wanted, with the exception of water. They were out of bottled water.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ken:
This sounds bad.
MattF
@Ken: For the record, Lowe recommends soap and water— soap disrupts the virus lipid membrane. Temperature of the water doesn’t seem to matter.
Quinerly
Has anyone been reading about people recovering and then later being reinfected? Seems to be at least one case in Japan and I think one case in Hong Kong.
ziggy
So apparently the UK is going to try and just ride the pandemic out? I’m still trying to get a handle on what they are proposing, sounds very risky! and Sweden also? Insane!
MomSense
I think we are in for a much longer haul than people realize.
Roger Moore
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
You should be at least a bit cautious about treating isopropyl and ethyl alcohol the same. The alcometer measures the density of the liquid, and since ethyl and isopropyl alcohol don’t have the same density, you’ll get inaccurate results if you use a calibration based on isopropyl alcohol for ethyl or vice versa; trying to calibrate based on both will give you a wonky calibration curve. I don’t know if it’s going to be a critical difference- their density is at least pretty close, and you’re aiming for something well above the critical percentage WHO is recommending- but it’s something to keep in mind.
Quinerly
@MomSense: I agree.
mali muso
European friend of mine posted this story from Die Spiegel today which reports on some possible treatments that are being tested.
West of the Rockies
@Monala:
I have zero expertise, but I would think we’ll have occasional hot spots or blooms that we would be better equipped to address. Ideally, we’d be producing more masks, test kits, available hospital facilities (especially in large cities).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Is hydrogen peroxide useful as a disinfectant? I’m assuming yes since it’s meant to be used as an antiseptic
NotMax
Yeah, dummy me got it backwards.
Recipe (corrected) is:
2/3 cup isopropyl alcohol
1/3 cup aloe vera gel.
Manifest apologies. Recipe originates from here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@ziggy:
They were until recently AFAIK
ziggy
More info on the UK virus management strategy:
https://twitter.com/DoctorYasmin/status/1238815504669671429
Ken
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh, both those references I gave are just full of things that randomly explode in the bottle. Or over time decompose into things that randomly explode (and the comments to that post give many exciting examples).
I love chemistry, but it really makes me glad I chose a different field.
NotMax
FYI.
zhena gogolia
@Martin:
Wow, thank you for that lucid explanation.
I am thanking you a lot these days! You are really a sterling person.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
Harvard is planning to put its medical students to work.
Goku, you might end up doing clinicals after all.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Kinda. With no bending of the curve, so many people will have it by then that transmission will start dropping due to the aforementioned herd immunity.
So, that’s not a positive answer. If active cases peak end of april, then transmission peaks around 3-4 weeks from now.
If we have heavy mitigation – really bend that curve, then we peak maybe in Oct/November. Maybe there’s a plan going around for containment that I’m unaware of but a peak that soon implies a lot of fatalities.
Felanius Kootea
@Quinerly: Do you have any links to stories about people being infected and then reinfected? That scares me – I am hoping that being infected confers immunity but can the virus mutate so rapidly that your body doesn’t recognize that you’ve previously had a version of the illness? I certainly hope not.
Elizabelle
Damn. I was rather hoping The Donald would get a practical lesson. NY Times link.
President Trump tested negative for the coronavirus, the White House physician said. He’d had contact with several people who later tested positive.
Saturday, March 14, 2020 7:39 PM EST
Two people who were with the president at Mar-a-Lago later tested positive, and various members of Congress have been self-isolating after interacting with some of the same people.
Martin
@ziggy: And us, by the way.
mad citizen
I scored six small bottles of hand sanitizer at my local Target store yesterday–in the baby section–that was my strategy. I had two in my hand; worker said “I’d buy more if I were you. I just put those out.” Bought them for my wife more than me; left some for some other lucky person. Of course they were sold out in the regular first aid aisle.
Was just reading about MERS. They never made a vaccine for it. Google tells me there is an N1H1 vaccine, but I don’t remember getting it. Did they include it in the standard flu shots?
Ken
@Elizabelle: Factor in the usual chance it’s a lie.
Then factor in his… unique ideas about health and genetics, and he’s likely to assume this means he can’t get it.
mrmoshpotato
@West of the Rockies: Dick-kicking is in order.
Dan B
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My father, a research chemist, said that hydrogen peroxide is not the best disinfectant. It doesn’t kill everything and can damage many materials. It’s also tough on skin. That’s all I remember and don’t have an explanation so please rely on experts – just a heads up that hydrogen peroxide may not be the best disinfectant.
ziggy
@Martin: But it sounds like they are not going to take any of the drastic “social distancing” measures that we are just starting to implement here? Just wash your hands and hope for the best?
trollhattan
@Felanius Kootea:
That would be…bad but I’d also be wary of anecdotes like that this early in the pandemic. A patient could, for example, have had a false positive for COVID then acquire it following a bout of the flu (as a random scenario). It also seems unlikely the stories of two strains are correct.
I was really disappointed to learn one can acquire a cold while actively fighting a different strain of cold. Hardly seems fair.
Felanius Kootea
@Elizabelle: Give it a few days.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I think the same.
Another Scott
@Ken: I occasionally hear stories from safety people who come across a 10-15 year old bottle of stuff that contains some sort of peroxide that was bought by someone who retired long ago. Naturally the bottle’s manufacturer label faded years ago, so no lot number is present. (Nor were warning labels to test it for explosive peroxide buildup present.) The chemical is still used occasionally by someone following a recipe they found elsewhere.
Naturally, the safety recommendations include disposing of it if it is older than 6 months, etc., etc.
Yikes!
I assume that even the best chemistry labs have occasional stories like that.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I took the liberty of correcting the original comment. Hope you don’t mind.
Martin
@mali muso: So, I don’t think we’ll hit the catastrophic scenarios because of this. It looks like there are a range of other drugs on the market that can at least reduce symptoms to make this less deadly. If we can slow things down so those trials can be finished and a manufacturing distribution method set up, we might fare okay. But that’s still going to take weeks.
Gravenstone
@charluckles: what, you’ve never used 30% to clean up a blood spill? In my defense, we didn’t have a drum of bleach in the building at the time.
Felanius Kootea
@trollhattan: Yeah – that’s why I wanted to see the source of the stories about reinfection. I’m hoping that they are misidentified cases.
On a related topic, I’ve read the JAMA article on how Taiwan used data analytics to help reduce the spread and I was quite envious.
Mike J
Does the alcometer work like a hydrometer, just checking specific gravity?
NotMax
Just to be on the safe side –
Ignore #18.
Correction is at #49.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Elizabelle: Zombies don’t carry viruses.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
I don’t mind but now there are other comments pointing back to it as being erroneous.
mali muso
@Martin: Yeah, that’s the hope. It was nice to read something that at least had some glimmer of the stuff. Even if it’s not a prophylaxis or a vaccine, anything that can reduce the severity or give more changes to infected people to pull through can only be a good thing. Would be nice if we had some kind of an organized system with good leadership to coordinate things…
Gravenstone
@Roger Moore: the glycerol will screw it up. A hydrometer is used to measure the density of a liquid. Ethanol/water density varies by ethanol content. Adding glycerol (the peroxide is in too low a level to significantly change the value) will change the density in a manner independent of the ethanol or water. Unless the WHO instructions explicitly account for the added component.
debbie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Did you listen to his news conference today? Dr. Acton said it was being reported some people had the flu and COVID-19 at the same time.
snoey
@Felanius Kootea: One of my daughters is an Infectious Disease specialist. She says that:
1 Most patients seroconvert.
2 Many will test negative orally but positive for weeks afterward rectally.
3 Some poor bastard will draw the short straw and not seroconvert.
joel hanes
plenty of situations where you want to sanitize your hands but you’re away from a wash basin
Low-cost renewable portable personal disinfection kit:
one washcloth wet and heavily soaped, in a baggie; another washcloth, wrung wet, to “rinse” your hands and face, in a second baggie; and a clean dishtowel on which to dry your hands afterward.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
A Ghost to Most
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Ok. Important safety tip.
Being a hermit in real life, it’s interesting to watch social people try to cope with this.
debbie
@Quinerly:
Yes. Great to think it could lurk inside a person, like chickenpox.
joel hanes
@West of the Rockies:
Mr. Colvin, having experienced a day of public reaction, has announced that he is exploring avenues to donate his accumulated sanitizer to charity.
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yes, and blood causes the solution to produce oxygen.
Not ideal – it kills bacteria and human cells too, i.e. anything that free oxygen kills, and is no longer preferred as an antiseptic. I don’t know what it does vs viruses e.g. SARS-CoV-2.
Why Does Hydrogen Peroxide Fizz On Cuts?
Drugstore stuff is like 3%, hair bleach (what “Peroxide Blonds” use) is, from a quick search 6%.
mrmoshpotato
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: The gut munching tends to be a problem though.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Newt Gingrich is living in Italy because his wife is ambassador to the Vatican. He says the US needs to learn from Italy’s situation. The article is in Fox News, sorry.
Sadly,he doesn’t seem to have the virus.Martin
@ziggy: They’re taking a different approach. Hard lock-down of all the olds, let it burn through the youngs, let them develop the herd immunity, allow it to settle down enough that testing and containment is a viable strategy again, and then let the olds out of prison.
I mean, it could work. Sounds like a Star Trek plot. Put another way, I don’t think it’s any riskier a plan than we’re undertaking.
Alternatively, the UK could just resolve all of their political problems with an agreement with Ireland that the olds from both nations would be shipped there, the youngs from both would be shipped to Britain. The youngs can rejoin the EU, blow through the virus with minimal impact. The olds get to be isolated out there not part of the EU, Britain will catapult food over across to Belfast, wait 30 years for Ireland to be depopulated and then they can reclaim it.
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I say Newtington needs to jump into the Stromboli caldera.
Another Scott
@Monala: In addition to what others have said (I hope this isn’t too repetitive):
So, even if it takes 18 months (or 2 years, or even longer) to create an effective vaccine and get everyone who needs it inoculated, slowing the rate at which it infects people is a very good thing.
Yes, no economy can stand being on lockdown for months and months. But slowing the rate of infection means that more testing kits can be created with more capacity to rapidly read the results. That means that even if the virus is still spreading, that people who are found to be infected can be directed to isolate themselves, and people who aren’t infected can do their jobs.
tl;dr – it’s a dynamic situation and time is our ally.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gravenstone
@?BillinGlendaleCA: a lot of peroxide are friction sensitive. Usually it’s things like unscrewing the bottle cap that set them off. So your advice for today, if your chemical is a peroxide, or could form them (ethers for example) and it has a crust around the cap – don’t touch!
Robert Sneddon
@Another Scott: The classic “lost at the back of the chem lab’s store cupboard” bottle is the old-style flask with picric acid in it. Well, mostly in it. Some of the picric acid has leaked out around the corroded metal cap and crystallised on the threads, gluing the bottle shut.
Attempting to unscrew the cap will cause friction and heat and vibration and pressure, the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for picric acid crystals. Did you know they make solid rocket motors out of picric acid?
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes. You can dilute 3% hydrogen peroxide to a 1% solution (mix 1 part peroxide with 2 parts water) and it’ll kill coronavirus. Need to let it sit a bit.
Be warned, it’ll slowly bleach wood and some other items.
Quinerly
@Felanius Kootea: there are a couple of articles on line. Nothing seems to be 100% clear. Here’s the story I read about in Japan. I think there is an LA Times article about a Hong Kong case.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/484942-japan-confirms-first-case-of-person-reinfected
joel hanes
@rikyrah:
It just created itself ?
Yes.
The mechanisms by which viruses mutate and jump species are well known, and the pathways were worked out in detail for the earlier SARS and H1N1 epidemics. Like SARS, this one quite likely originated in bats. There is some immunological evidence that several other emergent coronaviruses have made the jump into humans over the last ten years in China’s Hubei province, but weren’t sufficiently infectious to become widespread, and so infected a few people and died out before they were noticed.
This is one aspect of evolution in action. No evil intent is needed to explain the origin of the virus.
EXCEPT that all competent biologists have known at least since those earlier viruses that the “wet markets”, in which many species of wild animals are caged close together, are an ideal breeding ground for emergent viruses. China actually closed the wet markets for a while after SARS, but people want to do what they want to do, so the markets were allowed to re-open.
Quinerly
@debbie: I think the bottom line is no one knows anything for sure.
lamh36
Learn about Zoonotic diseases and how globalization and climate change can lead to increase in zoonotic disease!
Here’s a video from my epi class last summer.
@PBS: Spillover – Zika, Ebola & Beyond, Spillover – Zika, Ebola & Beyond https://www.pbs.org/video/spillover-zika-ebola-beyond-spillover-zika-ebola-beyond
Gravenstone
@mad citizen: We had this discussion at work Friday. The reason they didn’t make vaccines for SARS or MERS is because they died out too soon. By the time candidates were ready for testing, there were no patients available to test on. I doubt we’ll have that issue this go around.
joel hanes
@mali muso:
drugs that could be helpful in the fight against COVID-19
Yes. Also, doctors in the US are starting to experiment with “convalescent serum”, and old-fashioned approach that might have substantial benefit until modern techniques can be devised. Or might not — no one knows.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/doctors-push-treatment-coronavirus-blood-recovered-patients-n1158476
Mike J
One of the things I read was that China put that 80% number forward. Included in “not seriously ill” was full blown pneumonia. “Severe illness” was “put on a respirator.”
Nicole
Gov. Cuomo is in negotiations with the healthcare workers union in NY to provide childcare so that the NYC public schools can close (concern is not only about the kids who depend on the schools for food, but also that it would strain the healthcare system as healthcare staff would have to stay home to take care of their children).
https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-updates-82-year-old-nyc-woman-becomes-first-person-covid-19-die-state
(I think that’s the right link)
As was said on this site, Cuomo is a lot of things, but he’s at least a reasonably competent official.
Gravenstone
@Robert Sneddon: I damn near plotzed the first time I found the 100# containers of picric acid in storage at my first job. Fortunately that material was 30% water.
bluehill
@Dorothy A. Winsor: So frustrating. Someone retweeted a Trump-supporting doctor that downplayed the seriousness of covid, but now that his hospital is filling up with patients, he admits he was wrong. No apologies. No explanation for why he didn’t believe fellow medical professionals warning of this. I don’t wish him ill, but accept some responsibility for your actions, dude.
Felanius Kootea
@Quinerly: Thanks for the link. It may be that she’s one of a small percentage of people who don’t seroconvert. Or it may be that this virus acts like varicella zoster and lurks (chickenpox -> shingles). I don’t understand enough about infectious diseases to know what’s accurate but I’m hoping for the best for all our sakes.
ziggy
@Martin: How can that possibly work? I mean, someone has to take care of the olds, interact with the outside world. And they seem to be highly susceptible to the virus (the situation here in the PNW regarding nursing homes is dreadful, at least 8 infected now, last time I checked). I’m still trying to get a handle on their policy, it makes no sense to me. Let the family get sick and grandma just gets a plate shoved under the door?
Really interesting video from a British doctor, has some rather unflattering things to say about the US of course:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etlyvt9n_QE
mali muso
@joel hanes: Wow, that’s really fascinating!
Sister Golden Bear
Ran a few last errands before buckling down in my hidey-hole. The marijuana dispensaries were hella busy — seems TP isn’t the only thing people are hoarding. Fortunately, the dispenser was limiting how many people could enter at a time, so people could spread, although lots of people didn’t. <grrrr> (Edibles for me, which is probably for the best right now, since smoking aggravates my allergies.)
A friend of mine who works at Trader Joe’s warned people to expect at least some supply chain disruptions, since apparently they’re already starting to encounter them. Although once the panic buying subsides, perhaps there will be fewer shortages.
Another Scott
@Mike J:
WHO Q&A:
It’s probably good to be a little suspicious of China’s total numbers, but AFAIK similar 80:20 numbers are common elsewhere (or we would have heard about it).
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
Almost certainly not like chickenpox. The best guess is that the body doesn’t completely clear the virus as fast as it clears the symptoms, so people may continue to have detectable virus long after they’ve apparently recovered. It’s not at all clear that detectable virus means they’re contagious; it could be present at a level that we can detect but that is too low to be a serious infection risk. In contrast, chickenpox* actually incorporates itself into the DNA of the cells it infects and lays dormant there, ready to reactivate when the conditions are right.
*Which, confusingly, is actually a herpes virus, not a pox virus. Other herpes viruses act similarly.
Kent
Drug companies that charge $2000 for a bottle of life-saving insulin and hospitals that charge $400 for a single dose of Tylenol. They are routine and unworthy of comment. But one redneck fills his garage full of hand sanitizer and the entire country is outraged.
I mean yes, he’s a complete scumbag. But he’s doing nothing different than what corporate America does legally in every sector of our economy that that they can get away with.
Quinerly
@Felanius Kootea: related:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-japan-korea-coronavirus-reinfection-test-positive
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
me: No evil intent is needed to explain the origin of the virus.
Amplifying: the people who sequenced the entire RNA genome of SARS-COV-2 have clearly stated that the genome was definitely not a laboratory creation, and they’d definitely be able to tell if it was.
And that sequenced genome has been made available as data to competent geneticists and virologists in many nations, and none of them are saying “Yes it is”.
It’s not a lab creation. It arose naturally, just as measles and chickenpox did somewhere back in time before there were biology labs.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Thanks. So according to the experts that DeWine’s been talking to, they’re expecting a ton of fatalities? Yikes.
Librarian
How about some Learned Hand sanitizer? https://twitter.com/AnthonyMKreis/status/1238101560367988736?s=20
chris
@joel hanes: That can’t be true! a wingnut in AOC’s twitter feed says that Obummer sold the virus technology to the Chinese for fat stacks. Who am I to believe?// (How does she put up with this shit?)
Also found in her twitter feed, this is fucking wonderful. Language warning for those at work but it has captions.
Felanius Kootea
@Quinerly: I was struck by this part of the article:
joel hanes
@Kent:
IIRC, Shkreli effictively cornered the national market on epi-pens, and raised the price over 10x.
I don’t think that was the crime for which he was convicted.
Martin
@ziggy: Well, it’s the same problem that we face.
Understand that our plan basically accepts the 1% fatality rate for 50% of seniors, with a goal of preventing the 5% (or higher) rates from kicking in.
UK is trying to not accept the 1% rate.
The US is doing a little bit of this through restrictions on nursing homes, but that needs to be extended quite a bit further. There’s also the question of how long we can sustain this posture. They’re planning for 4 months of this. Most of the US plans are 4 weeks or less. What industries will be gone simply due to a worker slowdown from social distancing if this lasts a very long time, which will itself have an effect on public health.
This is all a matter of deciding what are the best trade-offs, what is your culture and economy best geared to do.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Thank you. I only have two bottles of the stuff and I have no idea atm if they’ve expired or not.
Are bleach-free Chlorox wipes and Lysol disinfectant sprays effective at killing it? According to the EPA, they are effective. I have a can of Lysol and a few 75 count wipe Chlorox canisters along with a 105 count wipe one.
I had the foresight a few weeks ago to buy a 1 L bottle of hand sanitizer. I’m glad I did as it’s impossible to find any now in stores
chris
@joel hanes: I think Shkreli jacked up an AIDS drug. The Epi-pen was Mylan Pharma.
Kelly
Small Portland, OR distillery is also making artisanal locally produced hand sanitizer.
https://www.wweek.com/bars/2020/03/10/a-portland-distillery-is-making-its-own-hand-cleaner-in-the-wake-of-coronavirus/
Kent
Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud.
Fuck with sick people and children with allergies? meh. Bygones.
Fuck with the “integrity” of the stock market and the ability of rich people to get more rich? Whole different thing entirely.
Roger Moore
@chris:
It says something about our healthcare system that we have trouble remembering which malefactor was responsible for jacking up the price of which drug to unreasonable levels.
Morzer
If you want to understand some of the Korean background to the coronavirus, this is a pretty good summary of the political landscape:
https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/clandestine-cults-and-cynical-politics-how-south-korea-became-the-new-coronavirus-epicenter/
ThresherK
There is actually a live sporting event on TV now. All other listings for sport have been changed on the TV screen deelie, so I had to look when Univsion still had Liga MX. Leon and Pumas are playing, with no fans in the stadium.
(Insert XFL attendance joke here.)
chris
@Roger Moore: Yep, and Shkreli did not go to prison for the drug thing as Kent notes.
Also, IIRC the CEO Of Mylan was closely related to one of Trump’s original cabinet appointments, HHS guy maybe.
Gravenstone
@Morzer:
Gee, this sounds familiar for some reason…
Bill Arnold
@Morzer:
Sure, but we have our own national death cult, the GOP, and it has its own propaganda organ, Fox News.
(Some members of whom in a hypothetical future just world will be convicted and spend the rest of their lives in prison appropriately corrected. We’re not monsters, and would not allow an Americanized Nine familial exterminations even if the mobs demanded it.)
That was maybe a little harsh. Or not. (Irritated.)
japa21
@ThresherK: The PBR also had its first night of competition in Duluth, GA on the telly. Again no audience.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: That’s why I wrote: corrected from the original for safety reasons.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I believe they are effective. You can also dilute regular chlorine bleach 10:1 and use that. If you have a gallon of bleach, you should be solid for a LONG time.
Repatriated
@Ken:
And the probability that if it is, the truth is now highly classified.
Morzer
@Bill Arnold:
https://twitter.com/DrewLinzer/status/1238938396531126272
chris
@japa21: Pabst Blue Ribbon has no competition!
OldDave
@Ken:
It is an interesting read, too – at least if you’re interested in rocketry.
CaseyL
Where are you folks finding isopropyl alcohol? There’s none to be had in King County – nor in Ocean Shores, apparently, as some friends went out there and I asked them to pick some up if there was any. (Ocean Shores is out on the Coast, on the Olympic Peninsula.)
I could try to find Everclear, I suppose, though I doubt any of the local booze joints carry it. Or, I should say, carry it any more, since if they did have some, that’s probably been cleared out too!
WaterGirl
@Felanius Kootea: seroconvert? You guys need to speak english for us plebes.
Kent
I posted this yesterday . We have the same exact combination of cults and conservative politicians: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/liberty-university-president-jerry-falwell-jr-says-in-person-classes-to-continue/2020/03/13/70b23a58-654e-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html
japa21
@chris: I grew up on that stuff.
Ken
@WaterGirl: Develop antibodies to the virus. (As I suspect you knew.)
Sab
@CaseyL: Nor in NE Ohio. It’s gone, and we never had more than 70%.
I inherited Dreft powder from my packrat mom. I share the affliction ( Scots ancestry, so we call it thrift.)
Can’t use it in washing machine since not HE. But since every infection I have ever had from elementary school until my cat bite 10 years ago recommends soaking in Dreft, maybe I should work it into my daily or more ablutions.
prostratedragon
@Elizabelle:
I love having things left to my imagination. That modifying clause is the funniest thing I’ve read this week. Perhaps mediated by an entire offensive line, armed.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’m very glad now that I listened to my brother and did my shopping on Wednesday night despite having the remains of a migraine. I think I beat the local crowds since a bunch of entertainment companies decided to close down starting Friday. That’s when the panic really began down here.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Morzer: With that attitude and the demographics of Republicans there are going to be fewer but better Republicans come the election.
chris
@japa21: Yeah, not one of my happy high school memories.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
FWIW, ordinary people are pretty outraged at what the pharmaceutical manufacturers are doing. It’s the Republicans and the MSM who don’t give a shit how much people have to pay for their insulin.
A new House Democrat from Illinois, Lauren Underwood, was able to get an insulin bill through the House AND Senate AND Trumpski signed it, so there should be some measure of relief specifically for that coming soon.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Didn’t some Fox New broadcaster get suspended or fired for making some of these claims?
Either way, the right wing is willing to die for Trump. And this crap is nutty with contradictions. The virus is no big deal, or is a liberal plot to embarrass Trump, but was also designed by the Chinese and North Korea. Even though North Korea’s ruler is best buddies with Trump.
The only good thing is that the right wing has made it clear that facts won’t matter at all in the presidential campaign. They will toss out lies and smears, and will never be persuaded by any evidence or facts.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
One You Tuber I watch is from Norway was saying the nation has the third highest infection rate in the world, but that’s likely because of aggressive testing and his wife and kids are ill, but it’s all quite mild and the main problem for him is the kids are home for two weeks which makes his You Tube videos difficult and he is in a quandary that best time to do the videos is late at night, but he doesn’t want to lose sleep since that weakens his immune system .
So this stuff isn’t the apocalypse.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Isn’t that pretty much all of them?
Aleta
Enhanced Voting Techniques
rikyrah:
Vox on the mostly likely source of the virus
https://youtu.be/TPpoJGYlW54
Wet Markets, were they keep live exotic animals together and shit on each other, causing their diseases to skip species.
The Communist know this is a problem, but they have to prove their are better Capitalist than us Americans so fuck it, invisible hand.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I’d be more than willing to let them die if that’s what they choose to do. The more the better. As long as they don’t take any sane people with them. Which of course they would do, being the spiteful side of the aisle.
Sister Golden Bear
Shit’s getting real.
San Mateo Public Health just declared that, as of midnight, gatherings of more than 50 people will be banned, and gatherings of 10-50 people will only allowed with specific migration measures. Since we’re one of the hot spots, I wouldn’t be surprised to see further public safety measures.
But Matt Pearce on Twitter described the situation well:
(Sorry, no link it’s a screenshot I ran across.)
Not that there won’t be should huge costs. Most clubs and many bars in SF are closed until the end of April. A number of them won’t survive and will be scooped up by real estate investors seeking bargains, which will likely change SF nightlife significantly. (E.g. DNA Lounge, which has been teetering on the edge of financial solvency for some time, is paying their employees while they’re closed, but I suspect that’ll finally drive them under.) Along with numerous performers, stagehands, bartenders, servers, etc. who are seeing their livelihoods disappear for weeks to come.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
One of my asthma inhalers just about doubled in price over last year. I’m gathering my fury before calling my insurer for an explanation.
J R in WV
@joel hanes:
No, that was Joe Manchin’s daughter, who is CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals. She also got the Board of Education (which her mom chaired!) to require schools to have a minimum number of EpiPens for the kids, so built in market!
Shkreli did much the same thing by buying up a very necessary generic and boosting the price by 3000%. The same thing happened to a drug I was using called Librax, price went up 2000% and I was diverted to another drug that works, just not as well. MBA pharma dudes should be tarred and feathered and dropped into a deep well. Cruel to make money — fuck those bastards!
Omnes Omnibus
Okay, I am finally convinced that this Covid thing is a bad. I went to the store today and they were out of orange marmalade.* When they are running out of things like that, 1) I am inconvenienced (I had to get raspberry preserves again); 2) What else are they running out of?
*Okay, they had a couple of jars of that Smuckers overly sugared shit, but that doesn’t count.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
anybody watch Bernie’s “Fireside Chat”?
ThresherK
@japa21: Ah, I looked at the listings but it’s no longer there; I figure the repeat they’re showing later, on CBSSN from Gwinnett is the one.
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bernie who?
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Somebody from his campaign texted me this evening. I restrained myself from responding with my true feelings about him and his cult of personality. Rather I simply blocked the number and deleted the text.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: When the regular grocery store has the vegan section cleared out, you’ll know we’re truly done for.
Kent
Not if you are young and healthy. It’s pretty deadly if you are 79 years old and suffer from emphysema.
L85NJGT
US ethanol production is 1.1 million barrels per day.
Kent
Wet markets are completely and permanently banned now. It was a $74 billion dollar industry employing hundreds of thousands. All gone, permanently. Shit finally got real for the Chinese. Apparently the took all the animals out and burned them or something. In every city in China. Or at least buried them.
Morzer
@Brachiator:
Fox put Trish Regan “on hiatus”.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Felanius Kootea: There were reports last week that there were two variants, and that infection with one did not confer immunity to the other. No idea now how reliable they might have been.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
cain
so what you’re saying is, this is a great time to get bomb making materials
Morzer
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@joel hanes: I was wondering when someone would suggest that.
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This jackass needs to contract the disease and be hospitalized for a few weeks. And I don’t care how he if waddles out or is wheeled out in a box.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Went to the supermarket this afternoon and the traffic was normal for a Sat, but a lot of the shelves were seriously close to empty and this is a pretty good sized store. The paper goods aisle was empty. There was no flour. There were a few other aisles that were pretty heavily hit as well. The casher told me the store hours are changing as of today. They have been open 5am to midnight. Now 9am to 5pm. How do you purchase anything of the little they have left if they aren’t open other than when the majority is at work? Also their website said nothing about the hours so who knows?
Ruckus
@sdhays:
LOL
Gravenstone
@cain: Yeah, no.
Amir Khalid
@sdhays:
I don’t know about you, but I’m not entirely convinced by the White House physician’s statement that Trump tested negative for Coronavirus. I seem to recall that at least one White House physician has lied on orders from Trump.
Japa21
@ThresherK: Yep. Also live tomorrow at noon or 1.
ziggy
Now that is very interesting. I don’t think it is appreciated how much trouble Nsaids can cause. People pop them like candy. Another good reason to avoid them if at all possible.
Cathie from Canada
Nice idea for a post, but everything is sold out already.
My grocery store had some empty aisles today but it wasn’t as busy as it could have been. A few things sold out, but not as much as I expected.
And one lady was buying herself the prettiest bouquet of pink roses that I have seen for a while, so that was nice.
Mai naem mobile
@chris: Eli Lily was connected to Azar not Mylan. I had forgotten Tom Price was Trumpov’s first HHS guy. He was a total asshole and scummy money grubber but I wonder being a doctor that he would have gotten through to Trumpov better than Azar did about COVID19. Also being a white male. Azar is Lebanese American.
@CaseyL: I don’t claim to have shopped for hadn’t sanitizer or alcohol right now but I actually am one of those people who use it all the time and I pick it up at different places. There was a clearance place in town that had the smaller ones for 4/$1 so I was getting those for several months until they finally sold out..I’ve gotten them from Costco and some discount stores. My only requirement is that its U.S. made. The chinese made stuff has an odd.consistency Anyhow I am used to seeing them everywhere. Everywhere. Staples/Chef Store/Janitorial places/Health equipment stores/Lowes/Ace/Marshalls/TJ Maxx/Bed Bath &Beyond etc. I find it hard to believe its sold out.
jayjaybear
@chris: She’s the daughter of Joe Manchin.
NoraLenderbee
@Librarian: I love you for this.
I'll be Frank
@ziggy: the recommended drug, paracetamol, is acetaminophen.
Kayla Rudbek
@charluckles: yes, did you see Derek Lowe’s blog entry on that? https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/10/10/things_i_wont_work_with_peroxide_peroxides peroxide peroxides
Geminid
Testing
Raven Onthill
Thanks for this. I have added it and the WHO source to my archive of COVID-19 documents.
shloime
@Monala: yup.