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The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

wired.com

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Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#61

Post by perardi »

pierat wrote: post #53

Wow, this article really makes me feel like I dodged the bullet for our household when I realized that 95% (190 proof) Everclear was available for $35/1.75l I did the chemistry math and figured 3 parts Everclear:1 part water equalled 71.25% ethyl alcohol, within the recommended of the WHO. I even tried adding in food grade aloe to help not be as damaging on the skin (instead of water). Worked really well too. We didn…

Yeah, repurposing Everclear got me through the pandemic.

I cut it with Diet Coke, and a splash of lime, and drank it to help sanitize my system of coronavirus particles.

Kept me COVID-free. I think. I don’t really remember much of the past 3 years for some reason, drinking that every day…but no nagging cough!

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#62

Post by 14 »

loeg wrote: post #3

Tl;dr: ArtNaturals made hand sanitizer with very high levels of benzene (a carcinogen) and after a fire and runoff into the Dominguez Channel, produced a bunch of hydrogen sulfide (the "rotten eggs" smelling gas). When the FDA reimposed pre-pandemic sanitizer rules, companies were forced to dispose of the crap they produced under the lax rules. Some tried to do so by giving it away to schools or illegally dumping it…

Now I am a little uneasy about the sanitizer I bought. I walked into Walmart one day and they had these giant bottles of liquid hand sanitizer with a 80% alcohol content and it works great and doesn’t leave a residue. It was on for 25cents a bottle when normally something that size would sell for about $8. I couldn’t believe they were getting rid of it for so cheap so bout about 100 bottles and have been using it for months.

Wish there was a way I could test for benzene and I wonder if Walmart knew it was bad and decided to dump it on customers so they wouldn’t be sitting with thousands of bottles needing disposal.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#63

Post by fredsmith219 »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #49
gumby wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could be an uber driver, or someone moving their car a short distance while shopping. Otherwise, I do find that weird and I am an ardent masker. Actually, come to think of it, the other day I drove home that way because I just forgot to take it off when I left the supermarket. So there are non-weird explanations. I doubt they account for all the cases.

[flagged]

Not the poster, but I am immunocompromised. So I mask.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#64

Post by myko »

revelio wrote: post #51
buildsjets wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me is that some people choose to continue 100% masking for various reasons, but wear ineffective or poor fitting cloth masks or generic flat surgical masks with huge gaps, when comfortable and effective N95s from name brands are readily and inexpensively available. Or they just chin-diaper.

Why is that amazing? Masking is a social phenomenon at this point. It's about showing other people what sort of person you are, not about the mask itself.

I don't think this is true. Prior to COVID many societies wore masks when sick, and a lot of folks' eyes were opened to the usefulness of doing so during the pandemic. I plan on wearing my n95 out and about when under the weather now, even though I don't generally wear one now that vaccines are readily available.

And there are multitude of folks undergoing treatments that inhibit their immune system, where masking is especially important.

That said, people should stay away from cloth masks or surgical masks and use n95s/respirators.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#66

Post by myko »

MyHypatia wrote: post #52
floren wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that's daily around here still. Absolutely baffling to me, I could handle wearing a mask when I needed to but you bet your ass I was removing it as soon as I got outside because it's really quite unpleasant. I've got a neighbor who wears a mask to move his trash can the 20 feet from the inside of his garage to the pavement just outside. He also wears the mask when driving alone in his car. COVID definitely broke s…

Sometimes I wear a mask to keep the sun off my face or if there is a lot of pollen or dust outside.

I wear my respirator to mow the lawn when my allergies are bothering me. Gets some funny looks occasionally.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#67

Post by Krssst »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #57
buildsjets wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What amazes me is that some people choose to continue 100% masking for various reasons, but wear ineffective or poor fitting cloth masks or generic flat surgical masks with huge gaps, when comfortable and effective N95s from name brands are readily and inexpensively available. Or they just chin-diaper.

Wow I guess I never found those comfortable and effective masks. Maybe people are different? What fits one doesn't fit another? It's fun to earn internet points by claiming to be astonished at how dumb others are, and how much we have figured things out. Maybe after several years of this, the game is growing old. Tolerance, understanding, consideration used to be virtues. But not internet virtues I guess.

I tried two kind of N95. One (actually KF94) uses the ears or the neck for support but ends up either hurting my ears or my nose. The second (3m aura) has two elastics that go around the head, splitting the load, and some padding around the nose. I find those very comfortable although I guess the airtightness could be an issue for some people.

Just in case you never tried it and the pandemic situation starts warranting mask wearing again; I don't really care whether people mask.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#68

Post by pfannkuchen »

lisasays wrote: post #59
revelio wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that amazing? Masking is a social phenomenon at this point. It's about showing other people what sort of person you are, not about the mask itself.

It may make you feel comfortable to believe that's why they mask. But (knowing many people who still mask, under varying circumstances) -- that's not why they mask.

Why do they mask then?

It seems a little hard to psychologically disentangle what one does for social approval vs for other reasons. For example, maybe it feels emotionally uncomfortable to not mask. Is it because the subconscious is worried about disease, or because the subconscious is worried about social approval? Probably some of both, but if we removed one perhaps the external behavior would change, hard to tell.

Also IME it seems to cluster with other appearance related traits (e.g. type of dress, mannerisms, etc).

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#69

Post by neoflame »

danmaz74 wrote: post #25
Footkerchief wrote: post #7

Just one aspect of the huge, tragicomic waste that resulted from the medical establishment's position that airborne transmission couldn't be real because it reminded everyone too much of miasma theory. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ina.13070

"Couldn't be real" is a complete misinterpretation of the paper. The "medical establishment" asserts that many diseases are transmitted by aerosol (ie very small droplets), but many more - and especially those similar to covid-19 - are transmitted by larger droplets, which travel less far. This isn't anything trivial as your comment makes it look like.

Citation 3 of the linked paper is https://twitter.com/who/status/1243972193169616898. I don't see how a tweet by the WHO beginning with "FACT: #COVID19 is NOT airborne" can be construed as anything but a denial that COVID-19 is airborne.

Re: The explosive legacy of the hand sanitizer boom

#70

Post by wewtyflakes »

slily wrote: post #55
danmaz74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was very clear from where? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-br...

Obstinate appeal to authority to shut down dissenters is exactly how it took years for "The Science" to catch up to what had been obvious from the available data since 2020. From the masks to the social distancing, to denial of natural immunity and of vaccine side-effects. I agree with the sibling commentator - to anyone who was actually paying attention and considered the evidence from a variety of trustworthy sourc…

When the unknowns were high, it seems reasonable that we would err on the side of caution, including using hand sanitizer. I do not see it as insanity, but rather a reasonable thing to do given the unknowns were high at the time.
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