Coronavirus (way, way, off topic)
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I was reading up on Hypochlorous Acid as a possibly superior disinfectant. I was surprised to find little machines on AliExpress which are claiming to make it.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001031093275.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.11cd7faa2Rv2Ze&algo_pvid=8e105a6c-589f-49fb-b2b5-aeac6b44f105&algo_expid=8e105a6c-589f-49fb-b2b5-aeac6b44f105-16&btsid=0ab50f6115905983866665115e8103&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_
The typical ingredients are just water plus a little vinegar and salt, plus some kind of reaction which the machines do. I'm not sure how one would test for efficacy, but it sounds interesting.Anyone heard of these or are using them? One of them sells for as little as $10 and plugs into a USB port. Just about all of them are less than $100. They appear to make copious amounts of disinfectant, such that you could pretty much shower any incoming goods in the stuff. From what I've been reading, Hypochlorous Acid appears to be a capable viruscide that's quite innocuous to humans and has much less odor than bleach. That said, I have no idea whether these machines manage to make it in a useful concentration or not. Concentration levels are directly related to efficacy, and AFAIK, maybe required dwell time as well.
So, why not just buy the stuff rather than make it? Apparently Hypochlorous Acid has a relatively short shelf-life of about a week or so.
Anyone heard of this stuff before? I've seen almost nothing in the news about it.
@NeverDie a sodium hypochlorite solution is what is commonly known as bleach. Probably is more convenient to buy it rather than produce them.
Just to give you an idea, below a picture of a famous bleach commercialized in Italy... Maybe you have the same brand in your country
Your question about the concentration and efficacy is interesting.
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@NeverDie a sodium hypochlorite solution is what is commonly known as bleach. Probably is more convenient to buy it rather than produce them.
Just to give you an idea, below a picture of a famous bleach commercialized in Italy... Maybe you have the same brand in your country
Your question about the concentration and efficacy is interesting.
@franz-unix said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
a sodium hypochlorite solution is what is commonly known as bleach.
Yes, but take a closer look. I was not interested in bleach (sodium hypochlorite) but instead Hypochlorous Acid. Note the difference in spelling, as they are not the same. I'm aware that some of the aliexpress products, like the one I linked to, may also advertise as sodium hypochlorite, but I think that may just be click bait (?). After all, how many people have ever heard of Hypochlorous Acid? Not me, until now.
What are the benefits?
Hypochlorous acid, unlike chlorine bleach, is 100% safe and non-irritant. If it gets on your skin or in your eyes, it will not burn. Even if it were accidentally ingested, it is completely harmless. Yet, it is 70-80 times more efficient at killing microbial pathogens than chlorine bleach.
https://www.hypochlorousacid.com/It's good for disinfecting food surfaces, and you don't need to wash it off afterward. Some other disinfectants aren't safe for food contact, and so they have to be completely washed off food surfaces following disinfection, which to me seems like a major hassle. In addition, hypochlorous acid is apparently safe for disinfecting raw produce.
There is real science behind it: https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Hypochlorous Acid TR 08 13 15.pdf
How I found it: I was looking for a disinfectant with the shortest minimum dwell time to be effective. A lot of disinfectants have to thoroughly wet a surface for 10 or more minutes to be effective, which is a long time to be waiting around. The length of time is always detailed in a disinfectant's datasheet. For instance, consider Simple Green Clean Finish:" https://simplegreen.com/products/clean-finish-disinfectant-cleaner/ It kills 99.9% of bacteria in just 5 seconds. It can kill Avian influenza virus in 30 seconds if kept wet, but it can take up to 5 minutes to kill poliovirus. Compared to a lot of other disinfectants, that's pretty fast, so I ordered some for use, but not in the kitchen because it would have to be washed off afterward. Also, it both cleans and disinfects, whereas some cleaners don't disinfect and some disinfectants don't clean. In that sense, it does double duty.
I've noticed that it takes a lot of disinfectant to thoroughly wet a surface. A lot of people who are using disinfecting wipes aren't using them properly, because (1) they don't thoroughly wet the surface and/or (2) because they wipe it off far too quickly, or they allow it to dry, before the minimum dwell time is reached. It's much easier to thoroughly wet a surface with a spray than it is with a wipe.
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@franz-unix said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
a sodium hypochlorite solution is what is commonly known as bleach.
Yes, but take a closer look. I was not interested in bleach (sodium hypochlorite) but instead Hypochlorous Acid. Note the difference in spelling, as they are not the same. I'm aware that some of the aliexpress products, like the one I linked to, may also advertise as sodium hypochlorite, but I think that may just be click bait (?). After all, how many people have ever heard of Hypochlorous Acid? Not me, until now.
What are the benefits?
Hypochlorous acid, unlike chlorine bleach, is 100% safe and non-irritant. If it gets on your skin or in your eyes, it will not burn. Even if it were accidentally ingested, it is completely harmless. Yet, it is 70-80 times more efficient at killing microbial pathogens than chlorine bleach.
https://www.hypochlorousacid.com/It's good for disinfecting food surfaces, and you don't need to wash it off afterward. Some other disinfectants aren't safe for food contact, and so they have to be completely washed off food surfaces following disinfection, which to me seems like a major hassle. In addition, hypochlorous acid is apparently safe for disinfecting raw produce.
There is real science behind it: https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Hypochlorous Acid TR 08 13 15.pdf
How I found it: I was looking for a disinfectant with the shortest minimum dwell time to be effective. A lot of disinfectants have to thoroughly wet a surface for 10 or more minutes to be effective, which is a long time to be waiting around. The length of time is always detailed in a disinfectant's datasheet. For instance, consider Simple Green Clean Finish:" https://simplegreen.com/products/clean-finish-disinfectant-cleaner/ It kills 99.9% of bacteria in just 5 seconds. It can kill Avian influenza virus in 30 seconds if kept wet, but it can take up to 5 minutes to kill poliovirus. Compared to a lot of other disinfectants, that's pretty fast, so I ordered some for use, but not in the kitchen because it would have to be washed off afterward. Also, it both cleans and disinfects, whereas some cleaners don't disinfect and some disinfectants don't clean. In that sense, it does double duty.
I've noticed that it takes a lot of disinfectant to thoroughly wet a surface. A lot of people who are using disinfecting wipes aren't using them properly, because (1) they don't thoroughly wet the surface and/or (2) because they wipe it off far too quickly, or they allow it to dry, before the minimum dwell time is reached. It's much easier to thoroughly wet a surface with a spray than it is with a wipe.
@NeverDie An alcohol mist is pretty fast and effective as a surface disinfectant and almost universally available.
HOCl is a weak acid from vague memory and not so far removed from hypochlorite (same family?).
You have to remember that if a 20 second wash is good enough to clean your hands, the same should be true of surfaces, and raw produce rarely needs much other than a wash...
Sterilisation is a blanket attack so yes kills the bad stuff but also the good bacteria. eg - Chlorination provides you safe drinking water but kills some useful stomach bacteria on ingestion, which is why foreign waters give tourists problems the locals don't suffer.... ;) -
@NeverDie An alcohol mist is pretty fast and effective as a surface disinfectant and almost universally available.
HOCl is a weak acid from vague memory and not so far removed from hypochlorite (same family?).
You have to remember that if a 20 second wash is good enough to clean your hands, the same should be true of surfaces, and raw produce rarely needs much other than a wash...
Sterilisation is a blanket attack so yes kills the bad stuff but also the good bacteria. eg - Chlorination provides you safe drinking water but kills some useful stomach bacteria on ingestion, which is why foreign waters give tourists problems the locals don't suffer.... ;)@zboblamont Have a look at "List N", which is the table at the bottom of the CDC article: https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-n-disinfectants-use-against-sars-cov-2
It's a 17 page list of disinfectant products and their active ingredients. What I was calling "dwell time", CDC calls "contact time". The required contact time for coronavirus disinfection for each is on the rightmost column. It varies from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, even for products with the same active ingredient. I'm guessing the main difference, then, is concentration of the active ingredient, though there might be other factors as well.
Your argument does seem like common sense, yet none of them are 20 seconds, and 10 minutes seems very common. Go figure as to why.
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@zboblamont Have a look at "List N", which is the table at the bottom of the CDC article: https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-n-disinfectants-use-against-sars-cov-2
It's a 17 page list of disinfectant products and their active ingredients. What I was calling "dwell time", CDC calls "contact time". The required contact time for coronavirus disinfection for each is on the rightmost column. It varies from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, even for products with the same active ingredient. I'm guessing the main difference, then, is concentration of the active ingredient, though there might be other factors as well.
Your argument does seem like common sense, yet none of them are 20 seconds, and 10 minutes seems very common. Go figure as to why.
@NeverDie Actually no. Because this is an EPA list denoting the effectiveness of listed products, it's much too complicated to find out concentrations of the active ingredient, and I would guess that the kill times have a Factor of Safety built in.
Saw nothing on what surfaces are referred as the Virus is known to survive on different surfaces for different durations, again I suspect a high FoS.
Sorted on "Follow the directions..." and looked for Human Coronavirus, ethanol and isopropol both pop up at 30 seconds contact (normal terminology for disinfection) time.Hypochlorite is a few minutes but varies according to brand name, so not really helpful if you don't know concentrations.
My point remains that alcohol is readily available, and as an additional precaution post washing surfaces probably more than sufficient in a domestic environment.
If 70% is adequate for handwash on skin where it evaporates in a few seconds, no reason why on a cold non-porous surface it would be no less effective -
In case anyone is interested, BigClive tried out some inexpensive gear that's at least notionally similar to what I described above for making Hypochlorous Acid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5kcER2Z4-8
Judging from his teardown, it seems so ridiculously simple that it would be quite easy to DIY your own. I'm guessing that the only part that might differ in quality is the electrode. Presumably a platinum electrode (or maybe even just a platnum plated electrode?) would be the ideal choice, but BigClive speculates that maybe stainless steel might also work.
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Well, looking into it, the good ones apparently use pure titanium electrodes, which allegedly don't degrade or release other metals into the water.
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I received the first Moderna vaccine yesterday, less than a year after the first post in this thread. The big unknown right now is how well it will work against the more lethal variants that have since evolved.
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For "young" people like me in their 40-50, it seems we'll have to wait a few months more in Sweden.
@hek If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
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@hek If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
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@hek If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
@NeverDie said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
Here, vaccination is not very popular, many are in no hurry to get vaccinated. I do not know what this is due to, I think mainly because most people are sure that they have already been ill and received immunity)). Judging by the statistics published here periodically, Sputnik V works well and has almost no complications.
... I'm not sure if it was skepticism, rather something else. ;) -
Just heard they put one of the vaccines, astrazeneca, on hold here in Denmark, as there apparently where reported some serious health issues with it (someone apparently died after getting it). My wife was in line for getting one of them at her job.
For my part, I think I'll probably be working from home, until after the summer vacation, as my employer has asked us to stay at home. But I do miss the daily walk and talks to the coffee pot with the colleagues. Our sitting together when looking at code issues.
/ Thomas
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@NeverDie said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
Here, vaccination is not very popular, many are in no hurry to get vaccinated. I do not know what this is due to, I think mainly because most people are sure that they have already been ill and received immunity)). Judging by the statistics published here periodically, Sputnik V works well and has almost no complications.
... I'm not sure if it was skepticism, rather something else. ;)@berkseo said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
Here, vaccination is not very popular, many are in no hurry to get vaccinated.
That's what I've heard, and that's why I thought Hek might have a chance at getting vaccinated there. I mean, if there's more than ample supply vs demand, then why not vaccinate anyone who shows up and wants it? It's a win-win for everybody. It appears to be as effective as the Moderna or Pfeizer vaccines.
The Chinese vaccine is reportedly effective against the Brazilian variant. If I had the choice I maybe would have gotten that one, but it wasn't on the local menu.
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Both Pfeizer and Moderna are working on "booster" shots to supplement against virus's (e.g. the South African one) that their regular vaccine is much less effective against. No timeline on availability. Because there are 90+ variants to contend with, I get the impression that we're at the end of the beginning of the pandemic much more than the beginning of the end.
Meanwhile, people here have gotten tired of PPE and social distancing, and the state government just recently removed the laws mandating it, so I'm seeing less of it now than I did a year ago. The roads are full of cars again, and local retail businesses seem almost as full of people as they were in December 2019. A month ago everyone walking around the neighborhood where I live was wearing a mask. And now, starting this week, literally no one is. It's as though someone flipped a switch. It really boggles the mind. The groupthink error seems to be that falling infection/death rates mean that PPE is no longer needed rather than it was highly useful and the reason for the decline. :face_palm: Go figure.
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Both Pfeizer and Moderna are working on "booster" shots to supplement against virus's (e.g. the South African one) that their regular vaccine is much less effective against. No timeline on availability. Because there are 90+ variants to contend with, I get the impression that we're at the end of the beginning of the pandemic much more than the beginning of the end.
Meanwhile, people here have gotten tired of PPE and social distancing, and the state government just recently removed the laws mandating it, so I'm seeing less of it now than I did a year ago. The roads are full of cars again, and local retail businesses seem almost as full of people as they were in December 2019. A month ago everyone walking around the neighborhood where I live was wearing a mask. And now, starting this week, literally no one is. It's as though someone flipped a switch. It really boggles the mind. The groupthink error seems to be that falling infection/death rates mean that PPE is no longer needed rather than it was highly useful and the reason for the decline. :face_palm: Go figure.
@NeverDie yeah the timing is pretty bad in the US while you are only a few months away of immunity with the fastest vaccination program except Israel. Letting the virus spread free again now is taking a lot of risks of seeing new variants that vaccines can't prevent, and making everything useless...
Here in Vietnam only 200 000 doses of AZ were received yet, only 30 millions are secured until now so only 15% of population will be vaccinated this summer. Local vaccines are still in clinical trials so won't be here before the end of the year, they probably will be the game changers here are they will allow mass availability and very low cost allowing a mass vaccination campaign.
But we still have a different situation, an outbreak of the UK variant has been found in the North end of January, they are still fighting with it but usual isolation of cases & contacts are showing their efficiency: in the last days the only new cases found were already in isolation so there was no risk of spread. There was also an outbreak here in Saigon in the team managing the freight at airport, it was contained in 2 weeks...Nearly normal life here, everything is opened, but still many people are wearing masks, temperature is checked before entering public places like shops and restaurants. Masks are mandatory in closed places: elevators, shops, etc ... sounds overkill with no community transmission but it has shown efficiency when an outbreak occurs (many border jumpers with China, Cambodia, Laos), it limits the spread of the virus until people are tested, and shortens the contact tracing.
Wish all countries had the same strict measures than Vietnam, this pandemic would be long over like SRAS.
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@hek If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
@NeverDie said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
@hek If you hop across over to Russia, you might be able to get inoculated with Sputnik V. Although it was initially greeted in the West with skepticism, it has since gotten thumbs up from a proper peer review in Lancet.
Read an article in a French newspaper yesterday about French people getting vaccinated with Sputnik in Russia while they were not supposed to be accepted at vaccination centres. But it seems it depends on the centers, and rules can change from one day to the other.
The problem of Sputnik V is they have a low production capacity at the moment, and that's the same problem than with all the vaccines. They're selling it everywhere but in the end like all other vaccines when countries start buying millions there will be delays due to production bottlenecks. They're signing deals with other countries to produce it but it will take time to get real mass production, and by that time other vaccines suppliers might have solved their production problems.
For the Chinese vaccine last time I read something about it there were doubts about the efficiency, Coronavac used in Brazil has shown poor efficiency against their local variant. Wouldn't rely on it for my vaccination :P
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@NeverDie yeah the timing is pretty bad in the US while you are only a few months away of immunity with the fastest vaccination program except Israel. Letting the virus spread free again now is taking a lot of risks of seeing new variants that vaccines can't prevent, and making everything useless...
Here in Vietnam only 200 000 doses of AZ were received yet, only 30 millions are secured until now so only 15% of population will be vaccinated this summer. Local vaccines are still in clinical trials so won't be here before the end of the year, they probably will be the game changers here are they will allow mass availability and very low cost allowing a mass vaccination campaign.
But we still have a different situation, an outbreak of the UK variant has been found in the North end of January, they are still fighting with it but usual isolation of cases & contacts are showing their efficiency: in the last days the only new cases found were already in isolation so there was no risk of spread. There was also an outbreak here in Saigon in the team managing the freight at airport, it was contained in 2 weeks...Nearly normal life here, everything is opened, but still many people are wearing masks, temperature is checked before entering public places like shops and restaurants. Masks are mandatory in closed places: elevators, shops, etc ... sounds overkill with no community transmission but it has shown efficiency when an outbreak occurs (many border jumpers with China, Cambodia, Laos), it limits the spread of the virus until people are tested, and shortens the contact tracing.
Wish all countries had the same strict measures than Vietnam, this pandemic would be long over like SRAS.
@Nca78 said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
Here in Vietnam only 200 000 doses of AZ were received yet, only 30 millions are secured until now so only 15% of population will be vaccinated this summer.
Not sure if you saw this, but if not, South Africa actually halted distribution of AZ after they received a million doses because from their testing they found it not much better than placebo against the South African variant:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/world/africa/covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-south-africa.htmlI wonder if other countries are thoroughly vetting their vaccines as well or whether they're just taking them on faith and sending them into immediate distribution. Either way the truth would come out eventually, but more testing after the doses are in hand means more delay for sure. As long as it isn't directly killing people, I don't see the downside of inoculating people with it in case it turns out to have some benefits in the more severe cases. It's already a sunk cost, and surely it does no good just sitting on the shelf.
Or is it that they're trying to avoid a possibly useless vaccine somehow interfering with a better vaccine that may become available in the future?
Anyhow, it's great to hear the updates directly from everyone about life and the pandemic in your respective countries. :smile:
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@Nca78 said in Coronavirus (way, way, off topic):
Here in Vietnam only 200 000 doses of AZ were received yet, only 30 millions are secured until now so only 15% of population will be vaccinated this summer.
Not sure if you saw this, but if not, South Africa actually halted distribution of AZ after they received a million doses because from their testing they found it not much better than placebo against the South African variant:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/world/africa/covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-south-africa.htmlI wonder if other countries are thoroughly vetting their vaccines as well or whether they're just taking them on faith and sending them into immediate distribution. Either way the truth would come out eventually, but more testing after the doses are in hand means more delay for sure. As long as it isn't directly killing people, I don't see the downside of inoculating people with it in case it turns out to have some benefits in the more severe cases. It's already a sunk cost, and surely it does no good just sitting on the shelf.
Or is it that they're trying to avoid a possibly useless vaccine somehow interfering with a better vaccine that may become available in the future?
Anyhow, it's great to hear the updates directly from everyone about life and the pandemic in your respective countries. :smile:
@NeverDie The study is only about "mild or moderate" illness, as long as there is a decent effect on severe cases, hospitalization and death, it's still worth distributing. And it is a preprint only, done on a low number of cases so it's a bit far fetched to draw some final conclusions from that.
AZ is very efficient against "old" variants and UK variant, and until now that's all we've seen arriving in Vietnam, so it's already a great progress if we can limit transmission of those variants. If people are less severely ill, it also means than in addition to limit the overload of hospitals people are less contagious (shown by all studies on this subject until now), so it will still slow down the spread of the virus, even for variants for which it can't really protect against.And yes probably they don't want to use AZ in SA because the interaction with other vaccines is not known, so using AZ when the vast majority of cases in your country have a variant against which people will have a low protection is a loss of chances for people in the future. In their situation it's logic. But for most of the world where this variant is in minority in declared cases using AZ vaccine makes sense, it will help limit the propagation of the virus and limit the risk of seeing new variants appear.
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Reporting back: My second vaccination was literally "drive through". You drive to the site, roll down your window, a nurse injects you in the arm that's facing the window, and like that, you're done. Very easy if you happen to drive a car.
Here, just this week, we've transitioned from vaccine shortage to a relatively large vaccine surplus: thanks to ramping production, supply exceeds demand. So, they're moving from mass vaccination, like what I had, to pushing the vaccine down to smaller medical clinics to reach more people.
I hear that in Russia, which has had a domestic surplus for quite some time, they're now paying citizens to get vaccinated. I hope we switch to that as well, because something like 25-33% of the population here doesn't want to be vaccinated, even though it's totally free for everyone. That idea isn't something even being talked about yet, let alone debated, and it may not fly politically. Fortunately, the vaccine really does seem to work quite well, and as evidence of that grows, I'm hoping more of the hesitant population will change their minds and decide to get vaccinated after all.
IIRC, back when smallpox vaccinations were deployed in a worldwide effort to eradicate smallpox, they were mandatory for everyone. So, if the political will for it exists, there is at least that as precedent. More likely they'll just make life inconvenient for those who aren't vaccinated by issuing vaccine "passports" for those who have been vaccinated. Because of the prior shortage, that hasn't happened yet, and perhaps it will remain just a theoretical option.
