Why Wash Your Hands?
Why everyone in this time of huge pandemic is asking to wash your hands?
What is the science behind washing hand and COVID-19?
We know that the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 aka Coronavirus is to wash your hands frequently.. But WHY?
To understand the reason behind washing hands let’s first understand the basic highschool biology and chemistry which will let us easily understand the science behind it.
Virus
Basically viruses are covered from outside with a protective layer of fat and protein which helps them stick to your body more likely hands as they are more prone to the outside world.
Now this layer of fat help it sticking to your skin and mearly washing hand with water dosen’t do much even after washing it stays on your skin. BUT.. When you wash your hand with soap it literally kills the virus.
Soap
Now lets jump to soap chemistry: Soap basically are sodium or potassium fatty acids salts. They are long hydrocarbon chain molecules which has two parts one is hydrophobic(water repellent) and another is hydrophilic(water loving). So when soap molecules come in contact with water and fat the hydrophobic part stick to fat and hydrophilic part to water, this two way attraction pulls the fat apart from the virus(The chemical bond of viruses are not very strong and easy to destroy).Than the leftover shards of viruses are dissolved into water and disintegrate
Though this process may sound simpler to kill viruses but it takes some amount of time to get rid of it so you must wash your hands for about 20–30 seconds. And about soap, so every soap has the same structure so the quality of soap dosent matter utill you have one. This is easiest simplest and cheapest way to fight against coronavirus.
Stay Safe| wash your hands.
