Out of hand soap? You can use these household items instead to fight coronavirus germs

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made clear that washing your hands with soap and water is the most effective method for fighting off the coronavirus during the COVID-19 outbreak.

But as store shelves empty daily, it can be difficult to keep stocked on hand soap.

Luckily, there are alternatives you can use to wash coronavirus off your skin.

Common household items, such as dish soap and body wash, will also work because they contain “soap molecules,” which trap dirt, oil and microbes — or germs — by grouping together, according to the University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry.

When you run water over the clusters of molecules with the germs trapped inside, it washes them away.

So in short, anything with soap molecules will do the trick, including dish soap and body wash. And science doesn’t necessarily indicate that antibacterial or antiseptic soaps are any more effective at washing away COVID-19 than regular soaps, according to Dr. Andrew Pavia, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah.

“Regular soap is great. In my house we use plain old Palmolive and Dove bar soaps to wash our hands,” Dr. Pavia told Fast Company.

And if you have the option of liquid soap or bar soap, it’s safer to choose liquid if others will be using the soap, according to The Minnesota Department of Health. “Germs can grow on bar soap and easily spread from one person to another,” the department says, while “liquid soap is easy to use and will not spread germs from one person to another.”

So if you run out of hand soap, don’t panic. Just reach for any soap that’s available around your house, and you will still be protected against the coronavirus.

This story was originally published March 18, 2020 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Out of hand soap? You can use these household items instead to fight coronavirus germs."