Extemporaneous hand sanitizer.

[Chris Hogg]

Woo hoo? Sounds Chinese! Made in Wuhan? :-)

[Robin]

10 minutes? Professor Chris Whitty* told MPs this morning "It's probably largely gone by 48 hours and almost completely gone by 72 hours on a hard surface." But I suppose to some people he's just another bloke on the internet - and old and white to boot. *CB FRCP FFPH FMedSci, Chief Medical Officer for England, Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government, etc etc

[Andrew]

Long enough to be present on the inside or outside of all those packages air-freighted in from China (after being bought online from a company with a .CO.UK address)

Even he had a cough without using a tissue :-). Also a couple of people in the 'audience'.

[Jethro_uk]

Not sure about the "Turbo" bit, but those yeasts produce the cleanest wash from which to distil - if you skimp and try distilling regular ale or beer ... it's pretty rank.

There's a lively underground home distilling community in the UK. Enough to support a few online and high street shops. As a very early adopter :) I'm aware that the powers that be were completely blindsided by the overnight appearance of a hobbiest market, and by the time they'd realised it was "a thing" it was too late and Streisland applied.

If it's any consolation, I do use British sugar :)

[harry]

Light switches, computer keyboards, money, door handles, taps etc.

[michael adams]

I was thinking more on these lines -

<quote>

Alison Carey, MD, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Drexel University, tells Health. "Flu viruses can survive on hard surfaces (like bus poles) and infect another person for 24 to 48 hours,"

<quote>

However

<quote>

The longer the virus sits, the more the possibility of someone catching the cold or flu decreases, Dr. Carey says. "But people can definitely get it from touching bus poles, especially in the five to 10 minutes that elapse from a sick person getting off the bus and someone else getting on," she says.

</quote>

She's white as well, although at a guess, not trying so hard to cover her arse

michael adams

...

[Robin]

Well found. Pity:

a. you didn't post that in the first place rather than an unqualified "up to ten minutes"; and

b. you didn't check what health.com said. Follow their link to Alison Carey and you'll see she is in the Department of Paediatrics specialising in the neonatal immune system. Forgive me for thinking she us rather less well up on coronaviruses than the NHS, CDC, et al. I looked as I couldn't fathom why a specialist would refer to flu when there is work on coronaviruses where work on SARS and MERS has given evidence. Eg

"Persistence of coronaviruses on inanimate surfaces and their inactivation with biocidal agents"

Too long/CBA? Try

"Human coronaviruses can remain infectious on inanimate surfaces for up to 9 days. Surface disinfection with 0.1% sodium hypochlorite or 62?71% ethanol significantly reduces coronavirus infectivity on surfaces within

1 min exposure time."

[Robin]

plus handrails on stairs and poles on trains/buses - things older people tend to rely on

[John_j]

Mine never get here anything even remotely like that fast. Much more often it takes a month.

[John_j]

You don?t distil ale or beer, you ferment cane sugar with beer yeast and that works fine with a reflux still.

Mate of mine uses bread yeast and tomato paste. Much slower than the turbo yeasts or beer yeast but it does produce a decent result with a reflux still.

[Andy Burns]

The WHO publishes a hand-gel "recipe"

[Michael Chare]

Not to difficult to make.

I don't know what the ingredients cost but I think you could make quite a bit of money making your own and flogging it on ebay.

[tabbypurr]

It's already on ebay for very low prices

NT

[RJH]

They look highly inflated to me. Small Aldi brand bottles up from 45p to c.£3. And some stuff I bought ('Cuticura') a while back for not much more than £1, £10-£20. And people are paying these prices:

[spuorgelgoog]

Bloody hell.

I wonder if the Post Office are going to add sanitiser gel to jewellery and bullion and other things that must be declared high value when posting.

Owain

[tabbypurr]

order hand sanitizer by price, there's plenty of cheap available. That some is also going for silly prices doesn't mean we can make & sell it at great margin. I did look.

NT

[Andrew]

Does common old methylated spirits work ?.

[Roger Hayter]

It is moderately poisonous, and therefore best not used as a skin preparation, especially not frequently or on children. Also it will dye your hands purple.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Almost certainly but its not a gel

[Jethro_uk]

Well, if you are using bought meths. Although why anyone non-dodgy would want to make methanol I don't know. Unless they are a very niche hobbiest.

The antidote for methanol poisoning is ethanol. Which always amused me slightly, since if you had ethanol you wouldn't be drinking methanol :)

Aren't some US cars run on (m)ethanol ? Very dangerous as the flame can't be seen ...