Use Soap

A Humble Bar of Soap

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday to you.

No, it’s nobody’s birthday, there are no candles to blow out. Just me, washing my hands at work and thinking a tiny germ was able to shut down entire economies and all we have to do is wash our hands….huh.

In March 2020, as Coronavirus brought our whole world to a screeching halt, we didn’t need some fancy 20th century technology to save us. There was no piece of alien technology from our space explorations to save the day. No, our sanity and peace of mind came to us from a humble bar of soap. Imagine that.

Soap has been around since 2800 BC (that’s Before Christ, not Before Corona) but it was not as commonplace as it is now. It was a luxury item and remained so until the late 18th century when there was a push for soap to be used as a means to promote hygiene and health. So how does soap clean?

Soap has two parts; a water loving side and an oil loving side. Germs stick to our hands because we have oil on our hands.

Disgusting but true, we have oil EVERYWHERE.

In hand washing, one end of the soap binds to the oily end of the microorganism, the other end binds to the water and together they skip on off your hands and down the drain. Germs removed.

But we don’t want to just remove the Coronavirus. No, we want to kill it. So we put anti-microbial soap on the shopping list. But do we really need antimicrobial soap? Antibacterial soaps have added ingredients like triclosan or triclocarban, which can penetrate bacterial cell membranes and kill the bacteria.

Yeeessss, this is your lightsaber and you will be a sink Jedi.

But is antibacterial soap more effective at preventing the spread of germs? No.
So much so that in 2016, the FDA issued a statement that antibacterial soaps were no longer allowed to be marketed to the public.

Fine, no lightsaber but we can still bring on a foamy tsunami to the germs that dared to cling to our hands.

1) Wet your hands with clean, running water — either warm or cold. It doesn’t have to be hot water.
2) Apply soap and lather well.
3) Rub your hands vigorously for at least 20 seconds. Remember to scrub all surfaces, including the backs of your hands, wrists, between your fingers and under your fingernails.
4) Rinse well.
5) Dry your hands thoroughly with a clean towel or air-dry them. Germs can and will stick to wet surfaces.

Here’s a video from the WHO demonstrating proper hand washing technique.

In Leviticus 15, God gives us instructions on how to deal with the sick in our community. There we find washing to be a major aspect of His recommendations.

Frequent hand-washing is one of the best ways to avoid getting sick and spreading illness. It has served us well as a tool in our disease fighting arsenal, let’s lather up and scrub for 20 seconds or more and “May the Fourth be with you.”