Notice that midwesterners had bought all of the first aid section’s alcohol products EXCEPT the oddly Wintergreen scented 70% Isopropyl Alcohol.
We’re freaked out, but we’re not THAT freaked out yet. Evidently.
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I’m shopping at the wrong stores. I have never seen wintergreen isopropyl alcohol.
Is that to make your pod sites smell fresh and minty?
I think perfume manufacturers have it all wrong. The florals and fruits and spices and musks - they do nothing for me. If you really want to get me, dab some cookie-dough behind your ears.
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I’ve never seen Wintergreen rubbing alcohol before either! Maybe that will be the smell of winners after all is said and done.
When I saw it I thought, “I ain’t that scared. That’s weird.”
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Maybe it is the kind that people (like @jbowler’s wife) use to remove nail polish. Very posh!! 
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Nail polish remover is (traditionally) acetone. With Gel polish you have to clean the nail of oils to ensure adhesion and that is done with alcohol. There is no remover with Gel polish; the result won’t come off for a week or so.
The wintergreen thing is explained in the Wikipedia article for rubbing alcohol. It’s there to make the stuff taste horrible. When I was growing up in the UK there was no rubbing alcohol, there was just this horrible stuff called “surgical spirit”. According to that article it is basically what is called “denatured alcohol” in the US mixed with wintergreen, caster oil and a phalate. The caster oil makes it utterly useless for site prep.
How are supplies of Hydrogen Peroxide standing up? IMO that is one of the best antiseptics available and while it is not a one-step solution if you want to clean as well there are lots of water based cleaners out there; water mixed with any non-oil-based surfactant (i.e. not soap).
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I just discovered this from the NIH:
G.1. Alcohol
Alcohol is effective against influenza virus (252). Ethyl alcohol (70%) is a powerful broad-spectrum germicide and is considered generally superior to isopropyl alcohol. Alcohol is often used to disinfect small surfaces (e.g. rubber stoppers of multiple-dose medication vials, and thermometers) and occasionally external surfaces of equipment (e.g. stethoscopes and ventilators).
So that’s ethanol - i.e. the stuff some of us drink. 190 proof grain alcohol is actually 95% ethanol and is readily available in Oregon (though banned elsewhere). In the US “70% alcohol” seems to refer colloquially to 70% “isopropyl alcohol”. Note that elsewhere the CDC quote ethanol activity up to 80% - so dilute your grain alcohol, it apparently doesn’t do any harm and helps it go further.
Meanwhile the position of isopropyl alcohol, i.e. what everyone is buying, versus a virus is challenged by this paragraph from another CDC article:
Ethyl alcohol, at concentrations of 60%–80%, is a potent virucidal agent inactivating all of the lipophilic viruses (e.g., herpes, vaccinia, and influenza virus) and many hydrophilic viruses (e.g., adenovirus, enterovirus, rhinovirus, and rotaviruses but not hepatitis A virus (HAV) 58 or poliovirus) 49. Isopropyl alcohol is not active against the nonlipid enteroviruses but is fully active against the lipid viruses 72. Studies also have demonstrated the ability of ethyl and isopropyl alcohol to inactivate the hepatitis B virus(HBV) 224, 225 and the herpes virus, 490 and ethyl alcohol to inactivate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) 227, rotavirus, echovirus, and astrovirus 491.
Notice that they don’t mention coronavirus once in that list, indeed it is not mentioned once in the whole paper. [BTW the numbers are references, see the original article.] The paper is rather old and the terminology in this area changes rapidly, but as a generalisation it seems we might be better off disinfecting with the Vodka, so long as it is at least 120 proof.
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From what I’ve read, Isopropyl alcohol doesn’t even kill viruses, only bacteria…
I hate everything scented so I bought up some unscented hand sanitizer when I saw it. Scented anything just smells artificial and chemical-y to me.
I’d like to buy some surface cleaner, but so far everything I see looks like it might be scented. The shelves of cleaner are starting to look pretty bare, though, so I may just grab a bottle of whatever might have the right type of alcohol or bleach in it.
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Yeah, I was just trying to stock up on swabs for pod and Dexcom changes. I cannot explain what the panic buyers are thinking.
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My husband is sensitive to chemical smells and I’m sensitive to the “natural” product smells, so I just make my own spray bottle of bleach (properly diluted in water) to use for things like this. For everyday things I just use a spray bottle of water, castile soap, and tea tree oil.
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I have wondered the same thing. Are they going to use a swab to disinfect each finger??
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You must live in wrong part of country. This is for the hobos that drink it.
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