Dear SK,
You tend to over react to many posts.
I only suggested that it was hypothetically conceivable skin possessed some inherent antimicrobial activities, or not, and only suggested to not be completely dismissive of the possibility. Obviously any such activities are not enough to consistently protect us. The reason to do handwashing, duh, but an evolutionary benefit, if true, before the development of soap.
Well surprise, skin is known to synthesize and display on its surface antibacterial peptides.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2639779/
There is an enormous amount of RNase on the skin surface, although I don’t see how this could penetrate intact, infectious RNA viruses.
If you have studies that prove skin has no antiviral activities versus an inorganic surface I would like to read them. Honestly.
(bold is mine)
I did not dismiss it. I said we shouldn't be passing on unsupported assertions. You said:
... Skin has a variety of anti-microbials and I can imagine that some skin oils for example might help disrupt viral envelopes to some degree. Or not. I just don’t think it is established one way or another....
But remember you said it in support of Squeegee's post:
I have seen advice against gloves. The argument is that your skin's natural secretions can help the virus' lipids to break down, whereas rubber gloves just transmit it from place to place.
How true that is I don't know.
If you don't know if it is true or not, look into it before passing unsupported speculation on.
You implied Squeegee's post contained a valid hypothesis, fine, I said prove it. Prove it is a valid hypothesis, don't just assert it without any source.
Take the time to look into it before posting it where you know people will run with it.
OK, good, here is something valid we can actually discuss.
It does not support the assertion anything on our hands kills enveloped viruses. But it's a start to find out if that is the case or not.
The majority of that paper is about inflammatory reactions on the skin, not like the macrophages in the lung that actually attack microorganisms.
Skin Immune Landscape: Inside and Outside the Organism
In fact, the skin surface is cohabited by microorganisms recognized as skin microbiota that live in complete harmony with the immune sentinels and contribute to the epithelial barrier reinforcement. However, under stress, the symbiotic relationship changes into a dysbiotic one resulting in skin disorders. Hence, the skin microbiota may have either positive or negative influence on the immune system. This review aims at providing basic background information on the cutaneous immune system from major cellular and molecular players and the impact of its microbiota on the well-coordinated immune responses in host defense....
...Moreover, the skin forms a complex and dynamic ecosystem colonized by about 1012 microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and viruses known as skin microbiota.
The article is clear that any immune response against a microbial assault requires it to be triggered.
This article supports the assertion the immune response has to be triggered. It isn't like our skin contains natural disinfectants:
The Dynamics of the Skin’s Immune System
In the event of an insult, the skin-resident immune cells are crucial not only for prevention of infection but also for tissue reconstruction. Deregulation of immune responses often leads to impaired healing and poor tissue restoration and function. In this review, we will discuss the defensive components of the skin and focus on the function of skin-resident immune cells in homeostasis and their role in wound healing.
Given the enveloped coronaviruses aren't likely to upset the skin biome unless that is the virus' target cell (like HSV and HPV) we need to look further.
I didn't have good luck looking for coronavirus on hands, too many articles on hand washing show up. But I did find some related articles:
Survival of influenza virus on hands and fomites in community and laboratory settings.
H1N1 doesn't survive long on hands but the exact time isn't in the abstract. However:
Fomite-mediated transmission as a sufficient pathway: a comparative analysis across three viral pathogens
We developed and analyzed a compartmental model that explicitly accounts for fomite transmission by including pathogen transfer between hands and surfaces. We consider two sub-types of fomite-mediated transmission: direct fomite (e.g., shedding onto fomites) and hand-fomite (e.g., shedding onto hands and then contacting fomites). We use this model to examine three pathogens with distinct environmental characteristics (influenza, rhinovirus, and norovirus) in four venue types. To parameterize the model for each pathogen we conducted a thorough literature search....
Conclusions
Fomite-mediated transmission is an important pathway for the three pathogens examined. The effectiveness of environmental interventions differs significantly both by pathogen and venue. While fomite-based interventions may be able to lower ℛ0 for fomites below 1 and interrupt transmission, rhinovirus and norovirus are so infectious (ℛ0>>1) that single environmental interventions are unlikely to interrupt fomite transmission for these pathogens.
This suggests it is the viability of the microorganisms on hands is related to the pathogen more than the skin surface.
To find out if coronavirus is more easily transferred by a gloved hand than an ungloved hand is a moot point if they both can become contaminated and transfer the virus. If you add the fact skin oils can act as a transfer medium....
But if someone wants to investigate the glove vs hands claim, have at it.
So are we chit-chatting or are we discussing evidence based information?
