French and American researchers believe that lip balm would be a good ally against the coronavirus. This would greatly limit droplet emissions, considered to be the main source of transmission. On the other hand, lip balm does not in any way replace wearing a mask or washing your hands.
What if lip balm could reduce the risk of transmission coronavirus? In any case, this is what a study published by the American Physical Society indicates. October 2, 2020. As part of their research, Manouk Abkarian (University of Montpellier) and Howard Stone (Princeton University) conducted a very telling experiment.
Researchers asked a man locked in a room to repeat a sentence several times. The goal? Observe the formation of droplets during the pronunciation of certain words. Depending on the results, "p", "b" or "k" words project droplets about two meters away. Nevertheless, the researchers mentioned the lip balm. The latter, according to them, prevents the filaments of saliva appearing on the edges of the lips from turning into droplets.
For Manouk Abrakian, lip balm divides droplet emissions by four in the case of certain consonants. On the other hand, the number of drops goes up over time after applying the balm. Despite this small downside, the leaders of the study believe that lip balm can be a major support in the fight against the coronavirus. With winter approaching, lower temperature is favorable for the virus, but winter is also lip balm season.
However, if these results are encouraging, the scientists did not hesitate to point out that wearing a mask and washing your hands remain the most effective measures. In addition, the researchers formulated a theory. According to them, the super-contaminators could be individuals whose saliva has a viscoelasticity optimizing the number of droplets at the time of speaking.
With a toll of nearly 38 million cases for more than one million deaths , the current health crisis is far from over. In the absence of a ready-to-market vaccine, find allies against the spread of the virus is a good thing. Recently, researchers have been interested in wearing protective glasses or even wearing a visor. Indeed, the coronavirus can also enter the body through the eyes.
