Can Mouthwash Protect You Against Covid-19 Coronavirus? What This Study Really Said

There’s a difference between a laboratory and your mouth. One of them is a controlled environment. The other is your mouth.

A study published in Journal of Medical Virology showed that in a laboratory different types of nasal rinses and mouthwashes may inactivate human coronaviruses. For example, a 1% baby shampoo nasal rinse solution appeared to inactivate 99.9% of human coronaviruses after about two minutes. Listerine and Listerine‐like products that could inactivate similar amounts of virus even faster, after just 30 seconds.

Before you turn your mouth into a mouthwash jacuzzi with the hopes of ridding your body of the Covid-19 coronavirus, keep in mind several things about the study. First of all, the study tested the solutions on more common types of coronavirus and not the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). Repeat, the study did not use the Covid-19 coronavirus that’s causing the pandemic right now. They may have similar structures but are not exactly the same.

Secondly, for the study, the researchers from the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine (Craig Meyers PhD, Janice Milici, Samina Alam, PhD, David Quillen, MD, David Goldenberg, MD, FACS, and Rena Kass, MD) and Brigham Young University (Richard Robison PhD) applied the various nasal rinse and mouthwash solutions to the human coronaviruses in what were basically culture dishes in a laboratory. Now people may have told you that your mouth is a culture dish. But that’s because your mouth has lots of different microbes in it. Your mouth isn’t actually a glass or plastic culture dish. At least, it shouldn’t be. If it is, then see a doctor as soon as possible.

What works in a culture dish in a laboratory may not necessarily apply to your mouth. Your mouth isn’t smooth like a real culture dish. It’s more like the Grand Canyon with various places for microbes to hide away.

Plus your mouth is not the only place the Covid-19 coronavirus may be. The SARS-CoV2 is considered a respiratory virus and will typically infect cells in your respiratory tract. So unless you are snorting Listerine (which you shouldn’t do), it is not going to reach your respiratory tract. By the way, be careful about putting anything besides mac and cheese vapors up your nose. For example, using Neti pots with tap water is a bad idea as I have covered previously for Forbes. So it is highly unlikely that mouthwash or a nasal rinse will be able to rid your body of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Mouthwash is not going to allow you to freely kiss someone either. Well, not from a Covid-19 coronavirus standpoint at least. It may not prevent the SARS-CoV2 coming out out of one person’s nose and mouth from getting into the other person’s nose and mouth. Gargling with mouth wash while kissing is highly impractical, will make very strange motorboat noises, and isn’t going to be failsafe either.

Similarly, don’t treat mouthwash or nasal rinses as a way to forego social distancing and face mask wearing. If someone tries to get within one Denzel of you (which is within six feet since Denzel Washington is around six feet tall) and tells you, “don’t worry I used mouthwash,” say “WTH” and back away quickly. You can replace “WTH” with “oh, no you don’t.”

Remember just because something happens in a lab doesn’t mean that it will work in real life. Lots of things can inactivate or kill viruses and other pathogens in the lab but either don’t work or are impractical on or in human beings. Take disinfectants such as Lysol for example. They may kill the Covid-19 coronavirus on a table or a Justin Bieber shrine for example. But no one in his or her right mind should recommend that Lysol be ingested or injected into the body, right?