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Comment by TonyTrapp | Hacker News Reader

There's already some nasal sprays around that supposedly protect against Covid-19 in a similar way. However many places online just echo the copy from the manufacturers about the efficiency. Has anyone tried those sprays and can share their experience?

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I use an iota-carrageenan nasal spray that has clinical evidence showing it's effective at reducing the duration of common cold, as well as some protection from COVID. Obviously, the COVID research is a bit flimsier. It's also cheap, and carrageenan is pretty inert. I use it any time I'm around big groups of people for more than a few minutes.

[1] common cold: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880062/#:~:tex.... [2] covid: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493111/

Which product do you use?

Hopefully he responds, but I looked myself and this is what I found: https://www.amazon.com/BETADINE-Defence-eliminates-viruses-I...

If you're talking about the nitric oxide spray, my friend used it at a conference and got COVID anyway, so where n=1, it didn't work. But then again, almost all of us got COVID. I was masked the whole time, he used the spray, others took no preventative measures, and it didn't seem to matter much.

Your anecdote and other similar stories I've heard seem to lend credence to one of the biggest factors for covid spread being circulated air systems.

It's one of the biggest reasons I don't want to return to working in an office any time soon.

I don't think we need to resort to anecdotes to conclude this. I think it was some time during the first wave that scientists began to communicate that indoor and enclosed spaces were far more risky than outdoor and well ventilated places.

Oh sure, but since a good half of the US doesn't believe in science I think it's nice to point out that people's personal experience corroborates it.

Science isn't a religion and isn't something people should "believe in".

As to the lack of critical thinking skills on display over the past few years, now that's something I can believe is a problem.

You misspelled "superfluous groups of people in enclosed spaces", which is why we had a pandemic in the first place. Some folks just can't be satisfied with a warning and have to stick the fork in the outlet for themselves.

Very poor anecdata, but does a lot of data worth of damage. What is the point of sharing this?

Individual experiences volunteered online are a very low value signal when assessing the efficacy of a medicine. This is why homeopathy exists.

I'm not blindly trusting of corporations, but the manufacturer's claims are likely to be a better guide than anecdotes, at least in a country with reasonable regulation of medicines and medical claims.

> the manufacturer's claims are likely to be a better guide than anecdotes

not really.

they're both equally poor.

even if the manufacturer has clinical trials, they often need to be treated with skepticism.

(Independent clinical trials are much better--the ones that the manufacturer uses to get approval often have undisclosed biases and the drug or whatever is often found to subsequently not be quite the wonder drug the first trials suggest)

I don't disagree. But probably still better than a few "it worked for me!" comments on the internet.

I don't know why you think this random sampling of internet comments would be any more valuable than the information from the manufacturer?

(i.e. All of it is equally bad/biased "data")

As Forbes says, “You must do ‘do your own research’ when it comes to science.”

The pandemic is real, and we need to trust the experts here

Which sprays specifically?

I found the Betadyne mouth/nasal wash as prescibed by Peter Mccullough to be effective when i had omicron.

Effective at what? This discussion is about preventing COVID.

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