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Introduction
It is
highly unpredictable to see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 13 May
2020, about 4.1 million cases with 0.28 million deaths were reported to WHO
from 215 countries and territories, with a case fatality rate (CFR) of about
6.8%. In Japan, 15,874 cases have been reported throughout the country with 643
deaths among them (CFR; 4.1%). Despite some improvement, the Japanese
Government has voted to extend the national emergency until the end of this
month. To effectively cope with this pandemic, it is important for each of us
to enforce thorough handwashing and disinfection of contaminated materials,
both of which are fundamental for personal hygiene. Handwashing is particularly
believed to be a very effective self-protective strategy regardless of the
availability of a preventive vaccine or efficacious therapies [1]. Therefore,
we carried out the experiment to evaluate the potential of hypochlorous acid
water (HAW) to inactivate SARS-CoV-2, in light of global shortage of
disinfectants such as alcohol- and detergent-based disinfectants.
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