Thermal Inhalation Remedies in COVID-19
With each uptick in the incidence of COVID-19, social media comes alive with various home remedies such as hot water consumption and steam inhalation as means of killing the virus in-vivo. SARS-CoV-2 is inactivated at 60°C after 20 minutes’ exposure. However, full-thickness skin burns occur in less than 30 seconds at 54°C. Warm water consumption and steam inhalation, age-old practices dating back to the ancient Egyptians, provide subjective and symptomatic relief. However, the required temperature-time parameters for the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 cannot be safely achieved in the human body without suffering extensive thermal injury. Accidental burns and scalds have been reported worldwide as a direct result of thermal home remedies targeting SARS-CoV-2. Thermal injury to the respiratory epithelium compromises tissue integrity as well as the innate and adaptive immune responses, thus lowering the threshold for viral infection – the exact opposite of the desired outcome. Click on link below for full article.
Image: Nefertiti offering therapeutic inhalation to her husband. From https://footyclub.ru/en/obrazovanie/muzh-nefertiti-egipetskaya-carica-nefertiti/
