What Hand Sanitizer Can — And Can't — Kill, Visualized

With hand sanitizer selling out at stores across the country, it's useful to evaluate what the product can and can't do. Sanitizer works by having isopropyl alcohol disinfect bacteria and viruses by destroying their outermost layer. But not all microorganisms are killed by it.

Data visualizer Sara Chodosh from Popular Science created this useful chart which shows which tiny microbes that hand sanitizer is effective against.

While hand sanitizer might work for some things, hand washing with soap and water is considered to be the best advice for staying healthy.

"There isn't anything where the alcohol is really better than effective hand washing," Preeti Malani, a professor focused on infectious disease at University of Michigan, told Pop Sci.

[Read more at Popular Science]