I use a similar nasal spray for allergies (Becodefence). Basically a physical barrier coating the nasal passages. For me and my allergies, it's super effective.

Never thought about using it to block viral infections, but it makes sense: coating the nasal passages with artificial "mucus-like substance" so particles don't reach the membranes. Makes total sense that approach also work for viruses.

I will admit to following the swab-nose-with-neosporin protocol following a previous mouse study with similar results. I use this during travel and have had no short terms ill effects and caught no infections while following it. (Not a doctor, not well controlled, just a random internet guy).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/publicatio...

Or .. you could use salt spray .. the kind of designed for kids. Its just salt and water.

I stopped using other kinds of spray since discovering that it fixes my sinus infections in a matter of a day or two.

When I read about something like this, my first thought is always, is this something we could have evolved ourselves? And if so, what haven’t we? Thicker mucus seems like something we have evolved, so was there some survival trade-off, perhaps in terms of general quality of respiration, that meant we didn’t?

I remember reading a while back that your eye is actually a big vector for getting viruses. We all touch surfaces and then touch our face and eyes a lot more than we realise.

Such spray [0] has been on the market by multiple brands and is backed by studies [1]. It has a throat spray and lozenges, too. There are some other patented variants with a different type of carrageenan.

[0]: https://www.carragelose.com/

[1]: https://www.carragelose.com/en/publications

Vitamin D daily may provide protection from viruses and skin cancers. https://scitechdaily.com/study-finds-vitamin-d3-important-fo...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36580363/

The article doesn't say how the spray affects the sense of smell, which I'd guess it diminishes or blocks. We evolved that sense for good survival reasons.

Shields up: "PCANS forms a gel, increasing its mechanical strength by a hundred times, forming a solid barrier"

I wonder if it feels unpleasant

I love the elegance of a simple solution like this to solve seemingly much more sophisticated problems.

This is very good engineering imo.

COVID is airborne, it doesn’t spread via droplets. It’s not clear whether this spray can also block airborne viruses or it only works on droplets.

If pure saline solution is too watery, couldn't I just add hyaluronic acid to make it more viscous?

So, internal disinfectant. Who'd have thought.

I am using iovir it has some read algae in supposedly does kind of the same thing

I do a povodone/saline nasal spray rinse when flying. Then use my navage to clear out my sinuses when I arrive at my destination. Can't tell you if it works, but I historically have gotten sick when I travel and I've noticed a reduction in getting sick since I started this protocol.

The article is useless because it says nothing about what the active ingredients are. The corresponding reference is also equally useless since it's paywalled. Nothing to see here.

When I saw "drug-free" the first thing that jumped to mind was a placebo. Which would not have shocked me.

> PCANS nasal spray could effectively block infection from an influenza virus (PR8) at 25 times the lethal dose

A certain amount of influenza virus acts as a toxin and just kills you?

While cool, studies like this always remind me that we deliberately breed and infect animals to see if they suffer and die from the disease or the cure.

No need to remind me that without this we wouldn’t have all our medical advancements, it’s just a sad footnote to all of modern medicine, that’s all.

> They have not studied PCANS directly in humans

Stopped reading there. As promising as it sounds, I'll be a lot more interested when this is a product that's proven to work.

(Joke) Wake me when the human studies are done

In mice, and also using a printed replica of a nasal cavity. It will be a while before we even see human tests, and I'm sort of curious how humans will respond to feeling their noses filled with a gel...