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Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma appeared to call hand sanitizers a scam in his Instagram story on Tuesday.
“Now y'all finally finding out companies been taking money from us for years this [three poop emojis] don't work!!!” Kuzma wrote over a photo of a Purell bottle.
https://twitter.com/TheNBACentral/status/1239695054731608066
Obviously, hand sanitizer is becoming an increasingly essential and ubiquitous part of everyday life all of a sudden amid the panic over the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.
The NBA clearly disagrees with Kuzma's conspiratorial take. Last week, the league, like so many other companies and industries, released a memo requiring teams to distribute hand sanitizer to its players and staff and encouraged all of its members to sanitize regularly.
Starting Tuesday it will be mandatory, league sources say, for NBA teams to distribute hand sanitizer to all players and team staff members and advise them it is a complementary measure to regular hand-washing
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) March 8, 2020
The NBA also includes using hand sanitizer—especially before eating—in its advice for reducing the risk of contracting and/or spreading coronavirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state on their website that “if soap and water are not available, using a hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol can help you avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others.” (Purell has a 70% ethyl alcohol solution.)
Kuzma's post has since expired, and the Lakers forward is yet to address it. Besides general understandable distrust of the pharmaceutical industry, it's unclear precisely where Kuzma's disbelief in hand sanitizer originates from.
Skepticism of Big Pharma is fine, of course, but it's important to ignore Kuzma's stance in this case and constantly sanitize and wash your hands during this challenging period of self-isolation. Hopefully Kuzma is doing the same.
