kokopelli started a humorous thread Let's Go Back To The Old Ways To Avoid The Coronavirus. He suggested:
I'm going to stop by a really big western wear store on Tuesday of next week. I think that I'll get a bandanna or two while I'm there just in case.
So for a brief moment I thought about scarfs and the potential that they might be used to protect individuals from the coronavirus. Some fabrics made from bamboo fibers have antibacterial properties. I wondered if they might also have antiviral properties.
QuantumChemist brought up the idea of using material bonded with nanoparticle silver as antibacterial. So perhaps a scarf impregnated with nanoparticle silver might be a stand-in when face mask are unavailable (because they are all sold out). That type of fabric might be a better fit.
According to Wikipedia:
An innovation in antimicrobial surfaces is the discovery that copper and its alloys (brasses, bronzes, cupronickel, copper-nickel-zinc, and others) are natural antimicrobial materials that have intrinsic properties to destroy a wide range of microorganisms. An abundance of peer-reviewed antimicrobial efficacy studies have been published regarding copper’s efficacy to destroy E. coli O157:H7, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Staphylococcus, Clostridium difficile, influenza A virus, adenovirus, and fungi.
The use of silver as an antimicrobial is well documented. Silver ions have been shown to react with the thiol group in enzymes and inactivate them, leading to cell death. These ions can inhibit oxidative enzymes such as yeast alcohol dehydrogenase. Silver ions have also been shown to interact with DNA to enhance pyrimidine dimerization by the photodynamic reaction and possibly prevent DNA replication.
So I could see scarfs treated with nanoparticulated silver that bonds to the cloth, might find a use against the coronavirus threat. And perhaps bamboo fabrics might find a dual use here as well.