PhilGeis

Behavioral measures at the individual level do not prevent - they mitigate risk. As mandates, they may have an initial impact but have not been successful even in the moderate term for the reasons you point out. They chip away at nothing.

Spread is at best transiently impacted by masks etc. - and even less so with the delta variant. They will not "keep infections low". It's merely a matter of time until a population experiences its surge. At the personal level, one may reduce risk, esp. transiently, with masks etc. At the macro/mandate level - these have not been that effective and prob even less so now with the more infective delta.

The disease will progress through unprotected populations. To the extent there is an effect re. masks, banning mass gatherings, distancing etc., it will be transient and certainly less effective vs delta than the questionable impact on the initial strain. Vaccination is the most effective control measure for limiting infection and exp. severity of disease.

studiot - viral "evolution" is the result of mutation and selection. Washing with soap or surfactants disprupts an essential general element of the virus the basic structure of the lipid coat - mutation in that aspect would be lethal. "Chemical" - assume you mean alcohol, hypochlorite and other disinfectants. These have similar primary and general denaturing effects. In any case, these factors would be less than de minimis in context of a global pandemic where mutation and potential selection are constant and exponential.

To the orignal questioin - washing hands and "chemicals" will not drive variant development.

Suggest you consider an application - relevant evaluation of efficacy in addition to MIC/MBC. There's no shortage of compounds reported in literature/patents to have "broad spectrum" efficacy at low concentrations.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3117807/what-do-sinovac-coronavirus-vaccine-efficacy-results-mean This is just a news item - perhaps ask your employer for actual report

Perhaps add aq. solubility as secondary dev objective

The only interpretation is an observable zone of inhibition +/-., please don't attempt additional interpretation. Some use solvents like DMSO or ethanol in MIC testing of materials of limited aqueous solubility - generates numbers but introduces another variable. II'm with Charon on the testing. It's not hard find materials showing some degree of inhibition in such testing. Patent and tehnical literature is full of such gee whiz reports. What will you do with materials of some antimicrobial capacity?

Biocides - including preservatives. any patents ?

How developed is this effort and to what eventual application are you thinking? Potential use as chemotherapeutic agents would be decades away but there are near term commercial applications that might find this of value. There is so little research into the latter that even early efforts get attention.

Disk diffusion (aka Kirby Bauer) does not give quantitiative results, and you should ot assume a "dead zone." You're looking at inhibition of growth. Your scenario of concentration dynamics after growth "has ceased" is not realistic - do not wate time on it. If you stuff is that isoluble you need another test protocol. Quantitative estimates can be obtained by microbial inhiibtion testing - typically determining growth in context of serially diluted the test compound in liquid (broth) growth medium inoclated with test micororganisms. Here's on group's description - https://emerypharma.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/mic-guide.pdf This kind of testing is largely academic - do you have a specific application in mind?

Yes - they did not look ar cultural factors - an unaddressed variable that confounds. Dismissing this uncontrolled variable as "pockets" orthodox Jews doesis not justified. Jobs - then one would have to address unemployment as well - didn;t see that addressed here. Appealing to economics is not justified - coincidence is not cause and "larger patterns" is a cop out.

Design is one element - another is performance in context. What is flow rate and how will it effectively filter enough room air (volume.time.flow) to really reduce risk.