Keep your house clean without making bacteria and viruses stronger
Drug-resistant microbes are a serious concern. (CDC/Unsplash/)Follow all of PopSci’s COVID-19 coverage here, including the most recent numbers, tips on how to make your own masks, and advice on what to donate for health care workers.Understandably, everyone’s got SARS-CoV-2—the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic—on their minds. But even amidst a global emergency, we should take care not to forget the existence of the countless other microbes that surround us.Not all bugs are bad (in fact, trillions exist on or inside us that we can’t survive without). But many of the microbes that do cause disease have developed the ability to thwart the drugs we use to treat them. In the United States alone, about 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections arise each year, resulting in more than 35,000 deaths—and the threat could worsen if we’re not careful about the cleaning products we use to battle the current viral outbreak.“Antibiotic resistance is one...