What about the Structure of COVID-19 Can Cause It to Fall Apart?
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, has a structure capable of being destroyed when it is mixed with soap and water. That is because the virus' casing is subject to penetration. Professor Pall Thordarson provides more information about this characteristic:
Why does soap work so well on the SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus and indeed most viruses? Because it is a self-assembled nanoparticle in which the weakest link is the lipid (fatty) bilayer.
It is this weakest link which, under the right circumstances, puts the survival of this potentially deadly virus—present on a person's hands—at great risk.
Media Credits
Image from "Field's Virology 6th Edition," online via Professor Thordarson's two-part twitter analysis of the COVID-19-causing virus and its potential destruction (and "SARS-CoV-2 and the Lessons We Have to Learn from It," by Edward Nirenberg).