*Note to previous post*
By high alcohol content, I was referring to the AB lotions (I realized I wasn’t clear the way I said it). Soaps tend to use the aforementioned chemical (that this article is about) to dehydrate the bacterial cells. And it still doesn’t kill viruses...
Dehydrating, yes and no. It is a common mechanism shared by antibiotics to keep bacteria from synthesizing strong cell walls as they multiply. Weak cell walls then rupture, spilling the cell contents out, resulting in the death of the bacteria.