I wish Lemmy would grow to the point when these Reddit moments of "I’m a dermatologist, and actually…” happen as usual as they happen on Reddit.

I can’t say I know the answer, but I do know that one of these bugs – Tardigrades – are extremely hard to kill. IIRC one was put into a vacuum and removed after some time. It was either completely fine right away or after a little while.

If I had to give a guess to other things, some of them probably die, yes. Hopefully someone else who knows more will be able to give more information!

As another user pointed out, most bacteria and other microscopic forms of life don’t really “breath” in the way we think of it. Often they just absorb oxygen from their surrounding environments.

They can be washed away, killed by chlorine (pools), or killed by salt imbalance (ocean). However it’s really hard (read near impossible) to kill them all, and even if you did they exist in our environments naturally and from other humans as well as on things we’ve touched recently. So they repopulate quickly.

There are some arguments that Sodium Laurel Sulfate kills “good” bacteria on our skin.