I've used both betadine and covixyl, and betadine doesn't sting my nose at all, while covixyl does. I don't know if that ingredient is the reason why, but if you don't like the sting try switching to betadine. I've gotten family members to use betadine because it doesn't irritate the nose.

A quick search led me here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8026810/

Safety of PVP-I Oro-Nasal spray

Oral PVP-I gargle, throat spray, nasal spray formulations are currently available as over-the-counter medications in many countries, including Japan and Canada. PVP-I in low concentrations has not been known to stain teeth or to cause any major adverse effect. PVP-I oronasal spray should better to avoid in patients with iodine allergy or those undergoing radioiodine treatment or thyroid dysfunction. In a study PVP-I is proved ciliotoxic in concentrations of 5% and 10%, but not in proposed low concentration 8.

The topical application of iodine (in low concentration) intranasally for the treatment of recalcitrant chronic rhinosinusitis has been described by the St. Paul's Sinus Centre team in Vancouver. They found it was beneficial for the management of this condition, but also did not lead to any significant effect on thyroid function, mucociliary clearance or olfaction 4,5.

In a study conducted by Gluck et al. three groups received liposomal dispersion with PVP-I (2.2, 4.4 and 0% as control) in single and repeated use. Application of liposomal PVP-I spray to the nasal mucosa does not result in any demonstrable limitation of the nasal function nor in detectable damage to the multilayer ciliated epithelium of the nose. Improvement of various parameters of nasal function under liposomal PVP-I suggest improved mucociliary clearance. Explanation could be humidification, improved surfactant (phospholipid) level and/or sufficient mucolytic activity of iodide due to local application of the constituents [4, 5, 11]. So 0.6% PVP-I Oro-Nasal spray is safe for long time use Figs. ​Figs.1,1, ​,2,2, ​,3,3, ​,44 and ​and55.

So, yeah, the low concentration is probably why it was approved.

There are other sprays, too, and this twitter thread goes over the options and what's known about the effectiveness: https://nitter.poast.org/Clean_Air_Club_/status/1685790242681331713#m

Yeah, Amazon carries the canadian betadine spray. I haven't tried it yet as a lot of the reviews complain about getting broken bottles. My guess regarding covixyl is that all their marketing and documentation is very specific to avoid saying it's a sanitizer. And since it's got the arginate and xylitol in there, they're probably able to maintain the claim as a "blocker". OR they're bribing someone. 🤷‍♂️

For any 3rd parties lurking, carrageenan and xylitol are both chemicals people can have sensitivites to, just be sure to check the ingredients on all of these before using.