How to Disinfect Your Home during Pandemic
By: Sophie Zoria
Tags: Pandemic, Covid 19 Crisis, Covid 19, Disinfection Solution

The pandemic hit China in December 2019, and the world was sent to lockdown at the beginning of March. While everyone expected the horror to end, the power of the virus over the people’s lives continues. As of December 2020, there are more than 70 million cases worldwide with 65% recoveries and 2.3% deaths. Health systems collapse, governments introduce even stricter lockdowns, and businesses continue to suffer from the consequences.

The world has changed, and many say that the change will stay with us for a long time, if not forever. People started washing their hands at all times; masks are now obligatory in public places and even in the streets in most countries. Now all publicly available spaces are cleaned with disinfection solutions, and homes get cleaned much more often this year.

Frequent cleaning and disinfection are now must-do activities that became routine as much as disinfection tunnels in the USA. Let’s take a look at disinfectants and ways to clean a house during the pandemic.

What is disinfectant?

A disinfectant is a substance that kills microorganisms (except for spores) on the surface; it must be regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be genuine and useful. It is essential that before you select a disinfectant for household, you ensure that it is approved by EPA because this means the product:

underwent proper testing

is a safe disinfection solution for human

does kill microorganisms of a particular nature

Note: Generally, a genuine disinfectant would have the following written on the label: “It is a violation of Federal Law to use this product in any way not indicated on the label.”

How to choose a disinfectant?

All you need to do is select disinfection solutions from the approved List N (approved products are proven to be effective against SARs-CoV-2). Just read the label and select the correct product. Make sure that you also buy protective gloves and glasses to stay safe during the disinfection. Remember that not all cleaning products can help with fighting COVID-19, so it is essential to read the labels.

Here are the tips from the EPA on how to choose them. But before you rush into the store, check your storage; maybe you already have some of them:

Verify the label or use the EPA tool to verify whether your home disinfection solutions are effective

Check for disinfecting wipes (Clorox or Lysol)

Sprays (Clorox, Lysol, or Purell)

Hydrogen peroxide

Diluted bleach solution (1/3 cup/5 Tsp of 5.25–8.25% sodium hypochlorite solution for a gallon of water)

70%+ alcohol solutions

Disinfection vs. cleaning

While it might seem stupid to talk about the difference between these two concepts, unfortunately, many people still miss the point of each process. For example, you have probably seen people in restaurants spraying the table to clean it before you sit at them, right? And this has always been done with a cleaning solution to clean them. Now restaurants do the same — they spray the table with a disinfection solution, wipe it up, and consider that it is disinfected, putting a special sign on it for confirmation. The truth is, they still cleaned the table and not disinfected it, only did it with a more expensive detergent.

Cleaning means the removal of dirt from a surface; this includes grease, dust, dirt, and even fat from human skin. Cleaning is fast — you wipe the surface, and it’s okay. With disinfection, everything is a bit longer. Most disinfection solutions require the surface to stay wet for some time (5–10 minutes) in order to work — kill all the germs. This means that if the disinfector is immediately wiped out from the surface, the trick doesn’t work and harmful microorganisms, including the Coronavirus, remain. So don’t mix up cleaning and disinfection. Carefully read disinfection recommendations on the bottle because the disinfection solution company generallystates how long a disinfectant needs to stay on the surface to guarantee germs-free surface.

Household disinfection guidelines

Disinfection of all household surfaces daily is literally impossible unless you only occupy yourself with cleaning. Of course, ‘the more, the better’ is a good standpoint, but the truth is, you need to approach cleaning in a smart way, so it doesn’t take up your whole day.

How often to disinfect?

After every touch — surfaces close to the entrance or those that are touched first once you come inside the house + phones, keys, etc. brought from the street

Daily — high-traffic surfaces like kitchen counters, toilet seat, sink

Once every other day — floors, couches, and armchairs/chairs

Once a week (at least) — whole house (all its corners, under the furniture, etc.)

What to disinfect and how?

Hard surfaces — with the disinfection solutions mentioned above

Soft surfaces (furniture) — vacuum > clean with regular cleaning solutions, whenever possible > launder the upholstery > use smoke disinfectants

Laundry — wash according to the manufacturer’s recommendations and dry completely

Electronics — those used often (phone/tablet/laptop/watches) should be regularly wiped with disinfectant wipes or with specific disinfection solutions; the rest can be wiped once a day

HVAC — filters must be of the highest quality and changed once a month considering that COVID-19 is a respiratory virus

Keep in mind that if you have a sick person in the house, all surfaces s/he touches must be instantly disinfected (as per the list above). In a perfect case, this person should be isolated in a separate room with a separate bathroom. However, since frequently this is not possible, ensure that you wait before cleaning and disinfecting the shared space as long as possible too minimize the virus’s power on you.

Additional house disinfection solutions

Besides cleaning and then disinfecting your home, there are some additional methods to keep COVID-19 out of your home.

Disinfection tunnels. They might seem extreme for a country house or a one-family house; however, the disinfection tunnel benefits definitely prove their worth for multi-story buildings. If a tunnel is set up in front of the building entrance, it can significantly decrease the infectious agents getting into the building on the clothes of its tenants and visitors. Disinfection foggers. These can be used in homes of all sizes and be a valuable asset if you have to invite people to your house. A fogger disinfects all tough-to-clean surfaces and corners of a household. Their price is acceptable, especially since this is an investment in the family’s health. Automatic hands sanitizer. This might sound odd for a household to have an automated hand sanitizer. Still, since washing hands might not be an option every couple of minutes, an automatic hand sanitizer can save the day, especially at the entrance.

Conclusion

Frequent cleaning and disinfection during the COVID-19 pandemic are already routine. With the disease numbers peaking, home disinfection gets even more important than ever, especially for people with the weaker immune system. Remember to select disinfection solutions approved by the EPA and to work on high-traffic areas as much as possible. Should you have any questions about disinfection solutions, their safeness, or effectiveness, you can always verify all of those doubts with a local Center for Disease Control and Prevention.