Office Cleaning Tips – Coronavirus

Office Cleaning Tips – Coronavirus. Most of us spend a lot of time in our office than at our home but have you ever really cleaned your workplace in the near past? There can be hundreds of tiny spots in your office where microscopic bacteria and viruses of various infectious diseases can hide. They can be the buttons of the elevator on your floor, handle of the communal fridge or the crevices in your keyboard, etc.

But after the outbreak of Coronavirus, it has become compulsory for everyone in the office to keep his workplace clean properly as the viruses of this infectious disease transmitted from one person to the other just by touching infected surfaces.

In order to be prepared to combat this novel infectious disease, COVID 19, you will have to follow the office cleaning instructions suggested by OSHA or Occupational Safety & Health Administration and CDCP or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You can keep yourself and your workplace healthy during this pandemic just by cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing yourself and your work stations. But before starting to clean your office you must understand the difference between cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing a place.

The difference between cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing

According to the EPA and CDC, the terms cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing seems to be similar but they are quite different from each other.

When you clean a surface then you just remove dirt and germs from it.

You can clean the surface just by using water and soap which will lower the number of germs from it instead of killing them. Germs can be killed by disinfecting it, but cleaning is necessary before disinfecting the surface.

When you disinfect a surface, you kill germs on it.

Because the chemical disinfectants used for this purpose are usually stronger than soap used for cleaning it. Though disinfecting the surface can reduce the risk of infection but it cannot remove germs and dirt visible on it. So you will have to clean the surface before disinfecting it using a strong disinfectant. You will have to allow the disinfectant to stay on the surface for 3-5 minutes to get the best results.

When you sanitize a surface then again you kill germs on it but less than by disinfecting it.

So the work of disinfectant is more effective than sanitizers. Still, many people use sanitizers to disinfect their hands and other belongings as they can lower the risk of infection more quickly than disinfectants.

Office Cleaning Tips – Coronavirus –
Office cleaning tips suggested by the EPA and CDC

Wipe your workstation properly:

Before you start working at your work station you should disinfect your keyboard, work phone, mouse and the surface of the desk and other things on it by using the disinfectants approved by EPA. You should allow the disinfectant to stay on the surface for 3-5 minutes before wiping it out by using several wipes.

Clean your Smartphone:

If your phone is dirty then there is no benefit of keeping your workstation and hands clean. You can clean the screen and back of your Smartphone of any brand, iPhone or Android, by using a soapy damp microfiber cloth. But you should be careful when cleaning its ports as water should not get into them.

Wash your hands:

After disinfecting your work station you should go to the nearest sink to wash your hands properly by using soap. Apart from washing your hands in the morning you should wash your hands several times throughout the day whenever you blow your nose, touch doorknobs, eat food, etc. to avoid the risk of getting infected with Coronavirus.

When soap is not available in the office to wash your hands you can also use hand sanitizers as an alternative. But to clean your hands properly, water and soap are the best as sanitizers can disinfect them instead of cleaning them.

Avoid shaking hands:

In order to avoid the spreading of this novel virus, it is better to avoid physical contact with others as it can be transmitted between people even by touching each other. So instead of shaking hands you can use thumbs-up, a sign of peace or fold hands to greet others.

Thus, by following the office cleaning tips suggested by EPA and CDC and cleaning and disinfecting your work station and hands properly you can easily lower the risk of being infected by the virus of COVID 19.