As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the world, this is an excellent time to understand how cleanliness can help prevent the spread of the disease and what you can do to reduce the risk of infection in your home. Coronavirus is mainly transmitted from one person to another through small droplets of sputum saliva or other bodily fluids, which float in the air after a cough or sneeze. At the same time, the fear of infection also comes from your home. Contaminated objects and surfaces can also be valuable in the spread of infection. Therefore, if someone in your home is at risk of any viral disease, clean up to reduce the virus living on the surfaces to minimise further damage to health.
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Difference Between Normal Cleaning and Disinfection
There is a remarkable difference between everyday cleaning and killing germs living on the home surfaces. Everyday cleaning means physically removing germs and dirt from surfaces. Whereas disinfection means appropriately using chemicals to kill germs on surfaces. This is done because the virus that can lead to coronavirus and flu require harsher chemicals for complete cleanliness and manually touching them with bare hands make one person more prone to get infected with the virus.
How Long Can Virus Survive In Your Homes?
There is no definitive response as to how many hours can virus survive on surfaces, but usually any virus can survive for a few hours to days. The life of the virus also depends on temperature, humidity and surface. Therefore, if there is no continuous cleaning in your houses or if someplace is wet, then there may be a virus there. When someone coughs or sneezes, especially if they do not cover their mouth, all the items around them could likely be contaminated. Further touching them makes one extremely prone to get flu or coronavirus. So the objects people touch frequently are at greatest risk of contamination. Things like landlines, TV remotes, kitchen slab, tabletops, etc could be carriers of the virus at home.
Tips To Clean Your House During Coronavirus Outbreak
The virus is a fragile structure and is vulnerable in the environment. Both heat and detergents, including soap, can kill it:
Focus on Surfaces: All surfaces of the house, such as floors and kitchen cupboards etc should be cleaned from time to time. You can clean them with common household disinfectants, which can prevent the virus from growing to an extent. Alcohol-based disinfectants are preferred. But remember to wash your hands after cleaning and avoid touching your eyes, mouth or nose before that. There are many options to use for cleaning, including paper towels, cloths or disposable wipes, etc.
Clean In The Shape of S: How you clean is essential. Do not clean in the same direction. Take the mop in “S” shape to clean any surface, starting from one side of the surface to the other. If you are reusing a cloth, remember to wash it later and allow it to dry under the sunlight. Washing in a washing machine with a regular detergent liquid is also likely to kill the virus. Better to use hot water to wash these cloth pieces.
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Linen: Use hot water to wash the contaminated clothes and make sure you let it dry completely. If a person is ill, wash his/her clothes separately. If you are cleaning contaminated items such as towels or sheets, do not keep them anywhere else after taking them out of the washing machine so that the risk of contamination from other surfaces is minimised. Also, do not forget to wash your hands immediately after doing any cleaning at home.
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