Like many business owners today, you may be in the planning stage of reopening your business after a lengthy required shut-down due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Before reopening, you need to develop a business disinfection plan to prevent the spread of the virus at your business.
Read on to learn four tips to keep your business clean and sanitary and prevent the spread of COVID-19 at your business.
1. Wash Surfaces with Soap and Water Before Disinfecting
Many business owners make the mistake of never or rarely washing hard and soft surfaces inside of their business with soap and water. Instead, they may just cover them with a disinfectant in an attempt to kill the COVID-19 virus. However, the CDC recommends that you wash all surfaces with soap and water before you apply a disinfectant solution to them, to increase the chance of killing as many COVID-19 virus particles as possible.
When you wash a surface with soap and water, you reduce the number of viruses and bacteria on the surface while also removing dirt and other debris. Additionally, soap can dissolve the outer layer of the COVID-19 virus, which potentially kills them. However, since soap and water may not kill all virus particles, you should apply a disinfectant to a surface after you wash it to kill virus particles that remain.
In addition, if any error occurs during either disinfection step, performing both steps is less likely to result in large numbers of virus particles remaining on a surface.
2. Choose an EPA-Registered COVID-19 Disinfectant Product
While many household cleaning products claim to kill 99.9% of all viruses and germs on household surfaces, the truth is that most of these products have not been tested to determine if they kill the current coronavirus strain that has been plaguing the nation and the world.
Thankfully, the Center for Biocide Chemistries (CBC) has created a list of 100 EPA-registered products that they have determined are capable of killing the COVID-19 virus, based on the specific chemicals they contain. Many of these products are strong antimicrobials that have been proven to kill even stronger, more deadly viruses than COVID-19, such as the Ebola virus.
After you purchase an EPA-registered COVID-19 disinfectant, be sure to read the label to learn how to use the product in a way that kills as many germs and viruses as possible. While some disinfectants can be wiped away immediately after they are applied, others must remain on a surface for a designated period of time to effectively kill the COVID-19 virus and other germs.
For EPA-Registered COVID-19 disinfectants, contact Ben’s Cleaner Sales. We stock several disinfectants and sanitizers for your personal and professional use.
3. Sanitize Hard Surfaces with a Wet Mister
If your business is filled with hard surfaces that make applying a disinfectant with a simple spray bottle time-consuming and difficult, then you should invest in a disinfectant sprayer, also called a wet mister.
While wet misters vary in design, most are either battery-powered or powered by electricity. To use one, you simply fill the mister with a disinfectant solution. The mister then emits a fine spray of disinfectant with the simple press of a button or pull of a trigger.
When you apply a disinfectant solution with a wet mister, you can disinfect surfaces more quickly and easily than you can with a spray bottle. In addition, the wet mister will apply an even coating of disinfectant solution to the surfaces you spray, which can be difficult to achieve with a handheld spray bottle. This even coating can help ensure no surface spots are missed and that as many COVID-19 virus particles are killed as possible.
4. Consider Steam-Cleaning Soft Surfaces
While hard surfaces can typically be disinfected easily throughout the business when you wash and disinfect them, soft surfaces, such as cloth-covered pieces of furniture and carpets, are more difficult to disinfect thoroughly.
You would have to wash, dry, and then saturate soft materials with a disinfectant product to kill COVID-19 virus particles, since covering soft surfaces with a fine spray of disinfectant will not kill any virus particles embedded in the fabric pores.
While you should ideally minimize the use of porous furniture inside of your business during this time, researchers have found that steam that is 212 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter can kill the COVID-19 virus. Steam-cleaning soft surfaces in your business on a regular basis can kill COVID-19 virus particles when you simply cannot wash with soap and water or saturate the surface in a disinfectant solution.
If your business has been temporarily closed due to the pandemic and you plan to reopen soon, or if you simply want increased protection while the pandemic is ongoing, then be sure to develop a business disinfection plan to minimize the spread of COVID-19 in your business. Contact the cleaning experts at Ben’s Cleaner Sales Inc. for all of your COVID-19 cleaning supply needs.