Recently, I suffered from a nasty bout of the flu. As I emerged from my sickness-induced haze, I made a to-do list: restock my fridge, catch up on emails and most importantly, disinfect my apartment.
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There’s nothing worse than getting sick only to infect your entire household. While the flu viruses stay on hands for only five minutes, they have been found to stay contagious anywhere from a few hours to two days on hard surfaces.
While cleaning removes germs, disinfecting kills germs and helps to reduce the spread of an illness. You don’t need to disinfect your home all the time, but it makes a difference when someone is sick or immuno-compromised in your home, advises the CDC.
I spoke with two people who know how to and kill germs for a living, Dr Chetan Jinadatha, a clinical professor at Texas A&M who researches the spread of infections in hospital settings, and Maddy Baker, a school custodian based in Nebraska, on how we can properly disinfect our homes when we’re sick. (I wasn’t surprised to learn that, like with my bathroom, I’d been approaching it entirely wrong.)
Start with a clean surface
Photograph: Courtesy of Amazon
Zep all-purpose cleaner
$7.99 at Amazon Photograph: Courtesy of Amazon
Microfiber cloths
$7.98 at Amazon
“The organic material that is present can make the disinfectant less potent by either neutralizing it or interfering with its action,” said Jinadatha. In other words: it’s hard to disinfect something that’s still dirty.
For an effective cleaner, Baker recommended using a multi-purpose cleaner or degreaser, such as Zep. Alternatively, she said that a “bit of dish soap and water will do the trick”. You may need to use more dish soap than a product like Zep made specifically to fight grease, but Baker recommends soap over degreasers on “sensitive surfaces that may not be able to handle harsh chemicals”.
Baker also likes to use a microfiber cloth, which is “great for trapping dust and grime while scrubbing surfaces”, she said in an email.
Check the label
On a disinfecting product’s label, illnesses are categorized by letters. So, if you’re trying to kill Covid-19 germs, you’ll want a product that displays List N. For germs from Ebola, you’ll want List Q. To find an illness’s classification, you can visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
“You can go there and see which disinfectants have those particular kill claims,” Jinadatha said.
Kill germs as you go
Photograph: Courtesy of Amazon
OdoBan disinfectant concentrate
$8.99 at Amazon
Don’t wait until you or a member of your household starts feeling better to use your disinfectant. If you can, use it every day they’re sick. “You don’t know what they’re touching and where they’re spreading it,” said Jinadatha.
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He personally uses a standard bleach to remove bacteria and germs. If you go this route, make sure it has a concentration between 5% and 10%. Next, dilute it with water to a ratio of one to 10, apply it and let it sit for 3min to 5min.
Baker likes Odoban’s Disinfectant Concentrate, a hospital-grade option that comes in a range of scents including eucalyptus.
“It’s cost-efficient and you can find it pretty much anywhere. Once diluted properly, it effectively kills germs while also acting as a deodorizer. To me, this is a huge plus because a place just feels extra clean when it has a noticeably pleasant smell.”
Don’t wipe it right away
Photograph: sellyhutapea/Getty Images
“These disinfectants don’t kill on contact,” said Jinadatha.
Instead, each product and type of bacteria has a dwell time, the number of minutes a disinfectant must sit to be effective.
“If it’s five minutes, it’s five minutes. When [people] dry the surface completely after spraying it and then go to the extra length of taking another dry towel and cleaning it right away, they are essentially getting no disinfectant action,” he said.
While a hospital-grade disinfectant will include dwell time on its label, you may not always find this information on a commercial option.
While all disinfectants should be vetted by the EPA, Jinadatha said the EPA holds hospital-grade disinfectants to a higher standard. Regardless of the specific product you choose, always read its label, which will instruct you on how long to let the product sit. For instance, depending on the product, killing Norovirus germs may require a longer dwell time than Covid-19.
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