How Often Should You Disinfect Your Surroundings For Coronavirus?
Maybe you did a deep clean of your home when you found out just how serious the new coronavirus was. But now that you’re social distancing and not leaving the house very often ― maybe just a rare pharmacy run, a daily walk outside ― you might be wondering how often you should still be disinfecting.
First, it is important to understand why you need to disinfect surfaces in the first place. The virus spreads when a person coughs or sneezes respiratory droplets. These can spread “onto hard surfaces or onto our hands, which we then touch things with, transferring virus from our hands to the surfaces we touch,” said S. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist Hospital.
The virus can survive on different surfaces for various lengths of time. “And then we can pick it up,” Long said. “If we touch our face, we are at risk of infecting ourselves. So cleaning those ‘high touch’ surfaces, where lots of hands could be depositing and picking up viruses or other germs, is very important.”
The regularity of cleaning and disinfecting depends on your particular situation and what’s evolving around you.
How often you should clean if no one in your house is sick
Even if no one in your household is ill, you should still “clean regularly and disinfect daily” as a baseline precautionary measure, said Alexa Mieses, an assistant professor in the department of family medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
“There’s a difference between cleaning and disinfecting,” she said. “You should be doing a regular cleaning routine, which includes removing dirt and dust, and regular household cleaning products are fine for this.”
When you are disinfecting, however, you are trying to kill germs. “For this, you should use bleach or a cleaner with 70% alcohol,” Mieses said. She noted the Environmental Protection Agency has a list of approved disinfectants for Covid-19, but bleach and alcohol are the most...
