Cleaning routines to keep your home virus-free

Cleanliness at home is now a must, not just for aesthetic and organization purposes but also for keeping away microbes that could bring diseases like the common flu and COVID. Listed below are some tips and tricks to keep your home clean and germ-free.

Prioritize high traffic areas, high-touch surfaces

Whether it’s a part of the home or a specific surface, these areas or items constantly undergo extended contact and/or exposure from all members of the family. Disinfecting these should be a top priority as some viruses can stay on them for as long as a week or more if left as-is. Using your arsenal of disinfectants and cleaning implements, make a clean sweep of the said areas and items soon after every use. If the contaminants are bodily fluids, use gloves to avoid coming into contact with the liquid.

Clean? Disinfect? Or sanitize?

There are three levels of assuring cleanliness in any area: through cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting. Here’s what makes them distinct from one another:

• Cleaning is when you take off surface dirt, dust, and grime from surfaces. Activities that involve cleaning span from using a damp cloth to wipe off stains to using soap and water to wash off more stubborn dirt. A good number of microbes are taken off the cleaned surface but not necessarily killed off.
• Disinfecting is more effective at killing harmful microbes than simple cleaning as this involves the use of chemicals (e.g., alcohol, bleach) to do the job.
• Sanitizing an area is effectively done by combining both cleaning and disinfecting in your battle versus pathogens. Your goal here is to lessen the presence of germs to levels determined by public health standards.

Your regular home cleaning regimen should ideally be a combination of cleaning and disinfecting. This is especially important if there’s a family member in isolation at home due to a viral illness. Sanitizing goes a long way in stopping the spread of the virus to other family members.

Make handwashing a habit

Even before the pandemic struck, handwashing has been thoroughly endorsed by international and national health agencies like the WHO and CDC. It has been proven to be effective in bacterial and virus transmission – and all it takes is at least 20 seconds of vigorously washing your hands with soap and water. This should be done as often as possible, especially before and after eating or coming into contact with potentially contaminated surfaces and fluids.

In line with this, see to it that your handwashing station at home is equipped with the following:

• Hand soap
• Fresh hand towels
• Sanitary wipes

Implement a home arrival routine

Prepare a disinfection routine for every time a family member goes comes home. This routine should include removing all clothes and wiping down items that were brought inside. If possible, a quick shower would be great. If not, proper handwashing will do.

There is still plenty left unknown about the virus even two years into the pandemic. In fact, the strain seems to be evolving every few months. The best that everyone can do is to be proactive about cleaning and maintenance.

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