Have you spent hours scrubbing your groceries and disinfecting your home because of the coronavirus? Experts at the University of Rochester Medical Center have a few tips on how to disinfect your home safely.
It’s important to clean first and then to disinfect. Why the two-step process? While cleaning with soap and water removes germs and dirt—it does not kill germs. Disinfecting uses chemicals to kill germs, and works best on already clean surfaces.
Here’s a list of products that are registered for use in New York to disinfect for COVID-19. As an alternative, you can use hydrogen peroxide, isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, or diluted bleach.
How much should you be cleaning? “It’s not essential to disinfect everything all the time, especially if there’s not a sick person in your house,” says Katrina Korfmacher, an associate professor of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
You can clean to the point that you feel safe, which can vary depending on how many people you have coming in and out of your home. However, Korfmacher cautions that unintentional harm could be caused by using cleaning chemicals in unsafe ways.
Accidental poisoning, burns, and other health issues can arise due to misuse or overuse of disinfectants. “Some of the things people use [to disinfect] could expose them to chemicals that actually cause more harm, and that poison them, or endanger them, or their children,” says Korfmacher.
It’s important to not ingest, inject, or gargle any cleaning products. Don’t use cleaning agents like bleach or ammonia to try and disinfect your hands, as that can damage the skin. And, don’t use these cleaning agents on fruits and vegetables, as ingesting these can make you ill.