Protecting Your Business From Coronavirus with New CDC Guidelines

Professional Cleaning Services For Effective Disinfection Of The CoronaVirus

Here at Building Services Inc., we are proud to offer our professional cleaning services to businesses, commercial properties, and other institutions throughout all of New York City, as well as Queens, the Bronx, Long Island, New Jersey. Connecticut, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Our sanitation engineers have extensive training in all cutting-edge cleaning techniques. We use a meticulous approach in cleaning every client site whether it’s a large commercial property, a small office, or a first-grade classroom.

We make sure to use some of the most effective cleaning solutions in the industry. We also have a line of “Green Cleaning” products that are just as effective as their chemical counterparts, without leaving behind any harsh, artificial odors. Not only do we offer hard surface cleaning and sanitation, but we also specialize in soft surface cleaning for flooring, carpets, and upholstery. This includes special deep cleaning procedures. The net effect with soft surface cleaning essentially translates into greater indoor air quality. This, in turn, helps to reduce respiratory distress, decreased allergic reactions, and other things like decreased asthma issues.

Even if the COVID-19 CoronaVirus never strikes your professional space, improving the overall air quality and making sure that all your hard surfaces are effectively disinfected can reduce other common problems. This includes things like Influenza A, Influenza B, rotavirus and norovirus and the good old-fashioned common cold. If anything, reducing the presence of these microbes from your building will go a long way to reduce the total number of employee sick days in the year.

What is The Coronavirus?

The Novel CoronaVirus or COVID-19 represents one of the greatest viral threats that the human population has seen in decades. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other labs across the globe are keeping close tabs on the spread of this potentially deadly virus. We stress that it’s important for communities and businesses to take measures to limit the potential spread. New information is made available almost every day. This includes guidelines to help people and organizations to prepare, and minimize any potential panic, should the Corona Virus spread to the community level.

How Is The COVID-19 CoronaVirus Spread?

Technically, “Corona Viruses” are a diverse group of viruses that most often affect animals. What makes COVID-19 so rare is that it’s been known to be “Zoonotic.” This essentially means it has the rare ability to be transmitted from animals to humans, with lesser-known characteristics.

The CDC notes that at the current time, it’s unclear just how long the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus can survive on a contaminated surface, and still be capable of infecting a human being. However, there are some similar past coronaviruses that we can use as a rough guideline. This includes MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

With both of these more well-researched corona viruses, a dangerous viral load was found to be present on hard, non-disinfected surfaces, like glass and metal, for as long as nine days. This means an infected person could touch something like a doorknob on a storage locker on a Monday morning. That locker could go unused until another individual touches it on Friday afternoon. If that person was to then rub their eyes with the contaminated hand, it could potentially lead to infection.

What Places Are Most Vulnerable To The COVID-19 CoronaVirus?

The CDC’s concern is that the COVID-19 Corona Virus will reach what’s called “The Community Level” in the United States. At this point the virus is very difficult to maintain via quarantine procedures and tracking the virus from one transmitting patient to the next is nearly impossible.

The places where COVID-19 is most likely to be a serious problem include buildings that are frequented by a large number of people. Such as:

• Clinics, hospitals, and other healthcare institutions
• Businesses and co-working office spaces
• Manufacturing facilities
• Schools and universities
• Places of worship
• Stadiums and indoor venues
• Retail spaces and high foot traffic commercial properties
• Restaurants, food courts, and food service venues

Recommendations To Help Prevent The Spread Of The Corona Virus

The CDC offers some common-sense recommendations for businesses to help limit the potential spread of the Coronavirus.

This includes things like:

• Encouraging sick employees to stay home.
• Enacting more flexible sick-leave policies.
• Interviewing and setting up potential temporary employees.
• Providing traveling employees with information on how to prevent being infected.
• Encouraging hand, eye, and personal hygiene practices
• Performing Routine Environmental Cleaning To Prevent The Spread Of The CoronaVirus

One of the most important recommendations the CDC makes is for business and public spaces to maintain diligent cleaning procedures. Especially in common areas, and places that receive a lot of foot traffic from employees as well as visitors.

This includes things like:

• Providing disposable sanitizing wipes for employees to clean commonly used surfaces. As well as encouraging employees to use the wipes before and after each use or shift.
• Routinely cleaning all frequently touched surfaces in workplaces. This includes workstations, countertops, and even things like doorknobs. They also note that high-quality cleaning agents are used to effectively kill germs on physical objects.

High Quality Cleaning Solutions And Techniques To Disinfect The Corona Virus On Surfaces

Low-quality cleaning products or a failure to be meticulous with applying them can prove to be just as ineffective or worse, than simply leaving the object untouched. Imagine an individual who uses an ineffective cleaning product to attempt to clean a potentially infected door handle. If the viral load isn’t disinfected, the cleaning rag itself can become a transport vehicle spreading it throughout the rest of the now vulnerable facility!

The CDC notes that with past coronaviruses like MERS and SARS cleaning solutions that quality cleaning products and techniques had a major impact on effective disinfection. One source noted that MERS and SARS were inactivated by meticulous surface disinfection procedures using a cleaning solution that was 62-71% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite within a minute.