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Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,946
Registered: ‎03-08-2018

Re: Deep Cleaning of Surfaces Unnecessary


@hckynut wrote:

 


@mimomof4 wrote:

Further proof for everyone who is still afraid of surfaces - You don't need to be afraid of catching COVID from surfaces.  This is just the latest in studies since last summer in support.Has the Era of Overzealous Cleaning Finally Come to an End?

 

 

When the coronavirus began to spread in the United States last spring, many experts warned of the danger posed by surfaces. Researchers reported that the virus could survive for days on plastic or stainless steel, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that if someone touched one of these contaminated surfaces — and then touched their eyes, nose or mouth — they could become infected.

 

Americans responded in kind, wiping down groceries, quarantining mail and clearing drugstore shelves of Clorox wipes. Facebook closed two of its offices for a “deep cleaning.” New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority began disinfecting subway cars every night.

 

 

But the era of “hygiene theater” may have come to an unofficial end this week, when the CDC updated its surface cleaning guidelines and noted that the risk of contracting the virus from touching a contaminated surface was less than 1 in 10,000.

 

 

People can be affected with the virus that causes COVID-19 through contact with contaminated surfaces and objects,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, said at a White House briefing on Monday.

 

“However, evidence has demonstrated that the risk by this route of infection of transmission is actually low.”

The admission is long overdue, scientists say.

“Finally,” said Linsey Marr, an expert on airborne viruses at Virginia Tech. “We’ve known this for a long time and yet people are still focusing so much on surface cleaning.” She added, “There’s really no evidence that anyone has ever gotten COVID-19 by touching a contaminated surface.”

 

During the early days of the pandemic, many experts believed that the virus spread primarily through large respiratory droplets. These droplets are too heavy to travel long distances through the air but can fall onto objects and surfaces.

 

In this context, a focus on scrubbing down every surface seemed to make sense. “Surface cleaning is more familiar,” Marr said. “We know how to do it. You can see people doing it, you see the clean surface. And so I think it makes people feel safer.”

 

But over the last year, it has become increasingly clear that the virus spreads primarily through the air — in both large and small droplets, which can remain aloft longer — and that scouring door handles and subway seats does little to keep people safe.

 

“The scientific basis for all this concern about surfaces is very slim — slim to none,” said Emanuel Goldman, a microbiologist at Rutgers University, who wrote last summer that the risk of surface transmission had been overblown. “This is a virus you get by breathing. It’s not a virus you get by touching.”

 

The CDC has previously acknowledged that surfaces are not the primary way that the virus spreads. But the agency’s statements this week went further.

 

“The most important part of this update is that they’re clearly communicating to the public the correct, low risk from surfaces, which is not a message that has been clearly communicated for the past year,” said Joseph Allen, a building safety expert at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

 

Catching the virus from surfaces remains theoretically possible, he noted. But it requires many things to go wrong: a lot of fresh, infectious viral particles to be deposited on a surface, and then for a relatively large quantity of them to be quickly transferred to someone’s hand and then to their face.

 

“Presence on a surface does not equal risk,” Allen said.

In most cases, cleaning with simple soap and water — in addition to hand-washing and mask-wearing — is enough to keep the odds of surface transmission low, the CDC’s updated cleaning guidelines say.

 

In most everyday scenarios and environments, people do not need to use chemical disinfectants, the agency notes. “What this does very usefully, I think, is tell us what we don’t need to do,” said Donald Milton, an aerosol scientist at the University of Maryland.

 

“Doing a lot of spraying and misting of chemicals isn’t helpful.” Still, the guidelines do suggest that if someone who has COVID-19 has been in a particular space within the last day, the area should be both cleaned and disinfected.

 

“Disinfection is only recommended in indoor settings — schools and homes — where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 within the last 24 hours,” Walensky said during the White House briefing.

 

“Also, in most cases, fogging, fumigation and wide-area or electrostatic spraying is not recommended as a primary method of disinfection and has several safety risks to consider.”

 

 

And the new cleaning guidelines do not apply to health care facilities, which may require more intensive cleaning and disinfection.

Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist at George Mason University, said that she was happy to see the new guidance, which “reflects our evolving data on transmission throughout the pandemic.”

 

But she noted that it remained important to continue doing some regular cleaning — and maintaining good hand-washing practices — to reduce the risk of contracting not just the coronavirus but any other pathogens that might be lingering on a particular surface.

 

Allen said that the school and business officials he has spoken with this week expressed relief over the updated guidelines, which will allow them to pull back on some of their intensive cleaning regimens. “This frees up a lot of organizations to spend that money better,” he said.

 

Schools, businesses and other institutions that want to keep people safe should shift their attention from surfaces to air quality, he said, and invest in improved ventilation and filtration.

 

“This should be the end of deep cleaning,” Allen said, noting that the misplaced focus on surfaces has had real costs. “It has led to closed playgrounds, it has led to taking nets off basketball courts, it has led to quarantining books in the library.

 

It has led to entire missed school days for deep cleaning. It has led to not being able to share a pencil. So that’s all that hygiene theater, and it’s a direct result of not properly classifying surface transmission as low risk.”

 

This article originally appeared in The New York Times


 


(thread title)

 

@mimomof4 

 

Guess I missed the announcement that it was necessary. Well I'll be danged!

 

 

hckynut(john)


@hckynut Honestly I HEARD the messge last year but never followed it myself.  I have not spent last year wiping down or spraying anything.  It does appear that many on these boards have been though.  I have laughed at those who would refuse to take a shopping cart which wasn't disinfected - yet didn't think twice about the thousand other surfaces in a grocery store that hundreds of people touch every day.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 14,294
Registered: ‎11-03-2018

Re: Deep Cleaning of Surfaces Unnecessary


@Sooner wrote:

@Bri369 wrote:

I didn't go too crazy with the deep cleaning.  I wasn't airing out mail and packages for days when all this started. 

 

What I did do and what I'm continuing to do is wipe down things I'm putting in my refrigerator and my pantry.  When you think about how many people have potentially touched that, it just  makes sense to me to wipe that all down. 

 

I keep a clean household anyway.  We don't wear our shoes in the house.  I change my clothes when I come home before sitting on the couch or in bed.  We are big hand washers. 

 

Everyone needs to do what they feel comfortable doing...


@Bri369 I agree with you except mail has gotten opened the day after it is delivered, and hands are sanitized after getting it on day one.

 

I will still wipe down all cartons being stored immediately after coming from the grocery store too.  And veggies on in the fridge in a bag.  

 

I am not afraid of or ashamed of being to careful.  And soap and water?  You can't wash many surfaces with soap and water, so the wipes are still popoular with Ms. Monk here! 


I use plenty of wipes.  I used them before Covid, during Covid and will continue using them after Covid.  I had a hard time finding them at first.  When people were worried about toilet paper, I was worried about wipes.  LOL

 

3 out of 4 of us got Covid last year.  I was wiping down everything all day and night every day for over 6 weeks.  I was so grateful to have a good amount of them. 

Valued Contributor
Posts: 878
Registered: ‎04-24-2010

Re: Deep Cleaning of Surfaces Unnecessary

I didn't do extreme cleaning in my home during the last year but, did wipe down groceries and personal phones, tablets and door handles.

I did appreciate the extra measures done at stores.  Walmart in my town must have heard this news regarding surface cleaning.  Last week, as I waited in the checkout line (only one was open) I noticed the conveyor belt and checkout area at the vacant check out next to me.  It was filthy!  In the last year, I've become used to store surfaces being cleaner.  I was glad that surfaces were cleaned more often.  I do wish my local Walmart would have higher cleaning standards at their checkouts.

Nonetheless, @mimomof4 thank you for this information.

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 7,213
Registered: ‎03-30-2014

Re: Deep Cleaning of Surfaces Unnecessary

After more than a year dealing with this, I came to peace with everything being handled many times.  I have ruled the car and outside to be dirty by definition.

 

The big change I made inside was to be much more careful of the counter where every is dumped on entry.  I should have always been more vigilant there, but....

 

 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,491
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: Deep Cleaning of Surfaces Unnecessary

I remember very early on, before Virginia was shut down, I went to Costco.  There was a staff member offering to wipe down every cart handle as you went into the store.  I carry wipes in my purse, at that point for post-shopping of sanitizing my hands before getting in my car and touching everything.  So I declined and she was surprised I declined.  I didn't really think that wipe she had used for the 50 previous carts was really going to do anything and was more comfortable with the germs currently on my cart handle vs the germs from the previous 50 carts being added onto my cart. 

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