The Corona virus or COVID-19 has taken over our daily lives. Its upset governments taken unaware by this pandemic – very few governments were properly prepared to handle a pandemic – even though experts and even President Obama warned that it would happen and that preparations needed to be made. Every country deals with this in its own way and some better than others… unfortunately many governments are listening or not listening, or listening with one ear whilst they are mainly preoccupied with economics, post lock-down, possible fallout and upcoming elections.
The name of the game is prevention
Until a cure for COVID-19 is created prevention is the name of the game. But what is prevention really? Does it just mean sitting at home longing for the day you are allowed back to “normal” life and what happens in the after lock-down but before there is a vaccine period?
Prevention is going to be the name of the game until all 7.8 billion people on this planet get a vaccine against Corona…. That’s a lot of vaccines to give so even when they find one that works it will take a long time to inject everyone.
So what can you do now
Most people are already doing prevention by sitting at home in isolation with family, partners, flatmates, etc and being smart. Frequent hand washing or disinfection will also help providing you are using the right disinfectant. When returning to your house after a visit to the shops or where ever, you should immediately shower with lots of soap, shampoo and wash all the clothes you wore outside with lots of soap and preferably at 40°C or higher. That’s your best prevention!
Also when going outside wear facial protection in the way of a mask or thick scarf. The facial covering isn’t worn so much to prevent you from getting Corona, its worn as a courtesy to others in case the wearer has corona (may be asymptomatic) and so when that person coughs, sneezes or even breathes out any potential virus will stay in his own mask helping to prevent spreading.
A proper clean and disinfection of your house is more problematic certainly when using available household detergents. Many of these products ingredients are watered down versions of the same “professional/industrial” detergents. This is done from a safety perspective as most consumers have no idea of the dangers of chemicals. To clean and disinfect your house - If you want to do it properly - will take a long time as you literally have to cover every single surface from floor to ceiling (and I mean ceiling as in disinfecting the entire ceiling) and lift up and move every single object. If you intend to do it with chlorine good luck. You will need to use a high dosage, the stench of it will not be very healthy or pleasant for you and you then have to rinse it all off again meaning twice the work. I guess you could use a quaternary ammonium compound - much like Dettol - much more expensive that chlorine and not available in some parts of the world like the EU.
New reports also state that corona can remain in the air in infected rooms for long periods of time… so how are you going to deal with that. If you have airco it could possibly get into the airco system as it did in cruise ships. How are you going to deal with that.
Now the good news in that very few households will ever get infected with corona, certainly if no one in the house is infected and if you are strict about not letting outsiders in.
But what about shops, malls, restaurants, offices and other multi-occupancy buildings. Soon it will be post lock-down and shops, offices, schools etc.. will all re-open in some form of “stages”. The 1-2 meter (depending on what country you live in) is not really going to keep you safe if the virus is airborne and believe me if someone has corona virus and sneezes or coughs, that 1-2 m social distancing isn’t going to make any difference as a single cough can easily spread the virus up to 8 m in distance. So how are we going to protect ourselves post lock-down and pre vaccination.
Prevention post Lock-down
Soon we will be allowed out… Back to work we go, back to hopefully sitting in a café with some form of coffee or having a meal in a restaurant. Post Lock-down will probably mean being surrounded by PVC sheeting to isolate each table or booth and more distances between customers. It will mean that you probably order via your phone and that table service means you actually have to collect your food from a central table in order for the staff not to breach social distancing… still that’s better than sitting at home all day right. But with all those extra PVC sheets and other social distancing attributes proper cleaning and disinfection is going to be a time consuming but highly essential matter.
Most businesses have to experience in “proper cleaning and disinfection”. They clean their kitchens and toilets. They may or may not use a disinfectant. They clean their work environment… that involves a bit of vacuuming and a rag with cleaning agent to quickly wipe down surfaces. But properly disinfecting an entre room of any sort is certainly going to be a challenge, certainly if you want to do it in a cost effective way – that means quickly because time is money.
Disinfection for every business is going to be crucial to ensure a safe working, shopping, eating or drinking environment. Many businesses have carpeted flooring… disinfecting that is going to be a problem and yes they will need to disinfected every day… preferably before opening and certainly at closing time. The same applies to every building where people walk in and out of or work in. Anyone can be a carrier and you will need to treat every single person as if they are infected.
DISINFECTION
The choice of disinfectant is crucial. Each disinfectant has pro’s and con’s…. which one are you going to use which will meet your requirements.
Preferably you will want a disinfectant that meets the following criteria:
Fast acting
No smell – ie: you don’t want your customers buying clothes that reek of chlorine
None-rinse – ie: apply and leave this saves time rinsing the disinfectant after which re-infection can take place instantly.
Long residual effect – this ensures safety of staff and visitors as product works preferably for many hours ie: that rules out most disinfectants.
Preferably a product that breaks down into an environment friendly way such as water and oxygen so that you don’t get a build-up of residual chemicals which could possibly act as a barrier to future disinfection (ie: Quaternary ammonium compounds)
Does not stain or mark surfaces, carpets, material, clothes, etc in any way
Ease of application
None allergic and safe for employees and visitors at residual levels.
LOXYDE
Loxyde is one of the few disinfectants meets all these criteria. Loxyde is based on hydrogen peroxide to which a special stabiliser and activator has been added. This ensures that the product is 10-20 times more effective against micro-organisms than standard hydrogen peroxide. The stabiliser will ensure that it remains active for several hours and does not damage furnishings. It is without smell and easy to apply. All ingredients in Loxyde have an E number recognition and fully break down to water and oxygen. Its free of heavy metals such as silver.
CIP: Loxyde is easily integrated in a CIP (Clean In Place protocol).
Spraying: Loxyde can be sprayed on any surface using for instance a hand held spray or even a garden spray – Just insure that after use that you take the pressure of the sprayer by opening the lid. Spaying at 2% will achieve an average disinfection of Log 6 (99.9999 % of micro-organisms).
Fogging: Loxyde can easily be fogged into any room. Using a good fogger and depending on the size of the room this can be done in minutes. Once a good fog has been built-up you can stop the fogger and let the fog settle down before re-entering the room after ±30 minutes. It will not only disinfect all surfaces it comes into contact with, but also the air. Please Insure you wear proper facial and breathing protection and do not breath in the fogged material. From previous experience in undocumented testing we achieved log 8 disinfection (99.999999 %) using a 20% dilution of Loxyde when fogging.
Loxyde will easily kill the Corona virus as well as all other micro-organisms present.
Type of equipment you can use
Fogging or fine misting will be the norm for the rapid disinfection of work places, shops, malls, schools and any other multi-occupancy environments.
There is a wide range of foggers and fine misters on the market and the prices vary from around €30 to several thousand of euro’s depending on what you buy.
Example 1 – Fan attachment
In this example you simply attach this misting unit to an existing fan. If you plug in the fan on a timer it will automatically switch off after x amount of time. Make sure the fan in on the “swing function” so that it rotates to blow the mist in all directions.
The advantage of this system is that no one needs to be around when the disinfection takes place and the fan will blow the mist all over. In a bigger establishment you may require more than 1 fan system.
Investment is very low. You need a fan and the misting attachment can be bought online from around €30.00.
Example 2 – Outdoor misting kit
This is just an example of an outdoor misting kit which can be installed around the walls or ceiling of a room.
If put on a timer it will produce mist for an x period of time ensuring that disinfection takes place when no one is present.
Misting kits are low cost and easy to use. The downside is that they produce bigger droplets than fogging machines and that after disinfection the room treated may have humid patches or you may notice dried out droplet formation on certain surfaces. They require more water to achieve the same disinfection as a fogger.
Example 3 - Fogger – Hand held
This is an example of a small hand held fogger ideal fogging smaller environments. It has a 1 litre tank so may need to be refilled. Costs around the € 200.00. The size of the fog is between 15-39 micron.
Its important than the fogger is chemical and corrosion resistant.
Generally this fogger is hand held therefore the user will need to wear full protective and breathing equipment which will add to the cost.
Example 4 - Automatic fogger
This is an example of an excellent top of the range fogger. Its fully automated, has a timer, it will rotate so as to fog in all directions, you can set the flow rate, etc… Tank size is 5 litres and it will blow the fog at a speed of 10-15 km/h so it will rapidly fill up a room with a good fog. Droplet size is between 9-49 micron which is excellent. Price is several thousand euros…
Stay safe after Lock-down and please implement wearing masks, social distancing and using the correct sanitiser in helping you stay safe.