If you’re an essential business still operating at this time, keeping your workplace safe and free from infection is likely a primary concern. This is true both to prevent illness in the facility and to preserve peace of mind for all occupants, so they know all steps are being taken to keep them safe.

The CDC’s guidelines call for every essential business to “clean and disinfect all areas…routinely.” Additionally, at this point it is clear that individuals can be asymptomatic and still transmit COVID-19 (more data here), resulting in necessary actions being taken across every organization that has its doors open.

As a result, many organizations are taking steps to keep their facilities sanitized, such as wiping down areas with disinfecting wipes and cleaning more regularly than normal. We believe that these steps are important but not sufficient to maintain a safe work environment in the midst of an epidemic.

We strongly recommend professionally disinfecting your facility as a way to keep your employees and occupants safe and to keep essential personnel working in this time of crisis. Here are three of the reasons why:

1. Professional sanitizing can reach all corners of the facility. By applying disinfectant using a combination of techniques—including fogging, surface wiping, and spraying—areas of the building are addressed that would otherwise be missed by ordinary cleaning.

A brief overview of these methods (more details here):

• Fogging—Technique that uses a fine spray to deliver disinfectant so that it reaches all interior spaces. Can be done in interior spaces as well as in air duct systems.
• Surface wiping—Wiping down all surfaces with industrial-grade disinfectant. The solution is applied wet, allowed to dwell, then wiped for maximum effectiveness.
• Spraying—Applying a “wet” spray to completely coat a surface in sanitizing solution. After the solution is applied, it is allowed to dry to ensure effectiveness. You’ve probably seen footage of this on the news, as cities have been wet-spraying public spaces.

Via these techniques, every nook and cranny of the facility—from high-touch surfaces to the interior of the air duct system—can be sanitized.

2. Professional cleaning utilizes a different quality of sanitizing product. Off-the-shelf products can be effective at addressing coronavirus, but they will not have the efficacy of a higher-strength disinfectant.

A couple of notes about disinfecting products:

• The EPA maintains a list of products for use against COVID-19—found here—that includes both professional-strength and off-the-shelf products. We are using only the products found on this list and would recommend all others do the same.
• You hear products being promoted as “hospital grade” or “industrial grade.” These are purely marketing terms and don’t represent anything about the quality of the product. That said, there is a distinction between professional-strength cleaning products such as the ones that COIT uses and off-the-shelf products you would buy at the store.

By using a company like COIT that employs professional-strength cleaning products included on the EPA list to fight coronavirus, you are receiving the highest-quality sanitation and maximizing your likelihood of eliminating any virus.

3. By not using your employees or staff to clean and disinfect the premises, you are keeping them safe and out of harm’s way. Professional crews such as ours are trained to wear the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and clean in such a way as to minimize risk to themselves. If you are using your own staff to wipe down and clean areas, they may not know how to properly protect themselves.  

In addition, companies such as COIT can schedule after-hours work to avoid contact with your occupants and eliminate any person-to-person interaction. This is much safer than having staff clean during regular business hours. (If it is not possible to schedule after-hours work—as in the case of facilities that are open 24 hours a day—companies like ours can work with you to identify a solution.)

For each of the reasons above, we believe that every essential business should be regularly conducting professional cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting. When the time comes to have sanitizing work done, we have several recommendations, found here. 

And of course, whenever you decide to clean, sanitize, and disinfect, COIT is here for you and happy to help.

Schedule your Commercial Deep Disinfectant Cleaning appointment today