People across the globe are staying at home on the advice of the CDC with regard to the ongoing Coronavirus situation. While non-essential travel is discouraged, trips to the pharmacy, grocery store, gas station, and doctor’s office are currently permitted. Venturing out of your house offers plenty of opportunities for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) to be brought back into your house. Recent studies have shown the Coronavirus lasts up to 72 hours on surfaces, so anything you touch out in public is potentially contaminated. Remember to wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds upon arriving home, and make a daily effort to clean and disinfect your surroundings until the virus has run its course. Below are some helpful tips to accomplish that goal.

Clean your car

If you’re traveling anywhere, your car is the most likely mode of transport for the virus. You can use disinfectant wipes on high-touch areas such as car door handles, controls, steering wheel, keys or start button, touchscreen, seatbelts, and cup holders. The virus can also attach to your clothes and spread to your seats. Lysol and similar disinfectant sprays can sanitize your seats when given time to dry.

Wipe down surfaces at home

Think about the high-touch areas of your home: doorknobs, refrigerator handles, tables, counters, light switches, and remotes. Especially when living with others, germs can accumulate quite quickly on these surfaces. A daily wipe down of these areas will go a long way in prevent the spread of any illness.

Spray areas that cannot be wiped down

Spray your carpets, couches, and other seating areas with disinfectant spray in a sweeping motion, then wait for it to dry. If you run out of wipes for your other surfaces, you can always spray disinfectant into paper towels to achieve the same outcome.

Clean your floors

Your shoes can easily bring the virus into your home. Remember to remove your shoes immediately upon entering your home to minimize the amount of flooring you need to disinfect. For non-porous flooring, use a mixture of 1 cup of bleach to 5 gallons of water. For porous flooring such as hardwood, use a half cup of white vinegar and 1 gallon of water. A disinfecting mop cloth works as well.

Use hydrogen peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide can kill the coronavirus within 8 minutes. It’s recommended to pour the chemical directly on surfaces like your sink, countertops, toilet, shower, or bathtub. Allow 10 to 15 minutes to soak, then scrub the area and rinse with water. 

Other items to remember

While cleaning all the things around us, we often forget the highest touch area of them all, our mobile phones. We touch our phones more than any other item during the day, yet we never remember to disinfect it. A few swipes a day using a disinfectant wipe should do the trick. Similar items include our wallets, money, and credit cards, laptops, and keyboards.

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