How did you do? Find out what what the answers were and why to increase your cleaning and disinfecting know-how.
1. How often should you wash a reusable face covering?
- Never, unless someone else is going to use it
- After each use
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Just spray it with disinfectant
Why: The CDC recommends washing your face covering routinely. Best practice is after each use. Cloth masks can be washed by machine or by hand, then should be completely dried, either by machine or by laying flat, ideally in direct sunlight.
2. Clean hands are important for illness prevention. Which of these hand hygiene statements is true?
- Wash for the length of the happy birthday song
- Wash to the tempo of "Staying Alive"
- If not near soap and water, you can use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol
- The hotter the water used for handwashing, the better
Why: The happy brithday song is only about ten seconds long. To fully wash your hands, it needs to be for 20 seconds, so you'd need to sing it twice. The water doesn't need to be hot and you don't need to wash fast for it to be effective. However, if you don't have access to soap and water, hand sanitizer can definitely help.
3. What is NOT something you should be disinfecting in your workplace daily?
- Counter tops and tables
- Sinks and faucets
- Door handles
- Windows
- Phones
- Electronics (keyboard, mouse, etc.)
Why: Disinfect frequently touched surfaces daily. This includes everything in the dirty dozen but does not include windows. You should still wash dirty windows, but you likely don't need to disinfect them as well.
4. When disinfecting surfaces, which of these do you need to do?
- Always disinfect a surface before cleaning it
- Make sure you disinfect EVERYWHERE, including hard-to-reach spots, inside drawers and behind furniture
- Keep the surface visibly wet for up to 10 minutes, depending on the product
- COVID-19 can stay in the air, so spray disinfectant up into the air as well as on the surface for extra safety
Why: To disinfect properly, you should be cleaning before disinfecting and focusing on frequently-touched surfaces, not the hard-to-ready spots. Spray disinfectant or use a disinfectant wipe to wet a surface so that it stays wet for the amount of contact time noted on the product label. This is how long it takes for the disinfectant to be effective and is usually a couple of minutesbut could be as short as fifteen seconds or as long as ten minutes. NOTE: Surface disinfectants are only intended for surfaces, spraying into their air will not work for disinfecting the air.
5. What are safety tips to keep in mind when cleaning and disinfecting?
- Always read and follow the product label
- Store up and out of reach of children
- Never mix cleaning products
- Go to CleaningInstitute.org for answers to your cleaning and disinfecting questions
- All of the above
Why: These are all important safety tips whenever using cleaning products, whether at work or at home, and our website has lots more information.
Hopefully you've learned more about cleaning and disinfecting! Get all our resources so you'll be ready to do your part to keep the workplace safe and clean.