As people spend more time in their homes amid the coronavirus outbreak, keeping your home clean can be a key factor in staving off the illness.
And cleaning your bathroom, routinely and properly, can be especially crucial.
According to a CNN article, bathrooms may be most likely to be "ground zero" for the virus in homes, which makes keeping them clean all the more important.
"By now you know that viruses, including the coronavirus, can live on surfaces for awhile — several hours, even several days — which means we have to be cleaning all the time," said CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
When you set out to clean your bathroom, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Wash your hands before you get started.
- If you're going to use disinfectants to clean, consult the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of high-quality disinfectants, deemed strong enough to kill off the virus.
- If you’re having a hard time getting your hands on Clorox or Lysol, don’t worry, soap and water can also work. “Many scientists argue it’s actually a better alternative,” Gupta told CNN.
- Regularly clean anything that people touch regularly, whether people in your home are showing symptoms or not. This includes: door knobs, light switches, shower heads and even shower curtains. CNN also notes to think about less obvious things like hair dryers and electric toothbrushes to clean as well, once unplugged.
- While Gupta told CNN it's not essential that you wear gloves when you clean, if you do: make sure you remove and discard of them properly. And whether or not you wear gloves, make sure you wash your hands after cleaning.
- If someone in your household gets sick, experts advise having them use a separate bathroom than healthy members of the household, if possible.
More tips on how to clean your house properly can be found here.
The difference between cleaning and disinfecting, according to the CDC:
Cleaning means removing germs and dirt from surfaces. While it may lower the risk of spreading germs by removing them, it does not kill germs. Disinfecting is the process of using chemicals to kill germs on a surface. It doesn’t necessarily clean a dirty surface, but disinfecting a surface after cleaning it will lower the risk of spreading infection, the CDC says.
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