Coronavirus can live on doorknobs and chairs. Here’s how KC is working to wipe it out
Doctors’ offices, the streetcars and other public spaces around Kansas City are disinfecting their spaces with the arrival of the new coronavirus, which, experts say, can survive from hours to days on surfaces.
The good news is it’s a “delicate” virus that scientists say is easily killed with common household cleaners.
But experts warn consumers to be careful about which products they use and avoid bogus advice.
RideKC buses now are being doused with disinfectant spray every day.
While Science City, the Planetarium and the Genghis Khan exhibit at Union Station are closed for at least the rest of the month, other tenants, including the post office and Amtrak station, are open. Beyond normal cleaning, workers there are more frequently wiping down surfaces that get touched often by the public and cleaning open spaces with disinfectant spray, the station’s website says.
But it’s really up to individuals to keep the germs away, said Lolly Gardiner, a biological safety and security expert who works for Kansas City-based MRIGlobal research institute out of Boulder, Colorado.
“The thing that we should make sure people understand is that as long you’re cleaning your hands and not touching your face we shouldn’t be so worried about what’s on surfaces,” said Gardiner.
“So if we’re out and about and we’re touching door handles, before you touch your face just wash your hand or use your hand sanitizer.
“I actually wash my hands before I go out into public and then after I come back I wash my hands. So if I happen to be a carrier and don’t know it, I’m trying to be preventative and not spreading anything. I wash my hands all the time.”
Homeowners across the country have launched their own war on germs, emptying grocery store shelves of bleach and disinfectant wipes.
On social media they’re asking questions like: “Is it safe to use a Clorox wipe on my iPhone?”
Apparently it is.
“Using a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, you may gently wipe the hard, nonporous surfaces of your Apple product, such as the display, keyboard, or other exterior surfaces,” Apple wrote on its support page last week.
“Don’t use bleach.”
Anyone who looks to Pinterest for cleaning tips, though, will come up empty. The popular social network has clamped down on information its users are allowed to share about the coronavirus.
A search for “coronavirus cleaning” tips yields a warning: “Pins about this topic often violate our community guidelines, which prohibit harmful medical misinformation. In some cases we may choose not to show you any search results for this topic at all.”
Keeping buses, streetcars safe
At the end of each night, the 40-foot buses and smaller vehicles in the RideKC fleet are being misted with a food-grade disinfectant, the kind used to sanitize produce and surgical instruments.
Over the lunch hour, Johnson County Transit buses are getting sprayed down, too, said Cindy Baker, spokeswoman for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.
Transit officials, Baker said, took cleaning cues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local and state health officials and transit companies across the country.
There’s hand sanitizer on the buses now, too, and recorded messages reminding passengers about recommended personal hygiene practices — wash your hands, cough into the crook of your elbow.
“We are encouraging them ... if they see someone coughing ... get up and move,” Baker said. “It’s not rude.”
KC Streetcar drivers are wearing gloves now and doing extra wiping-down. Like the buses, the streetcars have hand sanitizer for passengers.
“We believe it is safe (to ride). We are taking cleaning precautions,” said Donna Mandelbaum, communications director for the KC Streetcar Authority.
“We have added precautions that our operators take on. They have Lysol spray they are spraying in the streetcars. We’re taking special care to wipe down surface, like push buttons on the doors, hangers and pulls in the middle.”
Virus lives long on plastic
The virus is spread from person to person through respiratory droplets jettisoned into the air by a cough or sneeze, most frequently by someone standing close to you, within six feet, the CDC says on its “cleaning and disinfecting” website.
It lingers on surfaces for varying lengths of time.
“Current evidence suggests that novel coronavirus may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials,” the CDC says.
“Cleaning of visibly dirty surfaces followed by disinfection is a best practice measure for prevention of COVID-19 and other viral respiratory illnesses in households and community settings.”
On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency added 40 products to its list of disinfectant products approved for use against the new coronavirus. It said the products had not been tested specifically for this virus, they have been tested and proven effective against other harder-to-kill viruses.
The agency revamped the list to include active ingredients for each product and instructions on how long to leave them on surfaces.
“It is a very delicate virus and it is killed pretty easily by disinfectants,” said Gardiner.
“So what we have in our house, Lysol wipes, Lysol, 10 percent bleach, or sodium hypochlorite. Those are the most common things we use to clean our surfaces at our home anyway and it just so happens that they are effective against coronavirus.”
Studies are being conducted now to figure out how long this virus can live on things around us “because it’s different for each type of surface,” Gardiner said. “Some surfaces have more material that the virus likes to live off.”
There’s no consensus yet on how long it stays alive on surfaces; nonporous ones such as doorknobs seem to be friendly hosts.
A National Institutes of Health study published last week found that the virus survived longest — 72 hours — on plastic and stainless steel. It barely lived four hours on copper but survived 24 hours on cardboard.
The Journal of Hospital infection’s review of 22 studies about how long human coronaviruses can live on inanimate objects found they survive four days on wood and glass, two to nine days on plastic, but only two to eight hours on aluminum.
One of the most frequently asked questions to the CDC about the coronavirus is whether people can get it from packages or products shipped from China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
“In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures,” the CDC says, adding there have been no cases of COVID-19 in the United States associated with imported goods.
The CDC’s cleaning tips
The CDC website offers, in great detail, cleaning guidelines for homes giving shelter to a person under investigation for the virus or where someone who has tested positive is in self-isolation.
Cleaning, then disinfecting dirty surfaces — a two-step process — is the best practice, the CDC says, which recommends the use of common household EPA-registered products.
Surfaces should first be cleaned with a detergent or soap and water before disinfecting them, the CDC advises.
If you don’t have access to a common household disinfectant product, you can make your own: five tablespoons (one-third cup) of bleach per gallon of water, or four teaspoons bleach per quart of water.
Consumer Reports debunked several cleaning myths circulating on social media.
There is no evidence that distilled white vinegar is an effective disinfectant in this case, the magazine reported, and just like a couple of vodka makers have warned, vodka does not contain enough ethyl alcohol to kill the virus.
“We’re seeing people taking it upon themselves to do more of the cleaning as opposed to waiting for us to come in,” said Elvira Muniz, who works for her mother’s company, Kansas City Commercial and Residential Cleaning, in North Kansas City.
“(Homeowners) are doing more disinfecting and we’ve noticed they’ve bought a lot more products, washing stuff down using Clorox wipes ... spraying door handles.”
Muniz, who cleans homes and offices around the metro area, said in 20 years of business she’s never seen residential clients do this much cleaning before she gets there. Most of her residential customers have mentioned the coronavirus and have asked, “just do a little more.”
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