Keeping your home clean is a good idea, but constantly disinfecting surfaces isn’t always necessary, says U of S expert

With COVID-19 cases on the rise everywhere, a Saskatchewan Health Authority PSA is reminding people to regularly disinfect home surfaces like computers, door handles, cupboard handles, keys, remote controls, light switches and other highly used items.

How often is that necessary? Is it necessary at all? Will it prevent you from getting COVID-19?

University of Saskatchewan assistant professor of biochemistry, immunology and microbiology, Dr. Kyle Anderson, says while it’s a good idea to have a clean home, it’s not necessary to constantly disinfect everything IF no one in your home has the virus.

“Disinfecting light switches might keep us, you know, a little bit cleaner and things like that, but it’s not going to control us getting infected because there’s nobody here as a source to sort of spread COVID around.”

The home environment can be a little bit safer, as long as we know who’s been coming and going and where they’ve been.

He says if people are disinfecting their hands and things like cell phones on a regular basis before they even go into their home, then they’re generally taking care of sanitation before any virus can spread to other places.

If that sanitizing isn’t occurring before you get into your home, then whatever you touch could become a source of contamination.

“If you’re someone who isn’t masking, if you’re someone who has a larger social circle and you’re just in contact with more people, yeah there’s a chance that the surfaces in your house may be more contaminated because you haven’t been doing all of those other precautions that might have limited the amount of virus just carried on your clothes or on your hands,” he explains.

Anderson says the latest information from reputable medical journals including The Lancet, indicates that while the novel coronavirus can survive on various surfaces for many days, it’s not necessarily contagious anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days.

Factors that can affect that include exposure to UV light, the type of surface and just how much of the virus is on that surface.

“It’s one thing to say you can detect a virus, it’s another thing to say you can detect an infectious virus,” he says.

Aerosols and respiratory droplets remain the largest source of contamination or the way the virus spreads.

He does emphasize that public surfaces are definitely something we should be aware of.

“Because you have no idea of whether someone who did have COVID was around that area within the last couple of hours. Just like when we’re in public, we should be wearing masks because you have no idea who has been breathing around that area recently and that can reduce the chance that you become infected, or reduce the chances that you have a severe outcome because we know that masks can reduce the viral load that you actually inhale.”

He does have some advice though, for front-line workers including those who work in healthcare settings, in grocery stores or in restaurants where clothes can pick up some virus.

“You might consider then, when I get home I’m going to …. change my clothes and then wash my hands.”

That way he says you have a chance to remove any contamination before it gets to other surfaces.