While businesses slowly begin to re-open, the threat of the COVID-19 virus still remains. People walking the aisles in a supermarket or visiting a pharmacy may carry and spread pathogens completely unknowingly. As such, it is still important to take precautionary measures against possible contraction and spread of this virus.
So how do you minimize the spread of infections in a setting where people gather and touch items in a shared facility?
Our ServiceMaster Clean experts suggest following those four simple rules:
Keeping a Clean Environment
On-demand and scheduled cleaning procedures need to be performed diligently around the store, in offices and waiting areas. It is important to use commercial grade detergents and sanitizers on all surfaces on a regular basis. Having a reputable cleaning company to perform this duty can be of great help and minimize the spread of disease down the road.
Sanitize Tools and Equipment
After taking care of common areas where staff and customers have access to, you need to make sure that everything and anything handled by members of your staff is properly and thoroughly sanitized.
When an employee sneezes or touches their mouth, their hand becomes a potential point of transmission. Everything touched by that hand may then transfer bacteria or virus to the person who touches it next.
Follow Hand Hygiene Rigorously
According to Health Canada, hand hygiene can serve as a strong mitigating factor to disease spread. Instructing your staff on proper hand hygiene is critical to the success of any prevention efforts.
Make sure they have access and time for frequent hand washing, gloves if possible and an abundance of alcohol hand sanitizer for more frequent use. The availability of hand sanitizer for customers can also greatly improve efforts to mitigate cross contamination.
Keep Staff Members Safe
The people who are front of house at a store or commercial facility can come into contact with potentially infectious customers on a daily basis.
If you are able to provide personal protective gear such as a face mask, it would be best. Lacking this option, it is best to install a plexiglass shield to separate your worker from the breath of customers as a study conducted by Professor Lidia Morawska, director of Queensland University of Technology's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health has shown that one person infected with a disease could easily spread the virus by simply breathing.This also applies to reception counters in offices for example. Providing barriers is helpful in every case where people come face to face.
For years, ServiceMaster Clean have been the experts in creating clean, safe and healthy workplace environments. Our experience and training in healthcare spaces afford us the ability to promote safe practices for infection prevention within all businesses. We are fully equipped to provide you with the preventative and specialty cleaning services you need or to provide you with advice for keeping your workplace healthy.
Source: Queensland University of Technology. "Viruses Found To Spread Far And Wide As We Breathe." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 May 2007. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070515100204.htm>.