Reducing the Risk of infection by the Corona Virus (Covid-19)
NIC Services Group with over 40 operational centres across the Uk, is on the front line of reducing the risk from Corona Virus (Covid-19) in Commercial, Industrial, Medical and Education environments. We have the experience, skills and technology to provide innovative and cost effective solutions to all workplace settings. Corona Virus (Covid-19) has changed the workplace environment and cleaning requirements.
About Corona Virus
There is a lot of speculation and misinformation about the current virus. Let’s look at what we do know, what we can safely assume, and the areas that are still unclear. Yes, this is a fast-moving situation, the numbers change almost by the hour and much remains unknown. But just because we don’t know everything that doesn’t mean we know anything. In terms of basic biology, this latest coronavirus isn’t dramatically different from its predecessors, except that it is rather more efficient at infecting people.
Key Facts
To summarise the attributes of this virus:
- The virus is spread by droplets of saliva or mucus when an infected person coughs or sneezes. The virus is not an airborne virus
- These droplets do not travel more than about six feet before settling.
Droplets don’t stay in the air for very long; this is why most transmission is between family members, and why healthcare workers are at a far greater risk.
- The virus can remain viable on a surface for up to nine days.
Nine days is the extreme – on most surfaces the virus won’t stay viable for more than hours or days but we cannot take chances. - The virus is easily killed by standard disinfectants.
It’s important that the first thing you do when cleaning is spray all surfaces with a sanitizer / disinfectant at the correct dilution and leave it on for the dwell time advised by the manufacturer.
- If you’re cleaning an area that is potentially contaminated, the principal role of PPE is to prevent you picking up germs by touching a surface.
The technical term is ‘fomite transmission’: the transmission of infectious diseases by germs left on objects. If the virus is on a surface you can be infected via hand to face / eye / mouth contact – and we touch our faces thousands of times a day. This is not the primary route of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 but is still a risk.
- The best protection from catching it is avoiding close contact with people and frequent hand washing.
COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2
This stands for coronavirus disease 2019 and describes the syndrome of illness, not the causative virus.
This is the proper name for this particular strain of coronavirus – as opposed to the sickness it causes. It stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2.
About Coronaviruses
There are many different coronaviruses. They cause a number of different diseases in mammals and birds; in chickens they cause an upper respiratory infection, in cows and pigs coronaviruses cause diarrhoea. There are other animal ‘reservoirs’, some of which carry the virus with no apparent ill effect.
In humans coronaviruses viruses cause respiratory infections including the common cold. (Coronaviruses aren’t the main cause of colds: most are caused by rhinoviruses).
Until now there were six coronaviruses known to cause human disease, four causing mild colds and the other two – MERS and SARS – causing more serious respiratory infections.
SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh and symptoms range from mild to a viral pneumonia – which is nasty at best and fatal at worst. As yet there are no vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.
Reducing the risk of Transmission of the Coronavirus
SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets. So when an infectious person coughs or sneezes, droplets of saliva or mucus containing virus particles can spread 6-8 feet.
Important: Droplet vs Aerosol
You might think droplet transmission and aerosol transmission are similar but they are quite distinct.
Some diseases spread by aerosol – measles, for example. Aerosol particles are much smaller than droplets and so can linger in the air for far longer as gravity is far less demanding on them.
Droplets, however, are much larger, fall out of the air quite quickly and so can land on surfaces. Understanding this distinction is important for a number of reasons.
- If you enter an area where someone known to be infected has been, the principal risk isn’t breathing in the virus. The droplets will have fallen out of the air quite quickly.
- The risk when cleaning is secondary transmission – you touch a surface then touch your face / eyes / mouth.
- Furthermore the coronavirus can remain viable on a surface for up to nine days. Length of time depends on the type of surface, temperature, humidity etc. It can be as short as minutes or hours but in favourable conditions the average is 5-6 days.
Understanding this is important when making decisions about PPE, for example.
So, the main way this virus spreads is social. Much of the transmission has been between family members or medical staff tending to those infected. This is also why the level of PPE you see worn by healthcare workers is more stringent than is required for cleaning.
Where did it Come from?
First a little biology. Viruses can’t reproduce on their own. This isn’t like bacteria where – for example –
Salmonella or Listeria can happily live on foodstuffs and reproduce under their own steam. Viruses just don’t have the wherewithal to reproduce without infecting a specific host cell. They need a way to get in (a receptor on the cell wall they can latch on to – rather like a key fitting a lock) which enables them to hijack the host cell’s machinery and reprogram it to make daughter viruses. Then they need a way to get out and start the cycle again. And individual virus species can infect only certain species of host (often only one) and only certain cells within that host. For example HIV only infects one type of white blood cell.
This ‘new’ coronavirus didn’t suddenly come out of nowhere. The evidence is coronaviruses infect humans all the time.
And it’s not just those coronaviruses that already cause 15-25% of colds. There’s a large number of bat coronaviruses that continually infect humans in the region of south China where this epidemic started. But most of these don’t bind very well to the receptors on the host cell walls and so they don’t cause serious illness. But this type of virus mutates a lot and every now and again a mutation occurs that allows the virus to bind well enough to the host cell to infect it more efficiently – and when this happens there is the chance it could cause a COVID-19, SARS or MERS rather than a mild, self-limiting (or even asymptomatic) illness.
Knowing How Far will it Spread will help us with the Corona Virus and Reducing the risk.
This remains unclear. Currently the numbers are waning in Hubei Province where it started, most likely due to the aggressive isolation strategy adopted from the start. But cases are increasing elsewhere in the world including the UK. Many are saying COVID-19 is not as serious as seasonal flu but current data suggests that COVID-19 doesn’t transmit as efficiently as the flu (which can be transmitted widely by people who are infected but not yet showing symptoms) but causes a more severe disease. A patient’s risk of dying from COVID-19 varies based on several factors, including where they are treated, their age, and any pre-existing health conditions. Overall mortality is 0.2% to 0.4% for the under-50s, it them climbs as high as 15% for the over-80s. For context a 0.5 – 1% mortality rate would make the disease 5-10xmore deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally. A key number we still don’t have a really good handle on is the Base Reproduction Rate (R0) – this essentially tells us “if someone has it, on average how many others will they spread it to?”
Current estimates for R0 are between 2 and 4 – which in line with the other coronaviruses that infect humans.
As a rule, coronaviruses tend to stick to their animal reservoirs and most infections are animal to human (‘zoonotic’) rather than human to human. But with this new strain we do have person-to-person transmission – which is unhelpful.
If – and it remains a big ‘if’ – people can pass it on before they show symptoms this would be bad. In the case of SARS (another coronavirus) people didn’t start shedding the virus until day 4 or 5 of the illness so by isolating people as soon as they showed symptoms the spread was halted. Quickly isolating infected people meant the R0 was reduced from 2-4 to 0.4. If you think about it, if R0 is greater than 1 the outbreak spreads. If it’s less than 1 it fades away. Incidentally measles has an R0 of 16-18! If it really is the case that the virus can be transmitted before people show symptoms, measures such as quarantine and isolation will likely be less effective at controlling spread than it has been with other coronaviruses where victims weren’t infectious until they were sick.
What if it Mutates and spreads even more?
Don’t believe the papers or the internet on this question. Viruses do mutate (especially RNA viruses like this one) but mutations are usually negative in that they usually make the organism less viable – ‘deleterious’ is the proper term. If a chance mutation is beneficial to a virus it might become better at infecting its host or the mutation might enable the virus to extend its range of hosts (e.g. the flu virus infects us, pigs, chickens, horses) but they don’t change how they are transmitted. So, coronavirus mutating to completely change its mode of transmission would be a bit like us mutating to grow an extra set of limbs or organs. It just doesn’t happen.
An important part of reducing the risk of the Corona Virus is knowing what kills it?
The good news here is that coronaviruses are very easy to kill with common disinfectants. We have a number of these already on the range which are certified against coronavirus and many other enveloped viruses. (‘Enveloped’ viruses are so called because they have a fatty envelope around them. This makes them particularly susceptible to cleaning chemicals. Examples are influenza, HIV, Hepatitis B/C).
Cleaning – Principles for reducing the risk of Coronavirus
Let’s summarise the basics.
In any cleaning process where an infectious agent is suspected, the process is much the same:
- Are there any bodily fluids / wastes present?
These need to be immobilised / rendered safe and removed before you can clean.
- Thoroughly clean the area
You can use a general-purpose detergent or a detergent / sanitiser (a product that cleans and kills germs too).
Cleaning Protocols in reducing the risk of Coronavirus
In general, if there is a suspicion an area may have been used by someone with a potential infectious agent these areas should be cleaned with detergent and disinfectant as soon as possible, unless there has been a blood or body fluid spill which should be dealt with immediately.
Once cleaning and disinfection have been completed, the area can be put back in use.
Areas where contamination with an infectious agent is suspected should not be used if possible, doors should remain shut, windows opened and air conditioning switched off until it has been cleaned with detergent and disinfectant. Once this process has been completed, the area can be put back in use immediately.
Preparation
The responsible person undertaking the cleaning with detergent / disinfectant should be familiar with these processes and procedures:
- Collect all cleaning equipment before entering the room;
- Any cloths and mop heads used must be disposed of as single use items;
- Before starting cleaning, perform hand hygiene then put on a disposable plastic apron and gloves;
- On entering the area keep doors closed with windows open to improve airflow and ventilation whilst using detergent and disinfection products
- Bag all items that may be contaminated and any consumables that cannot be cleaned with detergent and disinfectant;
Spray all hard surfaces or floor or chairs or door handles or sanitary fittings in the room with a suitable sanitiser / disinfectant and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for dilution, application and contact times.
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