SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 29 March 2024, Friday |

Should we continue to clean surfaces and groceries? Experts answer

Experts said that surface cleaning procedures can be reduced to prevent viruses, especially the emerging corona virus, with a large number of people being immunized from the virus, and due to new scientific recommendations indicating that surfaces do not spread this virus easily.

The Canadian “ Globe and Mail” website  quotes experts as saying that it is time to go beyond the “scene of hygiene”, and says that while some of them agree that hand hygiene should remain a habit that goes beyond the epidemic, and that vaccination is the best form of protection from Corona, it has come. Time to end this obsession with hygiene.

Under the headline “Why is it time to stop grocery wiping and other cleaning measures that do not reduce the risk of transmission,” the site said that across Canada, individuals and institutions have been maintaining deep cleaning protocols and quarantining products since the start of the epidemic.

But experts say that current cleaning behaviors give people a sense of safety, but they are unlikely to reduce the transmission of Coronavirus infection.

The report also notes the environmental impact of disposable wipes, the cost of sterilization, and the burden on restaurant and retail employees to maintain strict cleaning procedures.

Dr. Gerald Evans, an epidemiologist at the Kingston Center for Health Sciences in Canada, said, “Part of the problem we face is getting people to understand that just knowing that there is a virus in something on the surface, or in an aerosol, does not mean that it will transmit effectively, because Viruses undergo all kinds of changes that can affect the infection and its ability to bind to a receptor.

Evans added that one of the problems with disposable wipes is that they contribute to “general waste problems.”

Dr. Peter Johnny, also an infectious disease expert and local official in Ontario, said that in public places, the risk of infection through surfaces is “relatively low” and “can be easily treated with traditional cleaning without deep cleaning and hand sanitizer.”

He notes that outdoors, like playgrounds, UV rays also help disinfect surfaces.

He points out that one of the German studies showed that grocery stores were not one of the common sources of transmission of Corona infection, “perhaps because people do not spend much time in these stores.”

Dr. Legan Parks, an infectious disease specialist and microbiologist at McGill University, said the focus should be on “improving ventilation in places we know of the highest risk of transmission, such as care facilities, and reconsidering the estimation of spaces between individuals in workplaces and institutions.”

In a report for the “Healthline”  website , Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at the University of Vanderbilt University of Medicine in Tennessee, pointed out to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently concluded that “surface transmission is not the main pathway” that spreads Through him the Corona virus.

Schaffner says it is “good news and a reason to consider new measures such as reopening libraries.” He added, “We still have to wipe the books when they are returned to the libraries, but from this standpoint, we now know that we do not need to put them in stone for five days.”

Overall, these results mean that we can all “relax a little bit when cleaning surfaces and sanitizing groceries,” according to Schaffner.

The doctor advises a “simple and effective” method, which is “cleaning hands”.