You need more than just “deep cleaning” to maintain a healthy environment
As campuses prepare for reopening, all of them are emphasizing a strong focus on extensive cleaning and disinfection to make spaces safer for staff, faculty, and students. But what does that mean? Even the phrase “deep cleaning” doesn’t necessarily include the multi-level, multi-stage effort that’s required to mitigate the risk of infection—while keeping maintenance and janitorial staff protected.
By understanding the main protocols of a comprehensive cleaning program, you can put your campus on track to have a meaningful and effective approach to reopening. There are four key phases that can take any campus from a reactive to a proactive approach, based on the UG2 ReNewSM Cleaning4Health program. Listed below are the four main cleaning protocols for campus reopening:
General Housekeeping: This is the deep cleaning and disinfection that will be required to keep every occupied space cleaner and safer. Not only will all high-frequency touch points be cleaned, but they’ll also be disinfected using an EPA-registered antimicrobial product suitable for non-enveloped viruses. Housekeeping should also involve pre-cleaning heavily soiled non-contact surfaces like walls, followed by antiviral disinfectant.
Response to Isolated Incidents: What if a faculty member tests positive for COVID-19 but has been using her office and lecture hall for the past few days even though she had symptoms? Or if several cafeteria workers test positive and the kitchen needs to be closed down? The fact is, outbreak events will occur on your campus. Not having a cleaning plan for them—including training on how to handle contaminated materials—in advance could put you at a significant disadvantage.
Disinfectant Spraying Systems: When it comes to optimizing your cleaning protocols, automated systems can be a boon. Innovative spraying technology such as electrostatic sprayers allow for 360-degree surface coverage and sanitize rooms 80 percent faster than conventional methods.
Personal Protective Equipment: Absolutely, you need to do everything you can to keep your facility services team members safe. That means supplying all cleaning personnel with the right kind of PPE, such as gloves, goggles or face shields, and making disposable particulate face masks available.
While a more extensive plan for general housekeeping is crucial, having only that phase in place can cause campuses to fall short of what they really need to maintain health and safety on an ongoing basis. Although the emphasis right now is on reopening, that is only a short-term situation—for more insight about longer-term approaches, see our recent blog post, The 4 Phases of Reopening for Higher Education—and focusing only on deep cleaning could expose you to risks, potentially just weeks after opening.
Most significantly, these cleaning protocols don’t follow one another, they coincide. They happen simultaneously, which means they make each protocol stronger and boost protection and safety throughout a campus.
Expanding Your Knowledge
In other previous posts, we’ve covered why colleges and universities have unique needs for reopening and what your institution will need to get ready for re-entry. Check back next week for insights on how engineering can boost health on campuses.
As you consider the phases of reopening and everything that needs to be put in place for short-term and long-term success, don’t hesitate to contact UG2 to talk about your specific needs. If you’re in higher education, now is the time to build capability and resources for reopening, and UG2’s deep experience and insights have proven valuable to a range of educational clients.
We can offer operations, maintenance, custodial, and management resources, and also work with your in-house facility services staff so you get additional industry expertise, operational knowledge, greater purchasing power, and more access to specialized equipment, all without adding to headcount. Our new UG2 ReNew Cleaning4Health and Engineering4Health programs are designed to ensure you have what you need, well before anyone returns to campus—and long after they’re back, too.