Hi everyone, it’s Teresa Hunsaker here from USU extension. Today I want to remind you how important it is to clean with the Coronavirus in mind.
First, clean as many of your surrounding surfaces as possible. Use sanitizing wipes or 70% rubbing alcohol if you can find them, but if not, use a mild bleach solution of four teaspoons of bleach to a quart of water or five tablespoons of bleach to a gallon of water. This can be used safely on most surfaces except for your cell phone.
If you can't find any of that and you can find hydrogen peroxide, that's also a great option. Just make sure that if you are using commercial disinfectants or sanitizing sprays or wipes that you are reading those instructions for what we call contact surface time in order for that disinfectant to be effective. For things that you bring home from the grocery store, perhaps even wiping down the packaging of some of the food might be a more vigilant thing to do. Your homemade bleach solution on a rag would be perfect for this.
Next, wash produce well in cool running water for 20 seconds and use a soft brush to get into the cracks and crevices of some of our more rough surface fruits or vegetables. This is effective up to about 90% they're telling us, so for those of you are continuing to support our food establishments that have curbside pickup and food to go, just know that this virus is spread person to person, so be careful in that handling option as well.
There are no known cases at this time of the food itself being a transmitter of the Coronavirus, but again that's tough to tell. But removing the food from the carry out container to your own clean plates, careful disposal of packaging, heating up the food to 165 is even a smart move. And then washing hands well before eating after you've handled all of these carry out bags and containers and things like that: just a good practice.
Thank you so much for your time and stay healthy.
