Do’s and Don’t of sanitizing the phone to avoid coronavirus infection.
After the COVID-19 outbreak, people are paying great attention on preventive actions such as handwashing, cleaning commonly used surfaces and practicing social distance. However, many of us are missing to clean one surface which we touch very frequently – Mobile phones. Numerous studies have found that our phones can be carriers of microbial life forms including viruses, bacteria, and fungi.
While many of these are harmless but there are disease-causing organisms like the SARS-CoV-2 virus that can survive on surfaces long enough to be transmitted to you or another person.
A 2019 survey by research firm dscout suggests that the average person touches their phone 2,617 times in a day. It’s not practical to think that every time before you touch your phone or after you have touched your phone, you will wash your hand. So, it is important to wash or sanitize your phone.
As per the WHO (World Health Organization), the original SARS-CoV virus from 2003 was stable on glass surfaces for up to 96 hours (four days) and it lasted on plastic surface and stainless steel for up to 72 hours (three days). CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends cleaning all “high-touch” surfaces daily, including phones, keyboards and tablet computers.
Read more: Bats give deadly viruses to humankind: How do they survive with many viruses in their body?
How to wash or sanitize your phone?
Washing your phone can be tricky, you won’t want moisture to enter inside and ruin your beautiful phone for which you paid a heavy amount just few months before. Don’t dunk your phone in a cleaning solutions, don’t spray cleaners directly on phone, avoid rubbing it with abrasive materials and don’t spray it with compress air devices used to clean keyboards.
It is important to unplug the charger from the phone before washing it. To wash it, you could easily dip a soft cloth-like microfiber cleaning cloth in soap and water and wipe the phone. Make sure moisture doesn’t enter the phone. AT&T says that you can use the paper towel to wipe your phone too but first you need to spray it with a disinfectant. Don’t spray the disinfectant directly onto your phone.
You could also use Clorox wipes or other wipes which has 70 per cent alcohol in it. You could easily get it at your nearest medical shop. Apple has asked its users to gently use these wipes and has cautioned against using household cleaners. At&T recommends to wring out disinfectant wipes before you use them on your phone.
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