Should you wait 15 minutes to clean the room as recommended by the CDC?
Leon from Maryland writes:
The CDC recommends that a treatment room be left empty for 15 minutes after treating a patient for the aerosols to settle onto surfaces and then return to clean the room. In the last CDC update they also said that the air purifiers will reduce the aerosols and the room clean up can be started sooner, didn’t say how much sooner. But I think your fogging recommendations suggest clean the surfaces, we usually use Caviwipes, then as soon as they are dry fog the room for a minute or two, and after another minute or so everything is dry and the room is ready to use again. Repeat after each patient.
Please correct me if I’m mistaken.
Again many thanks, and get some sleep,
Leon
My response:
What is sleep?
The CDC does recommend waiting 15 minutes for the droplets to fall before cleaning the rooms. If you are just cleaning the surfaces, chair, lights, countertops etc, and do not plan to cold fog the room, waiting makes sense because it allows some of the aerosol to settle and then get wiped off the surfaces. But, only the large moisture droplets fall within 15 minutes because they are heavy. The smaller, lighter droplets (droplet nuclei) are the ones that contain the virus and they remain airborne for much longer periods of time. So, by cleaning the room immediately, wiping down the surfaces with Caviwipes, and then cold fogging the room, you are going to inactivate more viral particles quickly and it doesn’t matter if they have settled or not. Then whatever remnants remain, will be circulated by your air purifiers as particles and filtered out. It is the combination of all of these measures combined that seem to be the way to go.
When you cold fog, only do it for a few seconds. Point the fogger at one corner of the ceiling of your operatory and begin spraying a fine mist all the way around the perimeter. Then distribute it evenly in “stripes” across the rest of the ceiling. You can then give an extra mist over the chair area where aerosol creation is the heaviest. Then wait until it drys…about a minute or two. Then, you can seat your patient.
Stay safe,
All my best regards,Lisa
