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#51: What Not to do With Your Cleaning Supplies - COVID-19 Special
71 Plays5 years ago
In this special episode, podcast series host Jill James speaks with Corey Martin, the founder and CEO of Spotlight Safety. Corey holds an MS degree in Immunobiology from Yale University, making him the perfect interviewee to talk to about COVID-19. Jill and Corey discuss how to use chemicals for cleaning in the safest, healthiest way possible, along with general tips to help protect yourself and your community.
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Transcript
Introduction to Corey Martin
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Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. This is a special edition of the podcast and it was recorded on March 17th, 2020. My name is Jill James, Vivid's Chief Safety Officer, and today I'm joined by Corey Martin. Corey is the founder and CEO of Spotlight Safety. He holds a master's degree in immunobiology from Yale University and specializes in safety program development for biotech,
00:00:39
Speaker
life science, and academic research facilities studying biological mechanisms and infectious disease.
Corey's Transition and Contributions
00:00:46
Speaker
As a former scientific researcher, Corey made his accidental safety pro-transition as the research safety officer at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, during the Ebola breakout from 2014 to 2016, and participated in emergency response planning efforts, including training in decontamination, isolation, and quarantine procedures in the event of a known
00:01:08
Speaker
or suspected case in the community.
Importance of Biosafety Practices
00:01:11
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Broadly, Corey's passion is to facilitate cutting-edge research that enables disease understanding and treatment while ensuring the health and wellness of researchers performing the experiments. He focuses on the importance of foundational biosafety practices such as facility containment, engineering controls, personal protective equipment, appropriate decontamination procedures,
00:01:31
Speaker
and proper waste management policies. Furthermore, he highlights that these controls are in place not only to protect the researchers, but also their families, friends, and communities.
00:01:42
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Many of these same biosafety principles also apply to public health and safety during infectious disease outbreaks. As with safety programs, Corey acknowledges that successful containment depends on quality proactive policies developed in accordance with guidance from the expert sources, those being the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, the National
00:02:08
Speaker
Institute of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as others.
Chemical Safety in Decontamination
00:02:14
Speaker
We've heard from Corey before. He's been our guest on episode number 46 of the podcast and we're so happy Corey's willing to come back and share his knowledge today. I specifically asked Corey on the show because I've been personally concerned about chemical interactions that could inadvertently be happening as we've all been asked to do decontamination, to do cleaning, to do disinfection,
00:02:44
Speaker
And while there are many great products available for us to use, some of them don't play well together. And I'm concerned about our communities, not only in our workplace, but in our homes that people might make some errors. And so I really wanted to Corey to be able to share some of those
Misinformation and Expert Verification
00:03:03
Speaker
best practices and ways to mitigate any injuries that could occur when we're trying to do our best in times like this. So Corey, thank you so much for being here and I'm interested to know how would you like to set the stage for our conversation today? Sure, well thank you first of all for having me back. I'm excited to talk about this general topic and
00:03:30
Speaker
maybe dispel some myths about how to protect the community and maybe your own personal workplace or household as things go into isolation and social distancing mode. First of all, you mentioned the deference to expert sources in the intro, and I think that's a really important thing.
00:03:54
Speaker
It's one of the items that I would like to start with just because one of the things that is common in disease outbreaks or pandemics is a feeling of hysteria in some cases and sharing of misinformation or things that may be misinterpreted. So I think it's really important for everybody as they're perusing the media or social media
00:04:20
Speaker
Just to go back and verify sources and make sure that things are matching, you know, the guidance from the World Health Organization or the CDC or NIH and just using that mindset to go through their everyday lives, because again, depending on where your sources come from, there might be
00:04:40
Speaker
some truth or enough truth to believe it, but maybe it's not backed up by all the facts. And I also want to kind of call out people in the position to be maybe viewed by the public as an expert, you know, medical professionals and safety professionals for sure, just to make sure that people in that capacity are verifying their own information so that they're not putting their name behind something that may not be a hundred percent accurate.
00:05:11
Speaker
So as we're all like passing and sharing information, is that one of the examples? Exactly. Yeah. So before you like or share something on social media, maybe just go to those primary sources and make sure that things are lining up.
00:05:27
Speaker
Because one of the things that's unique about this virus is that we've only known about it for three months. And in that time, you know, with the research efforts and the technology that we have in this day and age, we've learned a lot about it, but it's still extremely new to our academic understanding.
00:05:45
Speaker
you know, things are going to evolve very quickly.
Lab Work and Surface Cleaning Techniques
00:05:47
Speaker
I'm very thankful that you time stamp these episodes because over the next few weeks, I'm sure we're going to know a lot more and learn a lot more. And you know, I think things will develop as we go.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, right. So Corey, you know, I had, I had set us up to talk about cleaning and disinfection, and I think that's where we should start. And by, yeah, and by way of, you know, your background in that, particularly in your lab work, I'm guessing that's maybe where some of that started, learning some of those best practices.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I think when you're going through and working in a research environment where you have potentially infectious materials and you're working with human source material that might come from the clinic, there's always an element of risk involved in those research studies. And it's important to have decontamination practices that are sufficient for the material that you're working with. And in the biosafety realm, we work with
00:06:50
Speaker
general biosafety levels from biosafety level one through biosafety level four. And each one of them has different control and decontamination procedures associated with them. And, you know, depending on the level of risk and, you know, this one has unique qualities and that it's airborne transmissible, which automatically elevates the risk. And, you know, it does seem to stick on surfaces for a fairly long length of time.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, so knowing what you know and what you were taught and what you practiced in your lab setting about cleaning, I'd like to take that and how can we transfer that knowledge to workplaces and to our homes? And would it make sense to talk about the different types of surfaces there are to clean and then how
00:07:47
Speaker
those would be done differently? Can we talk about that maybe? Sure, yeah. So, you know, in most laboratory facilities, for instance, you have hard non-porous surfaces, and in that context it seems as though this virus can
00:08:02
Speaker
Stick around for on the order of two to three days, which puts it in a kind of moderately hardy category in terms of risk management and You know outside of that lab facility environment, you know in a general workplace or in a household you might be dealing with a lot more porous surfaces, you know, I think a lot of
00:08:26
Speaker
workplaces these days might have exposed beams or brick surfaces or certainly you know rugs that wouldn't be found in a laboratory environment so yeah so talk more about yeah thank you pardon me for interrupting if you can maybe dig into you've just given some examples of non-porous versus porous can you talk about what the differences are
00:08:49
Speaker
Sure, yeah. So when you're talking about disinfecting a surface, access to the material is very important. So if you spray a non-porous surface but can't wipe it down and you have these nooks and crannies that the virus or the biological materials can hide from that agent, then you're not going to get sufficient decontamination when you do that process.
00:09:16
Speaker
So, you know, hard surfaces are a lot easier because you have better access. And if you spray it and wipe it down, chances are you're going to either pick it up or disinfect it depending on, you know, what material that you're using. So the application is slightly different and the level of cleaning that you might have to do for those two surfaces might vary. So would like a wooden handrail be an example of a non-porous surface?
00:09:46
Speaker
So it depends on what the treatments are. So if it's heavily lacquered and it's sealed appropriately, it might not be as big a risk as if you had a completely exposed beam that didn't have any treatment on it. But yeah, that would be an example of something that you would want to keep in mind.
00:10:06
Speaker
Okay. So what are those? So how do you choose a different disinfecting or cleaning agent based on porous versus non-porous? And I know CDC has guidelines exactly for this, but can you talk about like, why does it make a difference? Sure. Yeah. So again, the access is important. So in order to properly disinfect something, you have to have that agent come in contact with the disinfecting material.
00:10:34
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for a certain amount of time and that contact time.
00:10:38
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is going to vary depending on which disinfectant you use. And so that can contribute to which option you use. And if you're dealing with exclusively hard porous or non-porous surfaces, you may choose standard like bleach or 70% ethanol or some sort of ammonia solution. And those are all EPA approved generally for those
00:11:05
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applications. But if you start having issues with access to the agent and you are concerned about penetration and those types of scenarios in terms of getting into the nooks and crannies, you can start looking at non-liquid options. So there are vaporized hydrogen peroxide and
00:11:28
Speaker
chlorine dioxide gases that can be kind of used in a fogging fumigating type application and that can have much better penetration to get your agents.
00:11:38
Speaker
for those non-porous surfaces. Or the porous surfaces, yeah. Yes, I'm sorry, porous surfaces. But that does not sound like something that we'd all have access to. And it sounds like something you'd need some pretty specialized training and safety knowledge about if you're going to be doing fogging, correct? Right, yeah. That's not a plug it in and let it go kind of application. That's definitely expert level commercial product.
00:12:07
Speaker
Right, right. So let's back up and talk about interactions with chemicals. You mentioned some chemicals right now. And I know I heard you say ethanol, right, a little bit ago, which is that also that also means like isopropyl alcohol, correct?
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I refer to alcohol disinfection as either being ethanol or isopropyl alcohol. Okay. Okay.
Chemical Mixing Dangers
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. So you can use them reasonably interchangeably for most agents. Yeah. I mean, they're not the same chemical, but their, you know, application is the same.
00:12:46
Speaker
Okay, got it. Thank you. Thank you. So Cory, what do we need to know about things that don't act well together? Yeah, so we don't hurt ourselves. Yeah, so I'll start by saying that EPA, the EPA just put out a list of about 274 disinfectants that's approved for this coronavirus. And I think we're going to link to that in the show notes. If anyone has questions about those, they can review them there.
00:13:13
Speaker
My guess is that that list will continue to expand as new products are developed or
00:13:19
Speaker
You know, things change, but basically if you go through that list, you'll notice that the active ingredient is included with each of those products. And that's what you want to focus on. Okay. So when you're evaluating these materials, just know that the active ingredient is what is performing the disinfection. Okay. And it's also what is likely to not play nicely with the other forms of disinfection.
00:13:48
Speaker
Okay. So what are some of those that we should avoid? Yeah. So I mentioned that alcohol is one of the big ones. Bleach is one of the big ones. And in those technical documents, bleach is going to be referred to as hypochlorite. So just keep that in mind. Okay. And then ammonia. So that's going to be referred to as quaternary ammonia in most cases, and then hydrogen peroxide. Those are the four biggest ones.
00:14:18
Speaker
Okay. And then you're also going to get some various acids and maybe some heavy metals and those types of things mixed in. Yeah. Thank you for, for explaining the lay terms that go with the chemical terms as well, because I think when we're reading as, as household consumers versus workplace consumers, it's different. Right. Yeah. So I think everyone knows what bleach is, but if you see sodium hypochlorite as the active ingredient, you may not
00:14:44
Speaker
associate those two. Now, most of them are going to be called Clorox something or, you know, one of the commercial names that are recognizable, but it doesn't always happen that way. Okay. Okay. So what do we not put together? Sure. So in general, bleach doesn't play nicely with anything else. So you definitely don't want to mix bleach with alcohol or ammonia or hydrogen peroxide or any of the acids.
00:15:11
Speaker
So it's slightly basic and it will off gas some pretty nasty gases if you mix it with any of the other categories. So those toxic fumes can really be damaging to your health. And the last thing you want to do while you're trying to protect your health is to create something that's going to be an adverse reaction and potentially make you sick.
00:15:37
Speaker
So one of the things that I think people can focus on is the fact that each of these commercial products or mixtures, if you're making it, if you're diluting the commercial-based products yourself, is just to stick with one of the classes only. The reason why they're EPA registered is because they are approved and they are sufficient to decontaminate these materials if you give them the appropriate contact time.
00:16:07
Speaker
But I think there's some element of thinking that, oh, if one of these is good, then three of them is better. Right. Like let's layer it on. Right. Just be extra sure. But that's where you start to get issues because if you layer them on, then they can interact. And actually in a lot of these reactions that are happening on
00:16:30
Speaker
the chemical level, you're neutralizing the active ingredients. So you're actually making it less effective from a decontamination standpoint, and you're producing things that could potentially be hazardous to your health. That's really important to know. So you mentioned things that, you know, not to mix with bleach. Are there specific things that we should be calling out for ammonia or for ethanol or alcohol?
00:16:59
Speaker
Well, yeah, so those don't tend to interact as frequently in terms of producing really nasty things. But in general, just don't mix across those categories. Okay.
Proper Disinfectant Use and Guidelines
00:17:14
Speaker
And you'll be okay. The other thing that I want to mention is because as
00:17:19
Speaker
stores get depleted of all resources. I went shopping the other week and yeah, there aren't a lot of things on the shelf in the cleaning product category. So I can anticipate some people wanting to opt for more on the fly disinfection products and maybe come up with their own concoctions. And that is also something to be
00:17:47
Speaker
concerned about, especially since some of the more common ones involve vinegar and maybe baking soda, but those can also interact with some of these commercial classes of disinfections as well. Especially hydrogen peroxide is one of the big ones, so hydrogen peroxide and vinegar
00:18:07
Speaker
make parasitic acid, which is definitely not something you want to have produced around the house. Just make sure that you're not mixing and matching and you're using everything based on the manufacturer's recommendations, including how you're diluting it and what concentrations you're using and how long you use it for, because those are going to be critical for the actual
00:18:30
Speaker
application, and it's also going to be part of the safety element as well. Because if you start using 100% bleach or 100% ethanol, you're either not going to get the beneficial qualities or you're going to be spraying some pretty, you know, high potent compounds around your house. Yeah. So now is not the time to be a home chemist. Exactly. Yeah. Now is not the time to go to YouTube and ask how do I create a disinfectant?
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, so you were mentioning dilution a moment ago. So let's talk about that. So let's say someone has a bottle of bleach at home or at work.
00:19:15
Speaker
and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol under their bathroom sink right now, and they want to use it as a cleaning agent and they want to dilute it. Can you talk about the dilutions and then contact time? You mentioned that too, but let's get into dilutions first and how long these dilutions last.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah. So your alcohol is your ethanol is in your isopropyl alcohols. They're going to generally be used in the 70% range, um, in an application standpoint, they might come anywhere, you know, that you might buy them in 70% already, and then you can just use them as is, or you might find that you're buying 91% or a hundred percent ethanol or
00:20:02
Speaker
isopropyl alcohol. And in those cases, you definitely want to add some water to dilute it down. And, you know, as long as you keep it above 60%, I think that's the current recommendation, you know, certainly for hand sanitizers and any disinfection.
00:20:19
Speaker
percentage, I like to use 70% because it kind of gives you a little buffer, you know, if your dilution is not exact. Okay, but okay. So so add an add enough water to that 90 to 100% isopropyl alcohol or ethanol, ethanol, so that we're diluting it by about 20% if you have that high of a rate, right?
00:20:40
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So you're generally adding, you know, three parts to seven. If you're dealing with a hundred percent or you're dealing with adding two parts to seven, if you're dealing with 90% generally. Okay. Yeah. And if you have 70%, you just use it straight up. Yeah. You can just use it straight out of the bottle.
00:20:57
Speaker
Okay, put some on a paper towel and clean your phone, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, get the phones, that's important. Yeah, and then what about bleach? Yeah, so bleach is interesting because it comes in multiple different concentrations from the bottle. So you can get concentrated bleach or you can get kind of more generic household bleach. Okay. And those are different concentrations.
00:21:25
Speaker
So you don't want to just, I don't have a set dilution percentage that I can just kind of give everybody to use because it is going to depend on what the initial concentration of those sodium hypochlorite molecules are because what actually is important for the disinfection is the final concentration of chloride ions when you're using bleach. And that's going to be specified
00:21:50
Speaker
you know, in the use procedure on the bottle. So make sure that you're just following that, you know, and be careful with the initial bottle if you're dealing with a concentrated bleach solution, because those fumes will be pretty heavy if they're super concentrated.
00:22:08
Speaker
Right. So you're not going to be wanting to pour this directly over your face. Exactly. And every time you grab a different bottle, whether you're at home or work, you really want to read what it says about dilution. Right. Yeah. Especially since in most, at least in the laboratory environments that I'm used to, um, you typically buy a slightly higher concentration, um, than you would pick up from your local pharmacy. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, but in my experience, that typically is how it works.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah. You mentioned ammonias, which I think you said you are called quaternaries. Is that correct? Yeah. So the quaternary ammonia is typically what's written as the active ingredient on most of those products.
00:22:49
Speaker
Okay. And so, um, from an ammonia perspective, we're not talking about a household ammonia, right? Where are we? Yeah. So you could use household ammonia, but most of the time when you're using ammonia, it's in the context of a cleaner, you know, that you can just pick up off the shelf. Okay. And, you know, there might be some dilution elements, you know, with those recommendations, but, um, a lot of them are just,
00:23:18
Speaker
you know, buy and spray kind of solutions. Okay. So yeah, again, that would be a consult the bottle type recommendation. Right. And so let's say we've, we've made a dilution of bleach and water or alcohol and water, and we have it in a, in a spray bottle or in a bucket. How long is it viable to be able to clean with?
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. The bleach solutions in diluted form actually degrade pretty quickly. It's because the chloride ions that are so important for disinfection actually get
00:24:01
Speaker
bound to by water contaminants. So it's going to depend a little bit on the water that you're using. If you have really hard water coming out of your tap, it might not last quite as long. But there are a lot of factors. So the general rule of thumb that I use is 24 hours. So fresh dilution every 24 hours, and you're pretty safe. There are some guidance documents out there that say up to a week.
00:24:28
Speaker
Um, but again, it's going to vary. Um, and you know, it's at least in my opinion, you want to make sure it's going to work. So fresh delusions every, every 24 hours are certainly my rule of thumb. Okay. And are they, is it different for alcohol or ethanol? So alcohol and ethanol at 70% tends to last a lot longer. So my rule of thumb there is about a month.
00:24:49
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Very good to know. Very good to know. And then let's talk about contact time and maybe back up what, what does contact time mean? Sure. So contact time is how long it's going to take that disinfectant to actually
00:25:05
Speaker
render the agent that you're trying to disinfect to be non-viable. So how long it takes to kill that particular infectious agent. And bleach in a diluted form in the ready to go form takes about 20 to 30 minutes. So it's one of those things where you want to spray it on
00:25:28
Speaker
let it sit and then wipe it off in 20 to 30 minutes. That way it has enough time to actually render those biological agents inert.
00:25:38
Speaker
That's a long time for those of us who are anxious and we just want to get going, right? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. What about for alcohol and ethanol then? So alcohol seems to work a little bit faster. Um, and you know, it's one of those things where you also want to spray it and then wipe it down. Um, but the reason why
00:26:01
Speaker
To our earlier point about dilution. It's important to use 70% ethanol instead of 100% ethanol because 100% ethanol evaporates much quicker and the water that you're adding to the
00:26:14
Speaker
ethanol or isopropyl alcohol actually slows down the evaporation time and gives a little bit more contact time for alcohol to do its work. The other thing that alcohol does is the ethanol or isopropyl alcohol portion will open up the
00:26:35
Speaker
basically give access to the genetic material of the virus or cell. In the context of 70% ethanol or isopropyl alcohol, you actually need that contact time to allow it to
00:26:51
Speaker
act upon that agent and the water is actually critical in that process because it's a combination of the alcohol providing access to the material and actually performing the disinfectant and the water through these kind of it's called osmotic pressure but basically it will give the alcohol a better path to the actual disinfection process.
00:27:17
Speaker
okay okay so with with alcohols we can we can spray or wipe yeah you can use it a little bit faster yeah okay okay very good and and you and you let it evaporate what about with um all of these wipes sure that people use can you talk about
Real-World Chemical Reaction Dangers
00:27:37
Speaker
that
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, I think bleach wipes are definitely a hot thing or Lysol wipes or whatever types of wipes you're using. I view those as more of a routine
00:27:52
Speaker
disinfectant process rather than kind of your more thorough spray and wipe type process. So if you're just doing a quick wipe down, if you're at work and you just want to do a quick go over of your desk or workstation, those wipes are good in those contexts. But for a more thorough cleaning, so if you knew that there was a case or there was a suspected case, that would be where you would want to do a more thorough cleaning.
00:28:21
Speaker
Okay, very good. And you know, Corey, we were talking about interactions and cautions with that and how they could hurt people. There there really are statistics around that as well. Like it does happen. So this is a real thing. Can you can you talk about some reports on that? Oh, sure. Yeah. So, you know, unfortunately, there are a lot of
00:28:42
Speaker
hospitalizations and even fatalities uh... every year from adverse chemical reactions and this happens in the context of cleaning products as well so i think we're gonna post in the show notes something uh... a resource that looked at cases of inhalation hazards from
00:29:02
Speaker
2011 to 2017 and I think it was something like 9 out of 297 cases were actually directly resulting from cleaning products and Those were fatalities over that time frame. So, you know certainly not something that anyone has to or wants to deal with and You know, it's not just the Fatality, you know situation that we want to avoid it's any adverse reaction and you know, it might just be
00:29:30
Speaker
respiratory distress, which when you're dealing with protection from a airborne transmissible type virus like coronavirus is, you want to make sure that you're protecting your airways as much as possible and hurting them in the disinfection process is not going to help. It's really important to maintain those safety elements for a number of reasons in this case.
00:29:56
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Definitely. So many employers right now might be asking questions of contractors that they hire for cleaning. Sure. Maybe whereas we just hired them to clean and they cleaned, but now we're asking them, what are you using and how are you doing that? Or maybe they're trying to source that right now. What should people be asking and paying attention to?
00:30:22
Speaker
Sure, yeah. So I would certainly ask how long they've been operating. In these types of cases, you run the risk of pop-up shops who are catering to that time of need. And it doesn't necessarily mean that those people aren't capable of doing a good job. It's just you want to have a sense of security when you're working with
00:30:45
Speaker
this type of practice. I think it's also important to request information on the products that they'll be using, especially, you know, get a safety data sheet so that you can review what the active ingredients are and, you know, whether or not they're approved for those types of applications that you're trying to use them for. If you have a lot of
00:31:07
Speaker
you know, porous surfaces or you had a, you know, case where you had a positive test in your workplace, you know, you might want to consider something more than just surface cleaning and, you know, get a specialized commercial vendor who can do a vaporized hydrogen peroxide or chlorine dioxide treatment. Um, but those are all things that you kind of need to evaluate on a case by case basis.
00:31:32
Speaker
Right, right. Very important. You mentioned SDS's safety data sheets a moment ago. Can we talk a little bit about the importance of having access to those in a moment like this? Sure, yeah. I mean, even in normal scenarios,
00:31:53
Speaker
It's important to have access to safety data sheets. It sure is. Make sure that you have all of your inventory covered by a safety data sheet for each chemical. But especially when you're dealing with maybe new cleaning products that you're just bringing on site for this application, or you find that your traditional cleaning product that you've been using for a number of years is out of stock because everyone's kind of buying it up.
00:32:21
Speaker
and you need to make a transition to something else, make sure that you're reviewing that safety data sheet and don't assume that it's going to act exactly like your former cleaning product.
Personal Hygiene vs. Chemical Products
00:32:32
Speaker
So make sure that you're looking at the active ingredient and you know the dilution and you train your employees to use that product in the new manufacturer recommendation way.
00:32:45
Speaker
so that you're not getting crossover between two different products or you're not using something in a way that's ineffective.
00:32:56
Speaker
Could you also talk about not using these products on the human person? I know I have at least one friend who has had a coworker ask, can't I just spray Lysol on my hands?
00:33:16
Speaker
Actually, thank you for prompting that question because I think there's a misnomer out there that hand sanitizer and whatever other product that you could put on your hand is better than simply using soap and water.
00:33:34
Speaker
That's not the case. And soap and water is perfectly effective at getting rid of any viral materials that you might have on your hand. And it's, you know, if you're doing it for 20 seconds and you're using soap, it doesn't even have to be antibacterial soap. This is a virus. It doesn't matter. You know, just make sure that you're doing your due diligence in your personal hygiene and your
00:34:01
Speaker
hand washing because it's actually more effective than sanitizers and other chemical products that you could be using on your hands. So yes, please don't be putting Lysol on your hands or bleach or wiping down with bleach wipes or whatever else you've heard as being effective because again, there's contact time there.
00:34:20
Speaker
And it's going to take longer to actually disinfect it than it would be to just wash it off. So soap and water, if you're not in a position where soap and water is possible, use, you know, approved hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah, which are intended for skin versus these commercial grade products and household cleaners that are definitely not compatible with our skin.
Social Distancing Principles
00:34:46
Speaker
They have aloe. They're not going to dry your hands out. They're not going to open up your hands to other issues because you've now dried out your hands and they're cracking and now they become another form of potential source of infection and all that kind of stuff.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, so soap and water, bottom line, soap and water, first line of defense for us human beings. Absolutely. Not for the porous and non-porous surfaces. We don't fit into those categories. Right. Yeah. So Corey, wondering.
00:35:18
Speaker
Could we talk about maybe social distancing? We're talking about cleaning, obviously that's huge, but let's talk about social distancing in this context, particularly with COVID-19.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, so I think there are a lot of different ways that social distancing is being used right now and, you know, speaking about it with other people. And, you know, social distancing isn't a really complicated concept. It's just, you know, if you deal with a
00:35:53
Speaker
infectious material that can spread from person to person, and it's spreading and in this case it's airborne transmissible, the fewer contact points you can have with other people, the less likely it is to spread throughout population.
00:36:10
Speaker
So, you know, from a social distancing standpoint, you know, some people are using it interchangeably with social isolation. And that's kind of the most extreme form of social distancing. But, you know, certainly self quarantining and not going out to
00:36:28
Speaker
Public places and you know gathering in large groups. It's all part of social distancing But then there's also concepts of social distancing in smaller groups. So not getting within three to six feet of somebody Especially if they're coughing or symptomatic And just you know being a little bit more
00:36:47
Speaker
aware of your presence and your environment and Your personal space. Exactly. So, you know, you're not shaking hands or you know giving hugs right now Hopefully, you know, no one that I've interacted with has been offended by that. So, you know so far I think everyone's on board with it, but
00:37:04
Speaker
Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's just a matter of keeping your distance and making good choices socially to try to, you know, flatten the curve is the, is the colloquial term right now that the media is using. Um, because you know, you're trying to get this exponential growth phase down into a linear plateau. And that's really from an epidemiological standpoint, you know, what we're trying to do.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah. So that flattening the curve that we're all hearing about in media, that is based on science. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So we have enough information now to kind of ballpark what the transmissibility of COVID-19 is. And it seems that for every one person who's infected, you give it to
00:37:55
Speaker
I think the current figure is between two and 2.5 other people, which when you're talking about exponential growth, anytime you're turning one into two for each generation, you're going to get that exponential growth phase. The more we can do to limit contact and keep numbers down, the more likely we are to get ahead of this.
00:38:18
Speaker
you know, self quarantining are all part of that. But even people who are feeling healthy and don't have symptoms, you know, there's a big proponent of that as well. Because one of the unique things about this virus is that, you know, there are a large number of mild cases. And it's not the kind of thing where, you know, you get it, you have symptoms, you become contagious, but you're in bed.
00:38:44
Speaker
because it's just knocked you. And because of that, it's a lot more likely that people are walking around without symptoms and could potentially be spreading it. So I think everyone kind of has their own responsibility to participate in this social distancing, even if they don't feel like they're in a position where they've been exposed or they don't have symptoms.
00:39:11
Speaker
Right, right. We all have a role to play. I mean, literally we can all change that curve right now. One human interaction, you know, one practice at a time by us as individuals.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that speaks to, you know, risk, right? I mean, those of us who are safety professionals who are listening to this podcast, we're all about risk analysis. Yeah, what should safety professionals be, you know, thinking, where do you put this in what we know about the way that we do our work as safety professionals?
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah. So I think there are, you know, a number of elements of just the normal day to day life of a safety professional that can go into the risk analysis and assessment portion of this. So, you know, if you're dealing with a facility that has the opportunity to have a lot of workers work from
COVID-19 Challenges and Community Response
00:40:09
Speaker
home.
00:40:09
Speaker
very good opportunity to do that in this context and try to mitigate those social interactions as much as possible. Maybe you go to alternative production methods where you spread workers out a little bit more or have internal controls in place to prevent close interaction.
00:40:31
Speaker
and or you know you i've seen some reports where companies are going to multiple shifts when they haven't before just to kind of keep production up um but still have you know fewer people and and less density in the facility to kind of mitigate some of that um but yeah i mean you know a lot of what's being done on a on a larger level at these expert agencies um is a large scale
00:40:55
Speaker
you know, risk analysis and, you know, how can we put policies in place to try to flatten this curve as quickly as possible while not disrupting, you know, so much of the
00:41:09
Speaker
you know, the economy and, you know, there are a lot of other things that go into it. Um, you know, and that's what they're playing with right now on a, on a much larger scale. And they're trying to use as much information that they have from the previous cases to see, you know, what's making sense from a epidemiological control kind of standpoint.
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, right. And as we've been talking today, Corey, you've been very careful to talk about as we know it and what we know today, because it really is changing that fast. And one of those terms associated with this particular outbreak is the word novel.
00:41:50
Speaker
And can you share for our audience what that means to put in context why we're clarifying things as often as we are?
00:42:01
Speaker
I mentioned earlier on that we've only known about this for about three months, and it's because it only just recently made the jump to humans. Coronaviruses in the wild are typically spread from animal species to animal species, or even within those species, but they rarely make the jump to humans. When they do, we call them zoonotic.
00:42:23
Speaker
agents. And you might have heard that term kind of being thrown around, but that means that it made the jump from an animal to a human. And what we typically look for at that point is how quickly it can spread from human to human.
00:42:39
Speaker
So some viruses or, you know, other biological materials will go from an animal to a human, but then not pass from human to human. In this case, it's not only passing from human to human, but it's doing so through the air. And it seems to be doing so very well. So that's where you get the, you know, highly contagious kind of monikers that are being used. Yeah.
00:43:05
Speaker
And that's where you kind of need to be a little bit careful about how you project what the curves are going to look like, especially if there are differences in how some populations are controlling it versus others.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah, right. That makes sense and explains why we're continually getting updates. The CDC and our departments of health on state and national levels are giving us almost daily and sometimes multiple times a day updates because we're making discoveries all the time. Science is making discoveries all the time.
00:43:46
Speaker
And we can make best guesses based on previous iterations of other viruses that act like this. And I think that's very consistent with the safety world in terms of using other things or things that are closely related and controlling for them in similar ways. So you might have heard it be this one is
00:44:09
Speaker
being called COVID-19, but it's also been referred to as SARS-coronavirus 2 because that's what it's most similar to. But again, it's not the same and it didn't develop from SARS in humans. It's a completely different kind of path that it's taken to the human transmissibility. But there are other things about this virus that are just strange. It's not
00:44:38
Speaker
resulting in a lot of severe cases for kids. And that is very different from things like seasonal flu and other viruses that tend to hit both the very young and the very old.
00:44:54
Speaker
It's also not always symptomatic, which from a community control standpoint makes it very difficult. You know, when there are large flu outbreaks, you know, everyone's getting their temperature taken all the time. And, you know, that's because
00:45:13
Speaker
in most cases, flu is most contagious when you're symptomatic. And so if you have a fever, chances are you don't want to be self-quarantined. In cases like this virus, which has a lot of cases where tests are positive, but the actual symptoms are not there, you can have people who kind of fly under the radar and continue to spread it without knowing that.
00:45:38
Speaker
It's kind of stealthy. Right. Exactly. So, you know, while it's good that a vast, you know, percent of the population isn't going to have really severe cases, the fact that there is a demographic and people with preexisting conditions that will experience really severe illness from it, you know, you need to kind of across the board from a community standpoint all buy in to that protection because, you know, there are some people who are going to have really adverse effects.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Why it's so important for all of us to do our part, for all of us to do our part. So Corey, as we begin to close out our time today, what are some key takeaways that you would like to leave with our audience today?
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I'm going to go right back to the initial point that I made. And as things evolve, know that these viruses are not always going to stay the same. And they will evolve and mutate and kind of go through their own general
00:46:39
Speaker
process and there are certainly experts out there who are doing a lot of work to track this and stay ahead of it and test for it and develop treatments and vaccines and all that kind of stuff. But just make sure that you're validating those resources and not contributing to any misinformation out there about this particular virus.
00:47:05
Speaker
And I think we both need to take it seriously, but also not jump to conclusions and pipe it up as the next X big pandemic event. It is a pandemic. I think all of the scientists and expert agencies agree with that, but there's such a range of
00:47:27
Speaker
reporting out there as to what the min and max is going to be for this outbreak. And I think we just need to be really careful about projecting beyond a very scientific look at the numbers.
00:47:43
Speaker
and what the ultimate outcome is gonna be. We've heard about, okay, it might be seasonal, and it might come back stronger in the fall, and these are all just speculations. And until we have a better sense of what this virus is from a very basic biology standpoint, I think we just need to be careful about generating a lot of that type of speculation.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah. And Corey, wouldn't it be accurate to say that if we all as a human body do our part to slow this, it gives the scientific community more time to be able to make those projections, to be able to figure out ways to protect us. Would that be accurate? If we do our part to slow, it gives science more time?
00:48:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, in this and most biological, you know, research applications, the more time we have to study something, the more understanding we're going to have. And because it's relatively new, I mean, the nice thing is that we have the technology to sequence
00:48:55
Speaker
Everything right so you know within a month this thing was sequenced and we had tests developed for it and those are such routine biological practices the actual test that's being used to Find this in the in the population is something that almost every biological lab in the country could do and
00:49:17
Speaker
Now, there are certain elemental and quality control elements that are making it harder because it's called RT-PCR, the actual process, and many, many, many labs have the equipment to do that. The challenge comes from the actual primers and
00:49:38
Speaker
reagents, basically the ingredients in the recipe. And if one of those isn't optimal, then you can have false positives or false negatives. And those are the optimizing steps that the testing kits are going through right
Testing Challenges and Global Progress
00:49:52
Speaker
now. And that's kind of the
00:49:55
Speaker
you know, if you hear reports about testing may not be, you know, where we need it to be. Um, those are some of the kind of factors that drive that, um, because, you know, you need to have high reliance on your testing materials and you know, you need to be able to distribute them to all the facilities. So yeah, that's all going into it.
00:50:16
Speaker
Yeah. And so when we hear things like presume positive, that means perhaps that at a local level, like you said, labs have been able to be able to test, but then they're going to send it further for confirmation somewhere else. Right. Yeah. So that could either mean that they have all of the hallmark symptoms and they haven't had a positive test yet, or they had a mostly positive test that they want to verify.
00:50:44
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Very good. Very good. Well, Cory, thank you for doing your part to help all of us who are listening as we are making decisions to flatten that curve.
00:51:00
Speaker
and to help the greater good and all of us doing our part. And I'm sure the information that you shared today will enable people to do just that. So thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate that. And actually, I want to put in one more point about the flattening the curve because I've been tracking these cases very diligently over the past couple of weeks. And the early reports out of China and South Korea and Japan are that they're now ahead of it.
00:51:27
Speaker
And hopefully that continues. But they have shown a lot of progress in flattening their curves in their own countries. So it seems from the initial data that it is going to be very possible to get out of it. And it's just going to take a little bit of bump in the road from a social distancing standpoint to kind of have everybody get to that point. Yeah. And it takes all of us to do that. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, thank you. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe to your families every day. If you'd like to join the conversation about this episode or any of our previous episodes, follow our page and join the Accidental Safety Pro Community Group on Facebook.
00:52:15
Speaker
If you're not subscribed yet and want to hear past or future episodes, including Corey's episode number 46 when he was a guest with us before, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player that you'd like. You can also find all of the episodes at vividlearningsystems.com slash podcast, which includes the transcription of each podcast.
00:52:37
Speaker
We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes so that other people like you and I can find the show and share it with others. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's you, please contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. Special thanks to Will Moss, our podcast producer who's working overtime these days to get these special episodes out. Until next time, everyone, thank you for listening.