Coronavirus Update: Experts Offer Tips On Best Way To Sanitize Clothes, Surfaces
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- When you come home from being outside, what should you do with your shoes, your jacket, in order to stay healthy?
CBS2's Alice Gainer talked to some experts on Thursday.
With information coming fast and furious at us about coronavirus evolving day by day, it's hard to know what to do when it comes to sanitizing.
If you step outside for any reason, there's a warning for when you return.
"Number one, don't wear shoes into the house," said Dr. Stavros Christoudias, chair of the New Jersey Doctor-Patient Alliance.
"Take your shoes off before you come in the house," added environmental toxin expert Tonya Harris.
Experts say you should always do this, anyway, to keep out contaminants.
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What about your jacket and the clothes your wearing?
"When you take your clothes off, don't shake them. That's one of the important things, too, that sometimes we tend to do because that can spread the germs," Harris said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises the same.
Harris offered more tips.
"Wash your clothes on the warmest setting for whatever you're wearing. Then make sure you dry them completely," Harris said.
MORE: Coronavirus Update: Experts Address Grocery Shopping Safety Concerns
She said leave your jackets in one designated spot and wash them often, too.
The CDC says clean visible dirty surfaces and frequently touched surfaces, and then disinfect.
"Make sure you scrub hard. You want to scrub like you're trying to get something off because that also helps break down the membrane of that virus," Harris said.
Then disinfect, but read the labels.
"You need to give that product proper time to kill that germ or virus and that can take anywhere from maybe 30 seconds to several minutes," said Brian Sansoni of the American Cleaning Institute.
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Sansoni said let the products air dry. Don't wipe them away.
The CDC also recommends proper ventilation to shorten the time it takes respiratory droplets to be removed from the air, so open a window.
Sansoni said don't forget to "make sure those products are stored out of sight and out of the reach of children, because they may be around more often."
And most important of all, here's another reminder to wash your hands.
