What Every Single Business in Canada Should Know about IT Coronavirus Cleaning

How to Clean IT Equipment to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19

Do you know how to clean your IT equipment properly, so it doesn’t inadvertently spread COVID throughout your office? It’s not as hard as it may seem.  

The fact that the WHO recently declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic and even the Prime Minister and his wife are self-quarantining make it clear that businesses need to make coronavirus cleaning a priority to keep workers, contractors, and customers safe from this potentially dangerous disease. However, one facet of coronavirus cleaning that tends to escape the notice of many people is cleaning IT equipment such as laptops, phones, fax machines, printers, etc.

Is it Necessary?

The Public Health Agency of Canada reports that COVID-19 can survive on surfaces for up to several days. This poses a danger to everyone in an office if an asymptomatic carrier uses a company device such as a computer or printer, and non-infected co-workers later use that device. While cleaning surfaces isn’t the only way to prevent the spread of COVID-19, it’s an effective way of reducing the odds of an entire office getting infected with the disease.

How to do It

Following are some tips that can help you keep your equipment virus-free without potentially damaging it:

• If feasible, turn off equipment and remove it from office desks and tables. Clean all surfaces with water and a household cleaning product or a diluted bleach solution. Any cleaning rags that have been used for this tasked should be washed with the same disinfecting solution before being hung to dry. Disposable cleaning rags used for this task should be placed in their own sealed plastic bag before being disposed of.
• Electronic devices that handle liquid disinfection should be dusted with a soft cloth and then cleaned with alcohol prep wipes or a similar product that has 70% alcohol. Wipes used for this task should be placed in a sealed plastic bag before being thrown out. Dusting cloths should be washed in water and bleach or disinfectant and hung to dry.
• Don’t forget to clean the carrying cases. This is especially important if the equipment is frequently moved from one office to another, and someone in your office is suspected of having COVID-19 or has been in contact with a person who has the illness.
• If possible, open windows to ventilate the office. PHAC notes that ventilation can help to reduce the transmission of COVID-19.

How Often Do You Need to Clean Electronic Equipment?

This question has no easy answer. The ideal is to clean equipment once every shift, but this may not be realistic for many businesses. It may also be unnecessary if your business:

• Does not get a lot of outside traffic
• Two or more employees don’t share electronic equipment
• Your business is located in an area that does not have many COVID-19 cases, and no-one in your company has been exposed to the disease

Additionally, you can avoid the hassle of having to regularly clean office equipment by allowing as many workers as possible to work remotely. Working from home protects your employees by helping them avoid exposure as they travel to and from the workplace and collaborate with colleagues, customers, and contractors in person. It’s a particularly ideal solution if you have employees who are getting on in years and, therefore, more vulnerable to COVID-19 than young men and women who typically experience mild symptoms without complications.

Need Help Working Around COVID-19?

COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way businesses operate around the world. You may need to adjust your IT set-up to allow more employees to work remotely or improve your office set-up so employees coming to the office don’t have to sit close to each other. Your business may also need to update its cybersecurity procedures to ensure that remote workers and contractors aren’t inadvertently putting your IT network at risk of breaches.

CTECH is an award-winning IT managed service provider that offers all the expert IT advice and practical assistance you need to keep your IT systems running optimally no matter what’s happening in the world around you. Get in touch with us to learn more about our services or to make an appointment with our expert IT consultants.

Written by Carl Fransen

posted on March 13, 2020

Carl Fransen

My passion is to make my mark on the world in a positive and lasting way. I want to set an example for my son that his father can compete with integrity in today’s world, be very successful, and leave the world a better place for him.

Combining my technical/business-based education with a long career steadily progressing up the corporate ladder, I decided to build a company that held true to my values. So, I founded and designed the next generation of IT support firm: CTECH Consulting Group Inc. We are a completely automated, cloud-based IT company designed to compete against any other IT firm without the overhead. We promote a lifestyle to all our staff where they can work anywhere, at any time, access any information on any device that is relevant to their job, and collaborate with anyone they want to.