Winter is Coming: Easy Cleaning Hacks to Combat Cold & Flu Season in Your School

The good news is the cleaning and sanitization of the traditional cold and flu season falls under the umbrella of COVID-19 protocol and guidelines. The bad news is, well, the traditional cold and flu season falls under the umbrella of COVID-19. What we’re saying is it can be difficult to know how to clean these days when everyone is afraid that every sniffle and ache is coronavirus, but most of the cleaning hacks that combat cold and flu season coincide with pandemic protocols.

Whatever you’re looking to combat when planning your school’s cleaning, it doesn’t hurt to plan to separately carry out your tasks for specific purposes. With winter just about upon us, now may be a good time to step away from the frenzy of online content surrounding COVID-19. Here are some easy cleaning hacks to combat cold and flu season in your school:

Remove Unnecessary Things

This cleaning hack is moreso a preventative measure. Schools are filled with a lot of things – some necessary and some not. While it may inconvenience your student body to have less amenities, like vending machines, drinking fountains, and personal lockers, removing or restricting access to these things significantly reduces the time and effort required to clean your school.

Schedule HVAC Maintenance

The cold, flu, and other concerning viruses are most commonly transferred through the air, where the almost-invisible infectious molecules ride on fine dust particles wherever air circulates. This makes your school’s HVAC system very important. Your school’s HVAC system should work sufficiently, be clean inside and out (vent covers), and have new or recently replaced air filters. Schedule an HVAC inspection if it hasn’t been recently serviced.

High-Tech Disinfecting

Because the coronavirus was found to be easily transferred through fine air particles, any and every public surface became a possible host. Once it was discovered that certain chemicals in EPA-regulated disinfecting solutions effectively kill the virus and clean exposed surfaces, disinfecting became the central focus of the development of new tech that’ll help fight the virus. Enter electrostatic disinfecting machines and devices. These products, capable of reaching surfaces that are notoriously hard or impossible to reach in schools, distribute an even application of charged disinfecting particles. The bonus is they work for the traditional cold and flu!

Attendance: Flexible but Strict

Like the removal of unnecessary things within the confines of your school, being flexible with in-person attendance policies will allow students that either are sick, or have been exposed to individuals who are sick, out of school. The absence of students who may actually or potentially contaminate the school and its faculty and students reduces both the risk of exposure to harmful pathogens and the full actual cleaning that’s necessary to combat those pathogens. 

That addresses attendance flexibility. How can it also be strict? Students who do attend school in person should strictly adhere to social distancing, wearing PPE (especially masks), and practicing good personal hygiene.