Everything’s bigger in Texas…and unfortunately this year that also includes the impact of the flu!
In the last week of December, the number of people infected by the flu doubled. And, Texas is now 1 of 23 states where the CDC considers the flu “widespread.”
Strangely enough, for reasons that article doesn’t explain, Australia’s flu season tends to predict the severity of the flu in the United States. Experts believe one of the vaccines used to treat the flu in Australia led to a strain of the flu mutating so that vaccine only had a 10% effectiveness rate.
Right now, Dallas has the seventh worst flu infection rate in the country.
So, that’s quite a conundrum to manage. What should your cleaning team do to help keep this in check?
1. Spread Hand Washing Awareness
It sounds so simple, but you find us mentioning hand washing over and over again. That’s because it’s the leading cause of viruses spreading. Yep, that even includes 2018!
To wash your hands at work so you don’t spread a virus, do the following:
- Wet your hands with clean warm or cold water
- Lather soap on the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails
- Sing “Happy Birthday” to yourself or count to 20, and then stop washing once complete
- Rinse your hands
- Dry
- Don’t worry about briefly touching high-touch surfaces like paper towel dispensers, door handles, or sink knobs. It’s your cleaning team’s responsibility to disinfect those at least once per day.ds
2. Target Both Hard and Soft Surfaces for Cleaning
Soft surfaces can often be forgotten when it comes to germ and virus control. However, the flu virus can live on a soft surface up to 12 hours.
Regardless of the surface, it should be disinfected at least once during the working day. It only takes approximately four hours for one employee to spread the flu virus to half of all your employees.
3. Work with Your Company’s Management
Your cleaning team will do its responsibilities. But, it’s up to more than just you to keep the flu under control at your company.
So, meet with leadership of all your company’s departments. They may have awareness of the issue. But, you know exactly how the flu spreads and exactly what employees should do to prevent it from spreading any more than necessary.
Urgently request meetings with your management to develop an updated flu prevention protocol all employees at your company follow.
It’s difficult to prevent the flu any year. Since this year’s especially tough, you need to work at it even harder. Make sure you track the results you deliver, as you could easily become a company hero.
