A note for uninitiated and a reminder for the initiated:
Keep your cell phone clean during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Naturally, this advice is applicable to non-pandemic times, as well, but in the current instance, it takes on notable urgency…
In an email notice this past week, Santa Clara Board of Supervisors Supervisor Dave Cortese wrote, “Residents have repeatedly received messaging about the importance of good handwashing, but they may not think about their mobile phones. We handle our phones all day long, and leave them on tables, counters, and other surfaces.”
In other words, our phones are miniature, addictive, plastic germ farms, in touch not only with common surfaces, but in regularly close proximity to our ears, mouths, and noses. This puts phones and other mobile devices in the “high touch” surface category, meaning they can spread diseases, among them Covid-19.
Continued Cortese in the email, “Most alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol and most common EPA-registered household disinfectants should kill the virus.”
In the meantime, on the CDC website, it is recommended that electronic device owners adorn their devices with wipeable covers. Also, every device comes with instructions from the manufacturer on how to clean and disinfect it; if you held onto those, they’re well worth revisiting (or looking up online) and following. And after cleaning off your device with an alcohol-based wipe or spray, be sure to thoroughly dry off its whole surface.
The above advice pertains not only to cell phones, but to mobile tablets, laptops, remote controls, garage door openers, and computer keyboards, as well.
