>> Welcome back everyone to Inside Infection Control, our video blog here at CDC's Project Firstline. I'm Abby Carlson. I'm an infectious diseases doctor at the CDC, and it's wonderful to have you back with us today. In an earlier episode, we had talked about cleaning and disinfection and the difference between the two. In general, cleaning removes dirt and gunk and removes and sometimes kills some germs, but disinfection makes sure that as many germs as possible are destroyed or killed. Today, we're going to talk just a little bit more about why cleaning and disinfection are so important in healthcare, not just for stopping the spread of SARS-CoV-2, that virus that causes COVID-19, but for stopping the spread of lots of different germs and infections. It's common sense that cleaning is important to keep infections from spreading in healthcare settings. Cleaning and getting rid of dust and dirt and body fluids keeps germs away from people. Disinfection, when you think about it, is also common sense too. Killing germs definitely keeps them away from people and therefore keeps people from getting sick. Even though it's common sense, though, it's important to think through all the reasons why we're so careful about keeping an environment clean. Now you probably clean and disinfect when you're at home. You clean your windows. You wash your dog. You might even disinfect some parts of your kitchen or your bathroom, but cleaning and disinfection in healthcare is a bit different. Why is that? When we're at home and we're healthy, our bodies have a lot of built-in ways to protect us from infection, including things like our immune system or even our skin, which is a very important part of our immune system as a whole. But in healthcare, we have a lot of patients who are ill and weak and germs are more likely to cause problems in these patients because their immune defenses might not be the same as somebody who's healthy and living at home. With some patients, you can see how they might be vulnerable to infections, if they have burns or wounds for example or if they're having a procedure done where germs could get under the skin like having an IV put in or a catheter. But a lot of patients have things going on that you can't really see, like if their immune system is weak because of the medication in their cancer treatment. So it's incredibly important to have the environment free of germs, especially in places where they can pose risks to patients and to us and to our co-workers. So for example, when a patient leaves a room or is discharged, right before a new patient goes into that room it should be cleaned and disinfected to make sure that the next patient is protected from the previous patient's germs. We also clean and disinfect things that get touched a lot like door handles, keyboards at the nurses' station, light switches. We call all of these high-touch surfaces, and they need more frequent cleaning and disinfection because all of the hands that get on them because we know that if germs get on our hands then they can get all over the place and that can make people sick. We also clean and disinfect things that may not get touched or shared as often that we know tend to be dirty and have a lot of germs on them, things like a toilet seat or a patient's mattress. There is even more reason that killing germs it's so important. A lot of the germs that we're seeing in healthcare are unfortunately becoming more resistant to antibiotics. That means if somebody gets sick with those germs, the antibiotics, those medicines that we use to treat them, might be less likely to work and less likely to help that person get better. There have been outbreaks before where people have gotten sick from these germs in healthcare and antibiotics haven't worked as well against them. And these outbreaks aren't just in patients. Healthcare workers have gotten sick too. So we really want to get rid of those antibiotic resistant germs in our environment. So cleaning and disinfection are an essential part of keeping all of this from happening. You can usually judge your cleaning by looking. You can tell that most of the gunk and dirt is gone but because disinfection kills germs and you can't see them, they're way too small, you can't judge disinfection just by looking. That is why it is so important to follow the instructions when you use disinfecting products. Things like contact times and dwell times, which is how long that chemical should sit on the surface and not be wiped away in order for those chemicals to do their job, they have to stay that contact or dwell time to make sure the germs are gone. We'll talk a lot more about that idea in another episode so stay tuned for that. It'll be coming up. All right. To sum it up, there is more to cleaning and disinfection than just not being dirty. And you can see how important it is to have an environment that's as free of germs as possible. We've posted a few links to more resources below in Facebook, including the list of disinfectants that are effective against SARS-CoV-2, that virus that causes COVID-19 which is list N as in Nancy from the EPA. So check out Facebook for those links. Also, you can follow up with us on twitter, on YouTube, and on our website cdc.gov/projectfirstline. With that, we will see you back at the next episode.