Coronavirus cleaners: These products will kill COVID-19, according to the EPA
FILE - Anti-bacterial wipes and cleaning products are pictured in a Family Dollar store. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an expanded list of nearly 200 products registered for use to kill COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that originated in China and has now spread widely in countries around the world.
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The original list, released on March 3, included dozens of household antimicrobial cleaners that the EPA said will work to disinfect the virus. Many of the products were cleaning solutions for surfaces. On March 13, the agency released an expanded list that included 40 products that recently passed the EPA's expedited review process.
The EPA had previously advised that common cleaning products like Lysol and Clorox, which are marketed as effective against coronaviruses, would likely get rid of the new virus on surfaces, but it had not officially approved any products specific use on COVID-19.
Among the cleaning products included in the EPA's list are:
- Clorox Multi Surface Cleaner + Bleach
- Clorox Disinfection Bathroom Cleaner
- Clorox Disinfecting Wipes
- Lysol Clean & Fresh Multi-Surface Cleaner
- Lysol Disinfectant Max Cover Mist
- Purell Professional Surface Disinfectant Wipes
The EPA also included the time a surface should remain wet with each cleaner to be effective in the elimination of the novel coronavirus. Many of the products included in the EPA's list required 10 minutes of contact time to rid surfaces of COVID-19.
The novel coronavirus strain responsible for the recent deadly global outbreak is more contagious than SARS and MERS, according to a study from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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COVID-19 is known to spread mainly from person-to-person contact through sneezing and coughing, but a separate study published in The Journal of Hospital Infection found that the virus may be able to live on surfaces like metal, glass or plastic for up to nine days.
Increased temperatures of 30 or 40 degrees Celsius were found to reduce the duration of how long the virus persisted. Household cleaning products such as bleach were found to be effective at killing the virus on surfaces within a minute, according to the study.
You can check the EPA's full list of approved cleaning products for use against COVID-19 here.