England has taken a significant step on the road to recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic. From this week the hospitality industry can welcome back diners inside, indoor cinemas can re-open and under current guidance people will also be allowed to hug friends and family.
However, some social restrictions remain in place with up to two households able to meet indoors and a maximum of 30 people can meet outside. But recent calls from the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, to vaccinate the over-16s are a reminder that the virus is still capable of spreading rapidly.
Most businesses are likely to have spent months preparing to re-open their doors, with many putting new hygiene measures in place. But risk reduction is a constant process. We want to provide easy, accessible, ongoing support to industries who will need to prioritise hygiene levels and keep on top of government legislation.
It’s a tricky, new world for businesses to navigate with hygiene expectations likely to be heightened amongst their customers. We asked 33 of our frontline technicians where they’d seen the biggest uptick in specialist cleaning enquiries amongst their customer base – 44% said offices, while 33% said restaurants and pubs.
According to a survey of our sales consultants, the biggest concerns for customers are determining when a specialist clean was needed (67%) and understanding their cleaning requirements under changing government legislations (33%). Providing safe, clean air indoors is another concern, with 28% of customers are also enquiring about air purification solutions.
To help businesses with a new approach to hygiene and compliance, we developed our HATS critical appraisal method, which has been fine-tuned throughout the pandemic as science and government guidance has evolved. This methodology can be applied to any business, of any size, in any industry, giving confidence to facilities managers and those responsible for health and safety that they’ll meet requirements and also help to address some concerns that their customers, visitors or employees might have.
We polled 2,000 UK adults¹ in March this year to discover their concerns about catching Coronavirus, and found that more than one in four (26%) is worried about airborne transmission. This is a 19% increase from when we conducted the same survey back in November 2020. This also follows updated World Health Organisation guidance at the end of April that said Coronavirus is mainly transmitted in close proximity (one metre), but that it’s also possible to catch in poorly ventilated or crowded spaces.
Our survey also found that two thirds (68%) of those polled believe businesses and employers should do more to ensure they provide clean air in the premises (up from 65% in November 2020), while 62% of respondents went so far to say that air purification systems should be mandatory in public buildings and education facilities (up from 59%).
It proves that tackling air quality and preventing the airborne spread of Coronavirus will remain an important challenge, alongside the vaccine rollout. The scientific evidence continues to build, and it is very clear how important good ventilation and air purification is within indoor spaces. When it comes to the easing of lockdown measures, the expectation from the public is that businesses and employers need to do their bit by ensuring that they are providing clean air, so that the risk of catching an airborne virus indoors is reduced.
To help with this, we’re distributing VIRUSKILLER™, air purification technology which is proven to kill 99.9999% of viruses with a single air pass, including Coronavirus*. The solution also decontaminates the air, by not only trapping but also killing airborne viruses, bacteria** and fungi. Its presence should assure people in facilities that the indoor air has been treated to the highest of standards.
Whatever your facility, it could be a daunting prospect to be reopening your doors to an increased number of people. Everybody wants life to return to normal, but no one wants to add to the risk that Coronavirus could spread within their facility.
For avoidance of any doubt that you’re minimising these risks, call in the experts. We can help you with best practice prevention using our HATS model. Our team has the latest cleaning and specialist disinfectant innovations, from UVC disinfection, electrostatic disinfection and mist blowing space treatments, alongside air purification systems that give you peace of mind that your premises are adopting a best-practice approach to hygiene.
1. Research conducted by Opinium LLP for Rentokil Initial. Conducted 12-15 March 2021 sampling 2,000 adults in the UK
* When independently tested against Coronavirus DF2 (a surrogate for Coronavirus), Adenovirus, Influenza and Polio, the unit was found to kill 99.9999% of viruses on a single air pass.
** When independently tested against reference bacteria (Klebsiella pneumoniae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphyloccus aureus subsp. Aureus, Streptoccocus pneumoniae, Streptococcus pyogenes, Escherichia coli), the unit was found to kill 99.9999% of bacteria on a single air pass.