KILLING COVID-19
When Lynn and Susie Johnson made the decision to purchase an electrostatic sprayer, they had never heard of the coronavirus or COVID-19. Two years ago, the only thing they had to really be concerned about was the flu.
“We actually purchased our equipment two years ago,” Susie Johnson said. “My husband was reading in a trade magazine and he saw this product by Clorox for disinfecting and killing of all viruses, pretty much 99.99% of all viruses and bacteria. And it was right after we had that really bad flu season. And we went to a vendor show and looked at the machine in June of ’18 and bought it at that point and invested in it. And then of course we didn’t use it pretty much that whole next year because we didn’t have a real bad flu season.”
In fact, it started to almost look like Lawton Professional Cleaning Services may have made a questionable deal.
However, when 2020 rolled around, everything changed. The coronavirus started to sweep around the world and landed on their doorstep in Lawton. And they just happened to be uniquely prepared to handle the situation.
“We had several people call down to come and disinfect before the coronavirus really happened,” Johnson said. “We confirmed that our stuff killed the coronavirus and it’s been run, run, run since then.”
Lawton PCS has several subsidiaries that handle a variety of services. They use Breathe EZ Air Duct & Chimney Cleaning to disinfect businesses with their electrostatic sprayer. According to Johnson, they call their process the electrostatic application.
“Electrostatic disinfecting is a way of quickly and evenly coating a surface with a disinfecting solution. This is done by using an electrostatic applicator that gives a negative charge to the disinfecting solution as it exits the nozzle,” according to bunzlcanada.ca. “The charged molecules will repel each other, meaning they will be an even distance from each other, but will be attracted to the surface they are applied to. The charged particles have a charge strength greater than gravity allowing them to directionally target a selected surface very quickly providing near immediate room re-entry.”
One of the advantages of the electrostatic application is that it wraps around the entire area that is sprayed. “You don’t have to move furniture,” Johnson said. “It reaches places that wouldn’t normally be reached. When you’re spraying a chair, for example in a classroom or an office, it not only gets on the top surface but all around the entire chair. You know, underneath and on the legs and everything else.”
The other major advantage to the electrostatic application, according to Johnson, is the speed and efficiency they are able to perform the task. “It takes about two to four minutes for a chill factor with the chemicals,” Johnson said. “And it takes a little bit of time, somewhere between two to four minutes for it to be completely dry and evaporated, and it has at that point killed the virus or bacteria that’s present. And then you don’t have to wipe down behind it.”
As businesses around Comanche County have begun to open back up, the disinfecting services, like the one the Johnsons provide, are becoming popular as owners look to reassure customers they will be safe from contracting COVID-19.
However, Johnson is quick to point out the electrostatic application is a virus killer. It does not provide a defense or immunity from it. No disinfecting system prevents the coronavirus from spreading into a business or residential area. That can only be done through social distancing, wearing masks and other guidelines that have been handed down from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That is why it has become important for some businesses to disinfect more than just once. “Officially we have to say until it’s touched again by another virus. Obviously, if you haven’t had anybody within your organization to have the virus, but you don’t know if anybody’s brought it in that has visited or something, we can take care of it that way,” Johnson said. “Some of our clients, we have been doing on a weekly spray down, and Clorox’s recommendation originally was minimum of once a month.
Maybe every two weeks. And in the high flu seasons, or in a pandemic like this, minimum of at least once a week.” Johnson said Lawton PCS having an electrostatic sprayer at this time is fortunate, but also pretty lucky.
“Absolutely. We didn’t have any dream that it would turn into this type of a business or something like this would happen,” Johnson said. “We bought it because of the schools. How many schools were shut down two years ago for flu season? And the machine we purchased, there is a year-and-a-half back order on it. So, what happened was, the government came in and bought a bunch of them.”