Just curious. Why not just wipe it down with a cloth or paper towel dampened with 70% isopropyl alcohol? That should disinfect it without risk of damage. If it's hard to come by. I'd expect 150 proof or higher alcohol to work.
Then there are UV cleaners. Although I don't know how well they work. They're just a small UV light box you place the phone in. Then turn it on and let it blast your phone with UV-C light.
I also wiped it down with alcohol (I think I never did wipe it with 3% chloride solution, but I'm really not sure) several times a day. The UV lamps I can get my hands on, I don't trust (either too dangerous or not really efficient). It was overkill, I know, but with the things I see every day, I don't mind going through several phones during the pandemic.
no iPhone ever made was designed to be washed under running water
I know, I don't blame Apple, it was all my doing, a calculated risk. I just came here to, vent, maybe? And I think it is an important data point to know, like
KB3457 How long does the IP68 protection of a year and a half old iPhone XS last when washing it daily under the faucet? Answer: 2 months
The 11 is a great purchase, and red is a really nice finish.
Yes sir, it is. I went with an (product) RED SE instead for several reasons, the main one being I'm tired of always typing my whole passcode because face masks render FaceID useless. Also, I can not lie and say money was not a factor.
I wish Apple extends AppleCare and offer free replacement to all health care & front line workers providing COVID 19 support for iPads, iPhones & Apple Watch.
You and me both Shinemoon, you and me both. 😆
Totally not my intention to pick on the OP — thank you so much for your service — but why are you touching your phone if you think your hands might not be clean?
New gloves, see patient, discard gloves, wash hands. Hand sanitizer if touched door or questionable surface. Then use phone.
I work with BSL2 and BSL3 hazards daily as a scientist. We’re not even allowed to have personal phones / electronic devices in our BSL3 lab.
I guess maybe doctors get called and paged all day while they are seeing patients? No time to shed PPE when phone rings?
I agree you still need to clean your phone. But the current procedure seems excessive. And potentially not that useful? Generally you want to clean as close in time and location to the hazard to prevent cross contamination.
Cleaning it at home, after you already touched it in the car, and rubbed your eyes because you are exhausted probably won’t help much. Unless the bathroom faucet is at work.
It's ok, I don't see it as being picked upon.
Now, I do not touch my phone if I
think (think, being the cardinal concept here) my hands are not clean. But the truth of the world outside the biohazard lab in the middle of a pandemic is: you never know, specially in a hospital, where it is enough to have one careless person to contaminate everything on sight.
I do not just put on a new pair of gloves before seeing a patient and discard them when I'm done. I don a complete biohazard suit (
Personal Protective Equipment: a disposable surgical uniform, a full body Tyvek suit, disposable boots, 3 pairs of gloves, a 3M full face mask with P100 particle and organic gas filters, a plastic face screen, a disposable surgical waterproof coat and disposable waterproof hair/head covering) before entering the COVID19 area (as isolated as it is possible in a public hospital in México).
We reconverted the sleep lab (4 rooms for overnight sleep studies) to see inpatients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and we have 4 consecutively isolated areas, each one more "contaminated" than the previous one, and we have strict WHO-approved protocols to don the equipment and for removing it, involving several steps and several disinfecting solutions/procedures. Nothing that enters the contaminated area, ever leaves it again, unless it's in red biohazard trash bags, and then, it is trash.
I DO NOT enter with any of my belongings to the COVID area. I leave everything (my phone, suitcase, laptop, pens, hospital ID, apple watch, etc) on the "clean" or "white" area. It is in quotes because there are lots of people in the hospital besides nurses and physicians (orderlies, cleaning people, security guards, messengers, secretaries, lab personnel, etc) that might at some point enter the "clean" area from other parts of the hospital I do not control, and therefore they might contaminate it. I do not touch my stuff until after I take a shower and change into a clean surgical uniform after going through the decontamination process. Also, we do not know if anyone of the qualified staff has been infected at home or in transit to the hospital, and is not showing symptoms yet. And we use just surgical face masks in the "clean" area.
Every time I get to the hospital I disinfect with a chlorine solution every surface I will have contact with on the "clean" area (tables, desks, chairs, computer keyboards, etc). We wash our hands and use alcohol-gel several times per hour while on the clean area, but you just never really know. It is not the same knowing the biohazard is contained in the lab than not knowing if someone brought it with them from the outside world. The **** we're facing, is really scary. One of my coworkers has already lost her 59 y/o father to COVID, and 7 more members of her family are sick right now. We have another 2 persons isolated at home because they became ill. The chief of internal medicine, 2 nurses and 3 orderlies are gravely ill, already intubated and we do not know if they are going to make it.
I change into clean street clothes that I keep in the trunk of my car BEFORE I leave the hospital. I do not get into my car without changing first and disinfecting everything I take with me (including my phone) with 80% isopropyl alcohol. I even change shoes before getting into my car. It is a tiresome and grueling routine, but it beats the alternative: getting COVID and/or infecting my family. I have an alcohol spray on me ALWAYS, and I use it frequently and generously.
When I get home, I leave the shoes outside, change clothes again and wash my hands and my phone.
Overkill? Maybe. But washing clothes daily and having to buy 4-6 phones a year during the pandemic, is really a small price to pay. I know this all sounds like OCD, and I'm normally the opposite of OCD, but believe me: this pandemic has put the fear back in all of us. Health workers are dying like flies.
Anyhow, TL-DR: I don't use my phone knowing my hands aren't clean, I do not enter with it to the contaminated area, and the daily washing of my phone with soap and water is just the final step of getting home. And I plan to keep doing it for the foreseeable future because besides our hands, the mobile phones are the dirtiest things we handle in a daily basis.
