ABSTRACT
Objectives: Cleanliness of hospitals' public environmental equipment or contact surfaces are frequently overlooked in the prevention of COVID-19. This paper discusses the cleaning frequency, with the purpose of preventing COVID-19 infection and controlling its dissipation during the pandemic. Methods: Using the ATP cold light reaction detection method, we quantified the degree of pollution in hospitals' public environmental equipment or contact surfaces to reflect the effect of actual cleaning frequency. Results: Empirical findings indicated that according to the conventional cleaning and enhanced cleaning frequency, different test results are expected as generally predicted. Routine cleaning cannot meet the standard recommended in the literature (i.e., <250 RLU). Conclusions: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the frequency of cleaning and disinfecting surfaces of objects frequently contacted by general public should be increased to every 2 hours. Moreover, these results should be regularly monitored and reflected to the cleaning staff, so that they can support strict compliance with environmental and hand hygiene to meet infection control goals for COVID-19. © 2020 Chinese Public Health Association of Taiwan. All rights reserved.