Mythbusting COVID-19 cleaning around your home

COVID-19 has only been around for a short time. What we know on the issue tends to change quickly with more being learned every day.

Sam Houston State University professor of physical chemistry, Dr. Darren Williams joins First News at Four to separate the fact from the fiction when it comes to COVID-19.

The specific products best for killing COVID-19 depend upon what you are cleaning.

If you are cleaning your body, then soapy water is absolutely the best. The virus is only stable inside its tiny little oil layer. Soapy water removes this protective oil layer and the virus falls apart.

If you are cleaning surfaces, the same thinking applies. Any standard kitchen surface cleaner will contain surfactants that disrupt and destroy this virus. If they contain a bit of bleach, then they will destroy bacteria as well.

But he says the biggest misconception he hears is about what products are safe to clean your body.

"By far, the most dangerous and deadly myth related to coronavirus," Williams explains, "is the false idea that 'if it kills coronavirus on doorknobs and countertops, then it is good to use on my hair, face, hands, in my nose, and down my throat.'"

He also says the misconception that all Coronaviruses are COVID-19 is something he's seen quite a bit of as well.

"Companies see this as an opportunity," Williams explains "to put this on their cleaning products. But in reality, their products killed Coronaviruses before the rise of COVID-19."

Watch the full interview in the player above.