Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 25th April 2024 Issue no. 1111
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BREAKING NEWS: Interclean Amsterdam new dates announced as 3-6 November 2020
In last week's Leader I discussed some of the issues the Coronavirus was creating for supply chains - or rather, the general public's reaction to the perceived potential shortages of essentials, which Coronavirus has unleashed! I also talked about our need, globally, for more and better-trained cleaners to ensure that our public buildings, healthcare facilities, workplaces, transport systems, leisure and entertainment facilities and shops can be kept as hygienically clean as possible.
What a difference a week makes!
Now, many countries have brought in measures which means we're in lockdown (although 'safekeeping' might be a more acceptable term). And although countries are at different stages of this enforced isolation, most of us are facing travel restrictions, school closures, workplaces being shut in favour of home-working and potentially for some of us, a ban on leaving our homes for anything other than essential trips. Thus, so many buildings, transport systems and other facilities which a week ago needed a deeper clean, no longer need regular cleaning because no-one's using them.
Healthcare facilities meanwhile, are under siege, as are our shops as consumers swarm through them to strip shelves of goods that shouldn't really be in short supply, but which are, because of the panic that's been created. Friends of mine working in the NHS are having to buy their own facemasks that aren't really efficient (i.e. cycle masks) but which are all they can get as somehow all the efficient ones are out of stock. Today I've read about ambulance teams having to share one mask between two people! How on earth can this be considered acceptable?
Some governments are asking manufacturing businesses to switch operations to ensure the supply of essentials. It occurred to me that with consumers unable to buy hygiene items such as cleaning chemicals, toilet tissue and hand soap, while janitorial suppliers are losing so many regular customers with all the workplaces and other buildings and facilities having been shut down, that the professional cleaning supply chain could perhaps benefit from a temporary switch to supplying consumers or retail outlets, instead of supplying facilities and the professionals who clean them. Could this be a viable solution to our supply chain problems or am I being naive?
You'll be aware that many of our industry events have been cancelled/postponed because of Coronavirus and we'll continue to post updates on our Facebook page as we get them. Let's hope we can all get together again soon... In the meantime, do stay safe!
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Yours,
19th March 2020