Q&A: Study’s Author Explains How Lysol Battles COVID-19

Julie McKinney, PhD: “If you’re going to disinfect, you’re going to let it sit for three minutes and then you’re going to wipe it. If you’re going to sanitize, you only have to leave it for 30 seconds and then wipe.”

A study in the American Journal of Infection Control got a lot of attention a couple of weeks ago when it said that certain Lysol products are effective against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the Environmental Protection Agency quickly agreed. Julie McKinney, PhD, global director of microbiology and virology at Reckitt Benckiser, the company that makes the products, recently sat down with Infection Control Today® to talk about what precipitated the study and what might be the broader ramifications of the findings. Those ramifications expand beyond the healthcare environment. “Everybody is going to have to increase their level of cleaning and disinfection and sanitation, if they’re going to have consumers come into their spaces…,” says McKinney. “We’ve gotten a lot of requests from industry to be able to help them understand how to best use the products in their environment.”