St. Albert is blazing a trail when it comes to COVID-19 cleaning practices.
The City of St. Albert ordered three nocospray sterilizing devices in January when there were hints COVID-19 was going to be spreading globally.
Nocospray is a hospital-grade portable disinfection unit that sprays a hydrogen peroxide-based dry vapour all of the area that is being disinfected.
“What the chemical does is it lands on all of the different surface areas. Everything from the roof, the wall, all the different touch points and it will kill and disinfect essentially the vast majority of any pathological disease-causing agents, whether it's bacteria, virus or spores,” Kevin Keith, City of St. Albert health and safety adviser, said.
Right now, the city is using two to clean their ambulances and fire trucks and one device is dedicated to disinfect any office spaces that may have had a COVID-19 scare, although that one hasn't been put to use in an office yet.
Bernd Gretzinger, St. Albert's fire chief, said as soon as the city got word the pandemic might be coming, they ordered some units right away, and received them three weeks ago.
“I think as soon as we got word that things were happening we jumped on it right away and I think that’s why we are ahead of the curve compared to other municipalities.”
Gretzinger said before they had the nocospray unit, they would disinfect ambulances and fire trucks by giving them a good scrub-down with a disinfectant, but now they can ensure that every nook and cranny gets sanitized with the nocospray unit.
“Knowing that (the ambulance) is completely safe after we have a potential COVID-19 call – so for the workers on the front lines, it's just peace of mind would be the word with this machine here,” Gretzinger said.
The fire chief said the machine also speeds up the cleaning time for their emergency units.
“The beautiful thing about this machine is with the COVID-19 issue we're dealing with right now is we can have a turnaround time pretty quick on an ambulance to get on the road,” Gretzinger said.
St. Albert is one of two or three municipalities across the province who are using the portable machine.
Gretzinger and Keith said the machines are effective and they plan on keeping them around and using them once the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.
