What goes into sanitizing the entirety of South Carolina’s football facility
South Carolina’s football facility sits at 110,000 square feet, with 20,000 of that accounting for a massive, high-ceiling weight room.
Coach Will Muschamp’s Gamecocks football players returned there for the first time in 2 1/2 months, the duration the COVID-19 pandemic shut down campus. Upon arrival, they went through testing and be isolated to a degree with a small group of roommates and workout partners.
Players have temperature checks before coming into the building, but there’s also a challenge of preventing that building from serving as a vector of spreading the disease.
South Carolina released its set of protocols for players returning, which included a few elements of sanitizing facilities. The school’s associate athletics director for operations and facilities, Jeff Davis, answered a few more detailed questions for The State about the process and what goes into that.
Q: What goes into disinfecting offices, locker rooms and weight rooms?
A: Davis wrote the process is “electrostatic disinfecting and sanitization with hospital-grade disinfectant.”
Electrostatic disinfecting involves atomizing the disinfectant into spray and then electrostatically charging the droplets so they are attracted to objects and spreads out to coat them in disinfectant, according to materials from Clorox.
That means areas can be sprayed and the disinfectant will get to hard-to-reach surfaces.
Q: Are we talking staffers going over with disinfectant wipes, fogging, spray?
A: Davis wrote: “Disinfectant will be used by day porter/custodial staff and nightly custodial staff on all high-touch/contact areas in addition to normal disinfecting/cleaning operations.”
He added that it’s about a four-hour process for electrostatic disinfecting and sanitizing the entire Long football facility.
Q: Are there other elements?
A: “Continue to follow APPA guidelines (Association of Physical Plant Administrators) – Level 1 / 2 cleaning practices (high level).”
Those guidelines are a rather in-depth set of standards. Levels 1 and 2 are listed as “Orderly Spotlessness” and “Ordinary Tidiness.”
Q: What athletic buildings will be getting this kind of treatment?
A: “All athletics facilities will be disinfected & sanitized before student-athlete & staff return.”
Q: What is the projected cost for the cleaning supplies and outsourced cleaning services?
A: “Still to be determined.”
Q: Does some level of responsibility fall to Paul Jackson and his staff to wipe down equipment between uses?
A: “Yes, strength staff designees will assist custodial staff during and after work-out periods.”
Davis added that workout machines will be sanitized between each use.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
