Covid-19 & Dishmachines
The topic of Covid-19 and how it is dealt with in dish machines has started to come up at several distributor locations.
Currently the CDC, WHO, and EPA all suggest that, just like in the laundry, if you wash the surface and remove the soil you are also removing the virus from the surface. They do not differentiate between high temp and low temp dish machines.
I have found recommendations from several dish machine manufacturers and they all follow the same logic stream. They suggest that in a high temp application the heat will neutralize the virus, and washing the surface will remove the virus from the surface of anything washed in the dish machine. In low temp dish machines they use the same thought process, that if you wash the surface you are removing the virus from the surface and providing a clean, sanitized, food contact surface.
There have been calls we have received from healthcare facilities that want to go a step further. They are filling bus tubs with a disinfectant, placing ware from patients with Covid-19 into the bus tubs for the appropriate contact time, removing the ware, rinsing it, and then running it through the dish machine.
Hopefully this information will help you if you have customers asking these types of questions. I will continue to monitor the CDC, WHO, and EPA sites in case they make recommendations regarding dish machines and Covid-19. There is more information available from the dish machine manufacturers on the topic if needed.