Fiberlock Products:
- IAQ 2500 – Ready-To-Use Disinfectant
Focus Issues:
The in-person return of the 2021 U.S. Yoga Championship required that organizers pay extra attention to hygiene to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Developing the necessary surface safety protocols was easy with the help of the right partner.
Challenges:
Yoga is often thought of as a solitary discipline, but classes congregate in shared spaces. Less well known is that yoga is also a competitive sporting activity too that involves community and sharing space with others. These social dynamics of yoga, like many other human interactions over the past year and a half, are challenging participants to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and to implement safety measures to limit spread of the disease.
So, when organizers of the 2021 USA Yoga Championships decided to hold the event in-person, following the cancelled 2020 competition, certain new protocols were necessary to ensure the safety of both competitors and guests. The competition has traditionally involved individual participants holding a series of postures over the course of three minutes, which are then judged based on difficulty and execution.
“My first thought was that in past competitions, everyone has always used the same mat to compete,” said Jordan Hendler, President, Admin Concepts, a company that helps organize a number of trade events as well as a USA Yoga Board Member for the 2021 USA Yoga Championships. “This has never been the most sanitary way to do things—but with COVID, we instantly knew that we needed a new method to ensure we were doing everything possible to keep everyone safe.”
Solutions:
The Three-Mat Method – Hendler and the competition organizers instantly recognized that the shared mats supplied by the organization needed a safe surface procedure. Using a rotation of different yoga mats that could be effectively sanitized between individual routines could be effective. To develop a safe and efficient procedure that would not disrupt the competition’s proceedings, Hendler worked with ICP Building Solutions Group (ICP BSG) to develop an ideal protocol. Expertise and experience was required, and the key would be where the procedure and the capabilities of the selected disinfectant would intersect. To source that experience, Jordan reached out to ICP’s Environmental Restoration Group (ERG).
Thus, the “Three Mat Method” was born, and was executed as follows: Two clean yoga mats (Mat “A” and Mat “B”) are initially placed on stage. The first competitor completes their three-minute routine on Mat A. Once that person is finished, the next competitor then begins their routine on the clean Mat B. As this happens, Mat A is taken from the stage and is replaced with as yet unused Mat C, which has been ready offstage for deployment.. Mat A is removed and sanitized. Following the completion of the next participant’s routine, Mat B is removed from the stage. The next competitor begins their routine on Mat C, while the original, now freshly sanitized Mat A returns to its place on the stage. This rotation was used throughout the duration of the entire competition; over 100 times.
Key to this method’s efficiency, compliance and simplicity was selection of the Fiberlock IAQ® 2500 cleaner-deodorizerdisinfectant solution from the ERG team at ICP. IAQ 2500 is an internationally available disinfectant that is designed to kill 99.9% of germs very quickly on various cleanable and non-porous surfaces. Per the US EPA-registered product label*, the water-based solution not only kills bacteria and molds, the 2500 disinfects against viruses when wetting the target surface for as little as 30 seconds. IAQ 2500 is RTU (ready-to-use), and is also an extremely effective cleaner-detergent-degreaser, so this versatility reduces potential for error because no separate cleaning product is needed, and mixing concerns are alleviated**.
The product’s widespread applicability and attributes already matched well for the proposed Three Mat Method application. Efficacy against the COV-2 (or COVID-19 coronavirus strains) clinched the disinfectant selection process. IAQ 2500 is included on the EPA’s List N, a grouping of antimicrobial products that demonstrate the required performance to kill SARS-CoV-2, and can be trusted to help prevent the spread of disease when used effectively. However, among the 500+ List N disinfectants, the IAQ 2500 stands apart as one of very few disinfectants with an industry-leading kill time of 60 seconds specifically for SARS CoV-2 – making this formulation perfect for those in need of quick turnaround times and frequent disinfection.
In cleaning each mat offstage, volunteers wiped off the mat of any excess sweat or debris, using IAQ 2500 initially as a spray-and-wipe cleaner wherever needed. The behind the scenes crew then applied IAQ 2500 with easy-to-use handheld sprayers until the mat surface was visibly wet. After a three-minute wait time, each mat was wiped down with clean paper towels and returned to the stage for the next competitor.
“This protocol helped us to keep up the flow of the competition without slowing things to a crawl,” said Hendler. “It was very effective, and our volunteer organizers felt very comfortable and got the mat switch down to a speedy efficiency. The longest they were on the stage for an exchange was about 60 seconds, and that was just while they were learning the ropes.”
Results and Future Use:
Following the implementation of the Three Mat Method and the use of IAQ 2500, Hendler said that athlete feedback was positive. In fact, beyond pandemic-related concerns, many athletes were grateful to have a clean and deodorized mat on which to perform their routines.
“I think the applicability of IAQ goes well beyond just this competition,” she said. “There are yoga studios everywhere that could benefit from a reliable way to quickly and easily disinfect. Studio operators are often scrambling to wipe down floors and surfaces between different classes, and the use of IAQ 2500 at the competition demonstrated how simple applying a reliable disinfectant to surfaces can be.”
For more information about IAQ 2500 and other Fiberlock disinfectant solutions, visit https://www.fiberlock.com/product-category/mold-products/disinfectants-sanitizers/. For recorded training sessions on disinfection, and information on ICP’s unique S.H.E.P.™ (Surface Hygiene: Epidemic & Pandemic) guidance and programming, join the ICP Community by creating a free account in MasterWorks® at www.icpmasterworkscommunity.com.
Cole Stanton is Director of Education and AED Specification for ICP Building Solutions Group. He can be contacted via email at specifications@icpgroup.com.
*US EPA Registration number: 1839-83-73884
**Fiberlock IAQ® is a trademark of ICP Group. IAQ 2500 is EPA-registered and fully registered by the pertinent authorities that govern antimicrobials in all US states and jurisdictions.
At the time of this writing, the IAQ 2500 is also available across Canada per CoV-2 Interim Guidance from Public Health Canada.
