Should You Clean Your Phone to Combat Coronavirus? Definitely... Maybe.

The world is on fire, but don’t you worry, I’m here to tell you how to clean your smartphone.

That is, if you really want to clean your phone. Three people I spoke with over the past week said they did not clean their smartphones—and they’re all leading experts on microbiology and infectious disease.

WAIT! WHAT? I thought smartphones were dirtier than a toilet bowl. Heck, even academic studies, like this one from my favorite bedtime reading, the Journal of Hospital Infection, have found considerable amounts of bacteria, including fecal matter, on phone screens.

And yet all these experts said some variation of the same thing when I asked about combating coronavirus: thoroughly clean your hands; don’t touch your face; don’t worry about your phone.