According to the WHO, coronaviruses may survive on surfaces for just a few hours or several days, although many factors will influence this, including surface material and weather. A study published recently in the Journal of Hospital Infection looked at the lifespans of other coronaviruses found in humans on various surfaces. The SARS coronavirus – at a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius – lasts for two days on steel; four days on wood and glass; and five days on metal, plastic, and ceramics. Also the BfR (German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) confirms that there are “no known reports for other coronaviruses about infections due to food or contact with dry surfaces. Due to the transmission methods recorded thus far, and the relatively low environmental stability of coronaviruses, it is unlikely that imported goods such as imported foods or consumer goods and toys, tools, computers, clothes or shoes may be sources of an infection with the new type of coronavirus, according to the current state of knowledge. This assessment is still valid after the most recent publication on the persistence of the known coronaviruses by scientists from the Universities of Greifswald and Bochum.” Our products (of which the majority is being produced in China) have been on a ship for at least 4 weeks before they reach Europe, for products that are being imported via airfreight, transportation takes at least 3 days. In light of the above mentioned time that these viruses can survive, we do not deem the disinfection of our products per delivery necessary.
Because our appliances have a touchscreen and keyboards, naturally they represent as such a potential source for germs since several people in your company are using them. We advise you to disinfect the display and / or keyboard of the MFP with any commercial ethanol for disinfection several times a day. Additionally, it is a good measure to put up an increased hygienic standard for your employees through frequently washing hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand sanitizer (we recommend 70% or 50 % isopropanol and also ethanol-water mixtures) or a mixture of isopropanol with hydrogen peroxide and glycerol.
Since our workforce travels from client to client, our service model currently poses a potential risk for our clients as well as our employees. We will therefore implement changes to our services model by applying remote services as much as possible: Since most of the Konica Minolta products are designed as IOT devices, platforms or applications that allow remote connectivity, we will connect your device to Konica Minolta backend systems. Like this, your Konica Minolta products will be enabled to receive remote services. Any occurring incident should be solved remotely without intervention onsite. Only if we need to ensure remote connectivity or replace parts, a service employee will visit you. We encourage all employees (and we are updating them on a regular basis) to monitor their wellbeing and their social environment carefully and to take precautionary measures to minimize risks of infection, e.g. increased hygiene measures, cancellation of participation in larger events, moving meetings to virtual meetings, encourage – where possible – home office. Travel to or from regions at risks has been prohibited. In case of infection of an employee, we work according to the infection protection law and have put measures in place to minimize the risk of infecting others as much as possible (quarantine). In this case – just as much as with other illnesses or during vacation – we can resort to other trained service employees in order to reduce the impact of your business.
To operate the MFP remotely the following settings need to be made: Admin Mode:
User:
If a more detailed instruction is required, please get in touch with your local Service organization.
Q&As WHO: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
WHO Situation reports: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
Konica Minolta is closely monitoring the rapidly evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) situation and updating our global business continuity plans (BCP) accordingly. These plans outline specific ways Konica Minolta will adapt our operations to reflect changing environments in all geographies in which we operate. Our team is committed to serving our customers and partners, and protecting the health and safety of our employees, customers and visitors. We have established a Konica Minolta crisis management team (already some weeks ago) which meets – of course virtually – twice a week, the Konica Minolta coronavirus core team daily. If you have any questions, please contact us.