FreethoughtJournal.com

What’s wrong with a cleaning company claiming it’s done a COVID-19 course and can kill viruses?

In April 2020, ABC News published a report that, while rightly identifying one error made by a Sydney cleaning company, unfairly cast suspicion on several of its other claims—many of which were both reasonable and factually accurate.

The company in question, Bacteria Busters, used the Australian Government coat of arms on its website without authorisation. The emblem appeared above the words “Infection Control Training COVID-19”, followed by the company’s name. ABC was justified in pointing out that this wrongly implied government endorsement.

However, the report, by Walkley Award-winning journalist Geoff Thompson, went further, implying that another claim by the company—of having completed COVID-19 training and being capable of deactivating viruses—was somehow problematic. That leap was not supported by the evidence provided in the article.

What did the government actually say?

The ABC story stated that “Businesses have been warned not to use a certificate for an online COVID-19 training course for marketing purposes.” But nowhere in the article was a clear quote or policy from the Department of Health presented to back up that claim.

Instead, the Department appeared to reiterate two points:

It does not endorse individual cleaning businesses.
The Australian coat of arms should not be used without permission.

There was no evidence presented that the Department had issued a broader warning against companies mentioning their training certification in marketing materials—nor any justification for why such a prohibition would be reasonable in a free society. And if someone completes a publicly available training course, why shouldn’t they be allowed to say so?

Can a cleaning company be a "coronavirus specialist"?

The article also seemed to question the company’s claim to be a “coronavirus specialist” or to “deactivate viruses”. But these are not controversial claims. The original URL of the article even suggests an earlier headline may have been: “Cleaning company claims to be coronavirus specialist.” That would have been an unremarkable headline—because of course a cleaning company might develop specialist knowledge about how to clean in environments where viruses like SARS-CoV-2 are a concern.

Even more baffling is the headline the story ultimately used:

“Government coronavirus training certificate being used by cleaning company that claimed it could ‘deactivate viruses’.”

The implication seems to be that there's something wrong with either having the certificate or claiming to deactivate viruses. But both are completely ordinary.

Public health experts had been telling the public for months that soap and disinfectant kill the virus, so why wouldn't a professional cleaning company—armed with industrial-strength disinfectants—be able to make the same claim? If you kill a virus, you deactivate it. Another term, “inactivation”, is used by virologists to refer to altering a virus to remove its effect even if it may still be alive. But the story doesn’t allege that the cleaning company made such a claim, so what’s the issue?

In fact, the company's original website text said only that it used products with “a broad spectrum ability to kill bacteria and deactivate viruses”. That is entirely accurate for any cleaning company that specialises in disinfection using certified broad-spectrum products.

Misplaced suspicion can unfairly harm reputations

In what appears to be a response to the ABC’s tone, Bacteria Busters later added the word “potentially” before “deactivate viruses”. Perhaps afraid of being made to look like a false advertiser, operations manager Ariel Gallo clarified that the company didn't claim to be able to kill the virus, and even that “Nobody should be making that statement”. But this appears to be a case of the company being pressured into walking back a statement that was never misleading to begin with.

It's true that companies should not make exaggerated claims, or claim that it can eliminate all traces of the virus or guarantee a virus-free environment. But there’s no evidence that Bacteria Busters did anything of the sort. The ABC report does not cite a single claim from the company that could reasonably be called false or misleading other than the misuse of the coat of arms.

The article also quotes Mr Gallo as rejecting the suggestion that the government logo implied endorsement. That may indicate a lack of understanding on his part about the implications of using official emblems. But it's not evidence of intentional deception—and certainly not grounds to question the company’s other statements or qualifications.

By grouping together the legitimate concern over the coat of arms with unrelated insinuations about course certificates and virus deactivation, the ABC report created a misleading narrative. The result? Damage to a small business’s credibility based on innuendo rather than fact.

Final thoughts

Journalistic scrutiny of public claims—especially those made during a health crisis—is important. But so is proportionality. In this case, ABC News got one part right (criticising the misuse of a government symbol), but overreached by casting doubt on claims that were both ordinary and scientifically accurate.

If the goal is to protect consumers from misinformation, the media must be careful not to confuse legitimate advertising with deception.

-- James Brecknell, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. Revised Sunday, August 31, 2025.