Here’s one more thing to worry about: Flushing the toilet or urinal could spread COVID-19.
A study by Chinese researchers at Yangzhou University on Wednesday found that the action of flushing both toilets and urinals can release clouds of virus-filled aerosols, making public toilets a potentially dangerous place for transmission. Researchers’ Tip: If you are going to use a public restroom, wear a mask.
Flushing a toilet or urinal has always posed some form of hygiene risk, as the action creates an interaction between gas and air. In the article, titled Urinary Virus Transmission, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, the researchers found that a urinal was potentially even more risky. The research used a model to track aerosol particles released during flushing and found that in a urinal, those particles could spread to the level of a typical man’s thigh in about five and a half seconds, compared to about half a minute for a flush toilet.
As a result, flushing urinals produces a “more violent climbing tendency,” the researchers said, adding that it is something they had noticed outside of their research.
This latest study is based on previous evidence that COVID-19 can be spread through toilets. As early as February, Chinese researchers pointed out that the virus could be spread through feces and that one of the routes of transmission of the virus could be the “fecal-oral” route, a particular concern on cruise ships.
Nausea aside, the research highlights how difficult it is to track and understand the virus’s many sources of transmission – a fight that frustrates even the world’s most diligent governments, including New Zealand, which previously announced that it had contained the virus.
And it seems to underline a simple message to life in the COVID-19 era: If you must use a public bathroom, bring your mask.
