COVID-19 Transmission From Toilets

Have you ever thought about transmission COVID-19 from toilets?

If yes, you are at the right place.

In this article, I will share up-to-date information on this subject.

First, let’s quickly review the common transmission ways of the disease:

We know that the disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which spreads between people in several different ways.

The virus can spread from an infected person’s mouth or nose in small liquid particles when they cough, sneeze, speak, sing or breathe.

These particles range from larger respiratory droplets to smaller aerosols.

Current evidence suggests that the virus spreads mainly between people who are in close contact with each other, typically within 1 metre (short-range).

A person can be infected when aerosols or droplets containing the virus are inhaled or come directly into contact with the eyes, nose, or mouth.

The virus can also spread in poorly ventilated and/or crowded indoor settings, where people tend to spend longer periods of time. This is because aerosols remain suspended in the air or travel farther than 1 metre (long-range).

People may also become infected by touching surfaces that have been contaminated by the virus when touching their eyes, nose or mouth without cleaning their hands.

Whether or not they have symptoms,
Infected people can be contagious and the virus can spread from them to other people.

Although most people with COVID-19 have fever, cough, and trouble breathing, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also lists gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhea.

Researchers have found the virus in the feces and urine of people with COVID-19 and detected the virus’s RNA in toilets and sewers.

Researchers from Southeast University were concerned about this exact question and used computational fluid dynamics models to determine how flushing the toilet can drive water from the toilet bowl into the air.

Umumi Tuvaletlerden COVİD-19 Bulaş Riski

According to their model, a flushing toilet generates a cloud of thousands of aerosol droplets that rises about a meter into the air if the lid is up.

They also modeled how urinal flushing can produce as well.

These weren’t the first studies to show that flushing generates aerosols, but the researchers hoped their models might nudge the public to consider bathroom hygiene more during the pandemic.

Aerosols, whether they’re generated from a person’s cough or a flushed toilet, can carry bacteria or viruses.

Virologists often define infectious aerosol particles as those under 5 µm in diameter, but droplets up to around 60–100 µm can also stay suspended in the air and carry microbes.

Aerosoller, ister bir kişinin öksürüğünden isterse tuvalet sifonundan kaynaklansın, bakteri veya virüs taşıyabilir.

Factors including temperature, humidity, the presence of ultraviolet light, and the type of microorganism can affect how long the pathogen can survive in the air and still infect a person.

But in general, viruses in liquid aerosols seem to struggle to survive at intermediate humidities—those of about 55%.

Under those conditions, the liquid in the aerosols evaporates slowly, giving the increasing concentration of salts and other solutes time to disrupt the virus structure.

In the case of SARS-CoV-2, laboratory studies by other researchers have shown that the virus can survive intact in liquid aerosol droplets for hours.

And outbreaks that have been traced back to indoor spaces where people maintained social distancing, such as an outbreak from a choir practice in Skagit County, Washington, in March, have contributed to a growing body of evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can spread through the air, possibly through long-lived aerosols.

Scientists haven’t found direct evidence that toilet aerosols can spread viral diseases, but they have been studying the germy plumes caused by flushed toilets since at least the 1950s. Over time, they have refined their experimental setups to try to get a more accurate picture of how infectious the aerosols might be.

Laboratory data suggests that infected people appear to be most infectious just before they develop symptoms (namely 2 days before they develop symptoms) and early in their illness. People who develop severe disease can be infectious for longer.

While someone who never develops symptoms can pass the virus to others, it is still not clear how frequently this occurs and more research is needed in this area.