dougthonus wrote:MikeDC wrote:dougthonus wrote:
It's been established that
potentially infectious levels of COVID are present in poop.
It's also been established that, well, small amounts of your
poop get pretty much everywhere if you don't practice good hygiene. Which many people do not. If 1 in 6 cell phones has detectable amounts of poop on it, that's bad.
Then there's an
established literature that notes the risk of infection from toilet flush plumes, on top of all the other basic surfaces people touch.
Best not to think about, but I've had a couple doctors point it out as well. Generally speaking, when people go to the bathroom, some stays on the hands and nearby surfaces (including phones if they're out). Fewer people wash their hands than they say they do, so if they wipe their butt then go touch make your meal or your bed, that's a potential transmission. Likewise, when the toilet flushes, some small amounts of poop are present in the aerosol that gets created (which then land on the surfaces of the bathroom that the next person is going to touch.
The study you linked was from January and states it's unclear whether or not it is infectious in feces.
More recent research shows surface contact is not thought to be a primary method of transmission, and the amount of virus in fecal matter that might be on your hands is likely completely irrelevant even in this type of method of transmission, because the amount on your hand from your breathing would likely be way worse.
1. You have to understand the nomenclature used in scientific articles. Technically speaking,
the WHO is still on the fence about whether it's even spread through the air. If you know a contagion is present in a substance, and you know that substance is getting spread and turned into an aerosol in the immediate environment, the smart course of action is to exercise caution and not dismiss it.
2. It really doesn't matter if it it's "a primary method". It just matters if it's a method. If it poses a 10% risk of infection while breath poses a 20% risk of infection, the end result is that it still poses a risk. From a mathematical perspective, each individual interaction poses a small risk. But the large number of interactions is what poses the high risk.
I mean it's a moot point in general, and it doesn't take away from all your other points about risk in the bubble, but I don't think toilets are a source of concern. That's not stated anywhere I have seen in recent research and isn't even stated that way in the research you showed.
I don't know what you are reading or why you are interpreting the article I cited that way, but to highlight, it said:
Abstract of article from CDC wrote:Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 was isolated from feces of a patient in China with coronavirus disease who died. Confirmation of infectious virus in feces affirms the potential for fecal–oral or fecal–respiratory transmission and warrants further study.
If you can provide some evidence that this has been disproven, and that there is no potential for this kind of transmission, that'd be great.
But... I don't expect it. In looking around today, what I see is:
From May 27th:
COVID-19 virus isolated from the stool of a sick patient can infect cells in a petri dish.
Here's
a NY Times article“The aerosols generated by toilets are something that we’ve kind of known about for a while, but many people have taken for granted,” said Joshua L. Santarpia, a professor of pathology and microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who was not involved in the research. “This study adds a lot of the evidence that everyone needs in order to take better action.”
...
Experience with other coronaviruses shows how quickly the fecal-oral route can lead to spread of disease. In March 2003, more than 300 people living in the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong got infected with the original SARS coronavirus because infectious fecal aerosols spread through faulty plumbing and ventilation systems.
To the extent surface contact is going to be an issue, surfaces going to be affected by people breathing on them much more so than any residual fecal matter that's going to be around.
Unfortunately, it's just not an either/or situation. Breathing can be the biggest problem while still not being the only problem. If breathing being the biggest problem leads folks to dismiss or disregard other threats, that's obviously kind of an issue as well.
