Can COVID-19 Spread Via Toilets? Traces Found in Vacant Apartment

In a recent development, traces of the novel coronavirus have been identified in the bathroom of an unoccupied apartment in Guangzhou, China. This suggests that the airborne virus may have drifted upwards through the drain pipes.

Vestiges of SARS-CoV-2 were detected on the sink, faucet, and shower of the long-vacant apartment in February, according to a study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a Bloomberg report, the infected bathroom was directly above the home of five people who had tested positive for COVID-19 a week earlier.

The new development is reminiscent of an incident at Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens private housing estate nearly two decades ago, where 329 residents had caught severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in part because of faulty sewage pipelines. 42 residents had died in that incident, making it the most damaging community outbreak of SARS.

The researchers conducted “an on-site tracer simulation experiment” to check if the virus could travel through waste pipes via minute airborne particles that are released by the force of a toilet flush. Two cases had been confirmed on each of those storeys in early February, raising concern that SARS-CoV-2-laden particles from stool had wafted into their homes via the plumbing.

“Although transmission via the shared elevator cannot be excluded, this event is consistent with the findings of the Amoy Gardens SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003.”

The Study

Transmission Through Respiratory Droplets

The novel coronavirus is transmitted mainly through respiratory droplets - through nasal discharge and spraying of saliva, according to the World Health Organization.

However, researchers from China have indicated the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the stool of COVID-19 patients can also play a role in transmission. According to a study conducted in February, from a batch of 73 patients hospitalized with the coronavirus in Guangdong province, more than half tested positive for viral remnants in their stool.

Prior investigations have shown that flushing the toilet can release germ-laden aerosols from the excreta. These particles can be dispersed over distances of more than 1 meter (3 feet) and remain in the air for long periods, particularly in confined, poorly ventilated spaces.

A common toilet was was implicated in a SARS-CoV-2 infection that possibly occurred on an evacuation flight from Milan to South Korea in late March, researchers said in a report in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.