Can Covid Spread Through Defective Bathroom Sewage Pipes?

 

The News Cover: people more and more have been saying, that despite keeping themselves housebound not calling, for house helps meeting neighbors refraining from meeting anybody literally locking themselves in their homes but they are still contracting the virus could one reason for that be that your bathroom switch pipe is actually faulty. now health officials in hong kong, and china, are now suggesting this indicating that this might be happening especially for those living in apartments, complexes, let's tell you what happened exactly in hong kong. two residents living on two different floors and a high-rise apartment got infected, this was in a state of absolute lockdown.

the first was a 75-year-old man, and 10 days later a 62-year-old woman, in the same building. got it soon her family got it as well the first two people were living 10 floors apart. but in the same vertical in the same block apartment, for this reason, the health authorities then conducted an initial investigation. and then evacuated all residents living directly above or below those any of those blocks and floors. because they felt their toilets, and their vent pipes were all connected so what got the hong kong authorities believing that the virus could actually be spreading through this switch pipe, in the building bathroom plumbing system.

now they believe and in fact, they drew comparisons from the 2020 stars coronavirus outbreak, where this was discovered to be a major source of transmission in fact. it was also in hong kong where more than 300 infections and 42 deaths. occurred after poorly designed plumbing allowed the sars virus to spread throughout the building complex during the same 2020 sars crisis, it was found that u-shaped pipes trap connecting to the floor drains were empty of water and that allowed droplets containing viruses, to come down from the pipes to the apartments and to collect in that u-shaped bend. 

now without water to form a liquid plug over there now, nothing stopped these virus droplets from entering the bathrooms thereafter another unconfirmed possibility is also that infected material from the first patient's apartment. could have traveled down the pipe and entered the room via one of the broken winds in the second patient's bathroom as well but taking no risk. the hong kong health protection, the center for health protection, has now advised people and the public over there to follow some precautions like maintain your bathroom switch pipes, by regularly pouring water, into your drain outlets, and also put the toilet lid down, before flushing. 

I'm sure you're wondering. how exactly are these droplets a source of infection? so for that let's look into the role of droplets, and how they can spread covet 19. also remember aerosols it has been talked about extensively let's explain. to you what exactly does that mean and how does covid stay airborne, now the center for disease control prevention as a CDC has recently updated coronavirus guidance, and the guidelines they're now stating that core 19 can spread through airborne particles so before you start panicking about covid being airborne understand. 

what exactly airborne transmission, means so coronavirus, is still thought to be majorly spreading primarily. through respiratory droplets passed from person to person but you also expel the peace of the virus, if you exhale talk cough those tiny viral pieces called microdroplets. can be so small that they're able to float in the air and potentially travel some of these microdroplets, can travel across an entire room people can then inhale those minuscule viral particles and get infected. 

so with that information, what's important to understand. now is how long can these, how far can these droplets travel, and how long can they actually stay in the air to this study. so far suggests that these microdroplets, can travel up to six feet, or so that's the six feet distance. which has been advised however the risk is greater in indoor environments. where there is a limited exchange of air and these micro droplets, technically called aerosols can stay aloft in the air for a significant period of time but for how long, well that really, depends on some factors. 

like air temperature, humidity, coronavirus, can survive for longer in colder and less humid air and in those cases, it may stay in the air for up to three hours is what the studies are d that it can stay in the air up to 24 hours but again, that was mostly indoor spaces. and spaces with poor ventilation now it is these aerosols or microdroplets that you want to call them. which are said to have colleindicating more recently a study of a variant in Sri Lanka suggested in that u-shaped bathroom sewage pipe, in both hong kong and china. then leading authorities to question their role and ask people to take further precautions.