Using public restrooms in the age of covid-19

[Yavin4]

As for drying your hands, a paper towel is your best bet, Boling says. If a hand dryer is the only option, it’s better to just air dry your hands, Dr. David Cutler, a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. “Using hand dryers in public restrooms is the worst way to dry your washed hands,” he says. “This is because the blow dryers suck in bacteria and viruses from the air in the bathroom and shoot it all over your hands.”

https://sports.yahoo.com/is-it-safe-public-restrooms-coronavirus-pandemic-experts-162010827.html

[Laffy Kat]

1. Better yet, just hold it until you get home. nt

[Yavin4]

4. That's not an option for everyone.

I have to make sure that I am empty before I head out for my walks. I may have to get some depends.

[global1]

12. Better Yet - Just Stay Home....nt

[onethatcares]

24. I tried that but

my wife says it doesn't look very nice to be squeezing my crotch in public.

[LisaL]

26. How is one supposed to do it for 8 hours if one is working?

You have to have a bladder the size of a basketball or something.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I've been reading for years that the air dryers spread

disease and germs.

Except, if you've actually washed your hands, aren't the little nasties pretty much gone? Somehow I think that's another vastly overblown danger.

What I dislike about the air dryers is that most of them take three or four times as long as a paper towel would.

[misanthrope]

9. Not just dryers

Flushing toilets aerosolize contents.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Everything is dangerous.

It's a wonder any of us survive day to day.

[DENVERPOPS]

21. AND

the public restroom doors open in, instead of out. You need to pull it open with your hand when you exit... I have seen some intelligent maintenance people put a trash can right next to the door, so you can use a paper towel on your hand to open the door and then discard it in the trash can........

[pnwmom]

10. The machine is taking air from the restroom and shooting it at your hands.

It's not just your own germs you have to worry about.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. And to think, I'm breathing that very air!

[pnwmom]

18. Public restrooms are a very high risk place for covid exposure right now.

You could breathe covid in the air or spray it onto your washed hands or both.

[LisaL]

28. Not if you are freaking wearing a mask.

[LisaL]

27. Per the article, air dryers suck bacteria and viruses from the air in the bathroom.

Then when you dry your hands, they deposit those bacteria and viruses onto your hands.
So you just washed your hands for nothing.

[Initech]

3. I expect the adult diaper industry to really take off in the coming months.

[llmart]

31. Shh......

Don't say things like that or the diaper hoarders will be clearing the shelves!

[Initech]

32. Medical supply stores better start putting limits on Depends!

[Jarqui]

5. I read/heard not long ago that if someone with Covid-19

has diarrhea in a public washroom, when they flush, it is all over the washroom.

Avoid public washrooms if you can.
Go before you go out and try to plan stopping at home if you are out for a while and need to go.

[SCantiGOP]

6. Do what my kids liked when they were 8

“Pee in the grass.”
They would wait till we were out the country before saying they had to go NOW, so they could get out and pee in nature.

[tavernier]

8. I just googled

The virus that causes COVID-19 has been found in the feces of some patients diagnosed with COVID-19. However, it is unclear whether the virus found in feces may be capable of causing COVID-19. There has not been any confirmed report of the virus spreading from feces to a person. Scientists also do not know how much risk there is that the virus could be spread from the feces of an infected person to another person. However, they think this risk is low based on data from previous outbreaks of diseases caused by related coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

[Jarqui]

13. I do not think they know definitely so you err on the side of caution:

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/928234

As we know, GI diseases can be transmitted via the fecal-oral route. Now researchers looking at hospitals in Wuhan, China, that treated COVID-19-positive patients have provided valuable new data on its transmission. They found that although the intensive care units were good at containing the spread of the virus outside of the patients' rooms, there was a high concentration of the virus in the air samples taken from the patients' toilets.

What are the implications of that finding? Droplets of SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19, can be spread and live in the air for up to 3 hours, and be disseminated to hard surface areas where they can live up to 3 to 4 days. That is quite concerning when you consider that flushing a toilet can create an aerosolized plume of these viral particles, which can then spread elsewhere within proximity. We know that toothbrushes left in proximity to the toilet gain viral spread quite rapidly, mirroring levels observed in the toilet itself. That same thing can occur for cell phones, which many people take with them into the bathroom. However, this mode of transmission has not been well studied as it relates to COVID-19.

We do have available evidence with another coronavirus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Researchers looked at the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in Hong Kong, which experienced a large community outbreak of SARS during the 2003 epidemic. Using airflow dynamics studies, they were able to retrospectively track the spread of the virus from one individual patient—the index case—to other residents of the complex. They reported that the patient's toilet exhaust fan, which created a negative pressure effect, vented into the apartments above and also to the outside. They linked this to 187 cases in the complex with available data. This analysis suggests that the SARS virus was able to be transmitted by microdroplets through inhalation, touch, and potentially fecal-oral routes.

[emmaverybo]

20. You sure said it better than I did. That's the article I read. Bery interesting. Thanks for post.

[emmaverybo]

19. In earlier studies re: aerosolized virus when not discovered in air in patients rooms, was

discovered in and around bathrooms patients used. Could be due to flushing. Also, bathrooms often not well ventilated. Now bathrooms are not “patient bathrooms,” but...of course, later studies found particles shed to surfaces in rooms, air vents etc. and certainly during procedures.

But my point is enclosed spaces, flushing action could equal bigger risk.

[tavernier]

25. Definite risk in public bathrooms.

Whether the virus is as strong after traveling through a body I guess is still an unknown, but why chance it if not absolutely necessary.

[hauweg]

23. SARS spread through feces

I remember that Covid's cousin SARS spread massively through feces at least in one case.
321 people became infected in an apartment building due to bad plumbing which spread the virus
all over the building.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/in-hong-kong-apartment-tower-sars-virus-spread-through-plumbing/99bcd25f-de85-472a-b084-4f847e0dac9a/

[Tanuki]

7. I now have a zip-lock bag in my purse with things I might need to stay safe,

including a couple of folded up paper towels in case I need to dry my hands in an uncertain situation. Also in the bag is a little hotel freebie bottle of shampoo I can use to wash my hands if there is no soap available. And I have been able to avoid public restrooms almost entirely, but you never know.

[JCMach1]

11. Not even thinking about it... Absolute worst place

Except for a prison and that because there is a toilet in the middle of it

[LeftInTX]

14. On March 21st, I had to pee really bad

I promptly drove myself home.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

17. Thanks for posting this article!

It's yet another thing for me to keep in mind for the future.

I mean, if an "emergency" happens and I actually need to use a public restroom again. (In my ideal future, it'll NEVER happen. Lol.)

[yuiyoshida]

22. better to bring your own

Tissues, and hand sanitizer.

[Tipperary]

29. I hate public restrooms, pandemic or not.

I have no intention of going out for the length of time that might require a restroom visit.

[Yavin4]

30. What do you do at work?

Hold it in for the entire day?