Well, they’ve finally gone and done it.
The mainstream media has taken fear-mongering to whole new lows. And it’s making folks afraid to flush the toilet over coronavirus fears.
A new study about toilets and virus particles made headlines around the world. Plus, it got BIG attention on cable TV. And if you believe what they’re saying, you might be afraid to ever set foot in the bathroom again.
But relax. You don’t have to start looking for nearby bushes.
Because as you’ll see in a moment, there’s a ridiculously simple step ANYONE can take to erase the fear. This one move could instantly make the bathroom cleaner, safer, and far less likely to make people sick with ANY germs, including the coronavirus bug.
Best of all? It won’t cost you a single shiny penny.
The TRUTH about COVID-19 and your toilet
You’d think from the frantic headlines that researchers traced an actual coronavirus outbreak to someone’s toilet. But trust me, they didn’t, far from it.
Experts haven’t traced a SINGLE case of the virus back to a toilet yet. In fact, this study didn’t involve the coronavirus at all. Heck, it didn’t even include bathrooms OR toilets.
The new study, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, was one of those “in theory” pieces. Instead of a real toilet and the actual COVID-19 virus, they used computers to simulate what could happen when a virus is… umm… “dropped” into a commode, and the toilet is flushed.
The computer calculated that particles could hover up to three feet over a toilet for about a minute.
But here’s the thing. If they’re YOUR particles, you’re already sick. And if they’re not your particles… well… what in the heck are you doing with your face three feet from someone else’s flush?
Just the thought alone is gross. Not to mention HIGHLY unlikely. Plus, if you’re forced to use a public bathroom, you will be wearing your mask, of course. And that’s why all the attention over this study is a whole lot of empty hype.
The simple trick that could contain the virus
Sure, in theory, this pie-in-the-sky prediction also means the coronavirus or other bugs could settle on surfaces within three feet of the toilet. But that’s nothing new and why we wash our hands.
And if you’re sharing space with someone who is already infected, you should be using separate bathrooms. If that’s not possible, you should be disinfecting ALL surfaces in the shared space after every single use.
In fact, I’d be slightly more worried about more common germs. Older studies have found the bacteria behind diarrhea, for example, can spread throughout the bathroom and land on other surfaces.
And, brace yourself, that includes your toothbrush.
But as sickening as that sounds, even that’s no reason to panic too much. Because while it wasn’t done in a research lab, a pretty reliable test was conducted by the old show “Mythbusters.” The hosts looked into the poo-on-a-toothbrush theory and found that the risk is VERY minimal if it even exists at all.
Besides, if you’re really that worried… or simply grossed out at the thought like me… there’s a simple action anyone can take that can cut the risk to pretty much zero.
Close the lid.
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