Nobody enjoys using a public toilet. No matter how clean the toilet looks, you may wonder who was sitting in front of you. Whether you squat, stand, sit or lay down a toilet seat cover of paper, there is a risk that you may come in contact with germs that make you sick. Now, a new study has found that this one thing after using a toilet or urinal makes you more susceptible to contact with potentially contaminated aerosol particles, which is mainly due to COVID. Read on to find out what to avoid after rinsing, and for more things to look out for in your bathroom health, check out If your urine has this color, call your doctor.
A new study from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) College of Engineering and Computer Science has found that you should not linger after flushing a toilet or urinal because aerosol drops do. According to the study, published in, large amounts of microbial-containing aerosols can cause Physics of liquids on April 20th. The study authors found that aerosol levels flushed by flushing water in public toilets cause them to ‘hotbeds for airborne transmission, especially if they do not have adequate ventilation or if toilets do not have a lid or cover’ – which most public toilets and all urinals.
Study co-author Siddhartha Verma, PhD, an assistant professor in the FAU’s department of ocean and mechanical engineering, said in a statement that the total number of drops that result from flushing a toilet is in the tens of thousands range.
And for more information about the area of your home do not disinfect, go check out The CDC says you should never disinfect this thing.
You might think that applying the toilet to the toilet could prevent your germs from spreading, but because aerosol drops are so small, FAU researchers found that they did not differ much.
The toilet and urinal both generated significant amounts of small droplets, which were detected for 20 seconds or longer at a height of up to five feet after flushing was started. Smaller droplets can hang in the air longer, meaning these particles pose a significant risk if they contain infectious microorganisms, Verma said. Although there were a smaller number of droplets in the air when the toilet was flushed with the lid closed, the reduction was not as significant as the small aerosol droplets could easily escape through the small gaps between the lid and the seat.
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If you think about how many people use public toilets and how often some of them are cleaned, it is no surprise that they are at risk of contracting diseases. According to the study, “pathogenic Ebola, norovirus can cause violent food poisoning, as well as COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2, when it is widely spread by aerosolization.
A previous study conducted in 2013 in the American Journal of Infection Control also noted the risk of transmission of infectious diseases due to flushing of a toilet. Those researchers from the University of Oklahoma College of Public Health pointed out that many pathogens, including “Shigella, E. coli, C difficile, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), coronavirus and norovirus, can survive on surfaces for weeks or even months.”
And for more information on how COVID spreads, even if you got a photo, says dr. Fauci this is how you can catch COVID even if you are vaccinated.
These aerosol drops are of particular concern while COVID is circulating. Although transmission by respiratory droplets is the most common form of COVID transmission, ‘alternative routes may exist given the discovery of a small number of viable viruses in urine and fecal samples’, the FAU researchers said. “Public toilets are of particular concern for the transmission of COVID-19 because it is relatively limited, experiences heavy foot traffic and may not have adequate ventilation.”
This last element is what makes public toilets really risky. “The significant accumulation of flush-generated droplets over time indicates that the ventilation system was not effective in removing it from the enclosed space, although there was no noticeable lack of airflow in the toilet,” said co-author of the study study. Masoud Jahandar Lashaki, PhD, an assistant professor in FAU’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geometric Engineering, said in a statement.
The findings of the study suggest that the use of better ventilation in public spaces can help prevent aerosol accumulation. But in the meantime, if you use a public bathroom during COVID, wear your mask.
To see what people who get COVID after vaccination have in common, look at 65 percent of the vaccines that get COVID have it in common, says CDC.