[imagesource: here]

The plume of doom.

That’s what they call the mist of particles that rise out of a toilet when you flush it with the lid open.

Every week, a new study gives us further insight into the coronavirus and how it spreads, adding more things to the list of stuff that we’re trying to avoid.

The latest addition is public toilets, although they were arguably terrifying even before the pandemic. There’s a reason they keep the lights down low in the bathrooms in bars, and it isn’t so that you still look great after five tequilas and a skop on the dancefloor.

Over to Sky News for the findings in a report compiled by physicists specialising in fluid dynamics.

According to the researchers, flushing things down the loo doesn’t necessarily mean that they are simply leaving the premises.

Instead the enormous turbulence caused by flushing water can spread bacteria and viruses, although the public appears to be largely unaware of this infection pathway.

This, of course, has the potential to impact how workplaces, restaurants, bars and other public places operate. As we potentially transition to advanced alert level 3, restaurants, hairdressers, and others might want to consider putting a bathroom strategy in place.

Back to the science which says that poop is most likely to contain the virus.

Precise computer models were used to simulate water and air flows in a flushing toilet, and the resulting droplet cloud, in a study published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

The investigators tested a standard set of fluid dynamic formulas to simulate flushing in toilets with one and two inlets for flushing water.

Image: Sky News

It found that as water pours into the toilet bowl is creates a number of vortices which continue upward into the air above the bowl, carrying droplets to a height of nearly three feet.

At this height the droplets are very likely to be inhaled or to settle on another surface in the lavatory.

Lovely. Try not to think too hard about the fact that you were inhaling particles long before there was a pandemic to worry about.

“One can foresee that the velocity will be even higher when a toilet is used frequently, such as in the case of a family toilet during a busy time or a public toilet serving a densely populated area,” said co-author Ji-Xiang Wang, of Yangzhou University.

During the Day Zero panic, Capetonians largely embraced the ‘if it’s yellow, let it mellow’ mantra, but this latest study isn’t an excuse to let your floaters linger.

Instead, one of the ways to prevent this problem is to close the toilet lid before flushing.

You should have been doing that anyway, in the same way that you should have been washing your hands before the virus forced you to.

If you’re going to a public place, and you need to use the loo, consider waiting a little while before entering the bathroom after someone has used it, take sanitising wipes to use on the seat and surrounds, wear a mask at all times, and wash your hands.

And, when you flush, make sure to close the lid on the plume of doom.

[source:skynews]