Recently Bloomberg published the very interesting but somewhat frightening article, “Coronavirus in Vacant Apartment Implicates Toilet in Spread“. The article is primarily about an apartment in China that had been sitting vacant, however, researchers found that surfaces throughout the apartment were infected with COVID-19. The reason researchers were interested is because this phenomenon was seen before in Hong Kong’s Amoy Gardens back in 2003 during the SARS outbreak of that year.
Traces of SARS-CoV-2 were detected in February on the sink, faucet and shower handle of a long-vacant apartment, researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in a study published this month in Environment International. The contaminated bathroom was directly above the home of five people confirmed a week earlier to have Covid-19.
Coronavirus in Vacant Apartment Implicates Toilet in Spread, by: Jason Gale, published online Aug. 26, 2020
For us, here at InnerEnviro there are a couple of things that we think about. The obvious concern in this case is that micro-droplets are making their way from the plumbing, most likely the toilet, and onto surfaces mainly around the bathroom. Obviously the apartment didn’t necessarily need to be empty for this to happen and, in fact, had the toilet been been getting flushed regularly seems it could have made the problem worse. The other factor here is that unfortunately, Coronavirus can survive on surfaces, which means that touching those surfaces can transmit the infection to a person. That’s where we come in. We use CDC disinfectants and can fully treat a space in a very short amount of time. We also can apply a protectant that has been shown to keep surface infections away for up to as long as 90 days (we recommend 30 day intervals for our protectant.) The key takeaways: close the toilet lid, especially before flushing, wash your hands well. The CDC recommends singing happy birthday 3 times through while you wash. Lastly, call InnerEnviro or refer us to your employer, school or church. You probably don’t want to wear a mask around the house, but please wear one in public. Together we can get through this.
