Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Fart of death? British Politicians are allegedly concerned about a case of Covid-19 transmission apparently caused by someone passing wind in an adjacent toilet cubicle.
Ministers ‘fear coronavirus could be spread by farting in a confined space’
Ministers have privately pointed to evidence that suggests Covid-19 could be spread when an infected person breaks wind in a confined space, such as a toilet, it is reported
By Chris Kitching Senior News Reporter
19:28, 24 JUL 2021Some UK Government ministers have privately expressed concerns that coronavirus could be spread through farting, it is claimed.
They have pointed to evidence that suggests Covid-19 could be spread when an infected person breaks wind in a confined space such as a toilet.
Tests have revealed that the virus can be present in faecal matter, though the science on whether flatulence could spread Covid is not definitive.
One minister, who wasn’t named, told the Telegraph that they had read “credible-looking stuff on it” from other countries, and there had been evidence of a “genomical-linked tracing connection between two individuals from a [lavatory] cubicle in Australia”.
…
Read more: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ministers-fear-coronavirus-could-spread-24609803
Sars-CoV-2 virus is present in urine and faecal excretions, though it seems to vary between patients – some patients suffer diarrhea and nausea, caused by the virus multiplying in the stomach. However even when present, the viral load in fecal matter appears to be significantly less than the load emitted when someone sneezes or coughs.
Shedding of SARS-CoV-2 in feces and urine and its potential role in person-to-person transmission and the environment-based spread of COVID-19
David L Jones 1, Marcos Quintela Baluja 2, David W Graham 2, Alexander Corbishley 3, James E McDonald 4, Shelagh K Malham 5, Luke S Hillary 4, Thomas R Connor 6, William H Gaze 7, Ines B Moura 8, Mark H Wilcox 9, Kata Farkas 10
The recent detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in feces has led to speculation that it can be transmitted via the fecal-oral/ocular route. This review aims to critically evaluate the incidence of gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, the quantity and infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 in feces and urine, and whether these pose an infection risk in sanitary settings, sewage networks, wastewater treatment plants, and the wider environment (e.g. rivers, lakes and marine waters). A review of 48 independent studies revealed that severe GI dysfunction is only evident in a small number of COVID-19 cases, with 11 ± 2% exhibiting diarrhea and 12 ± 3% exhibiting vomiting and nausea. In addition to these cases, SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be detected in feces from some asymptomatic, mildly- and pre-symptomatic individuals. Fecal shedding of the virus peaks in the symptomatic period and can persist for several weeks, but with declining abundances in the post-symptomatic phase. SARS-CoV-2 RNA is occasionally detected in urine, but reports in fecal samples are more frequent. The abundance of the virus genetic material in both urine (ca. 102-105 gc/ml) and feces (ca. 102-107 gc/ml) is much lower than in nasopharyngeal fluids (ca. 105-1011 gc/ml). There is strong evidence of multiplication of SARS-CoV-2 in the gut and infectious virus has occasionally been recovered from both urine and stool samples. The level and infectious capability of SARS-CoV-2 in vomit remain unknown. In comparison to enteric viruses transmitted via the fecal-oral route (e.g. norovirus, adenovirus), the likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 being transmitted via feces or urine appears much lower due to the lower relative amounts of virus present in feces/urine. The biggest risk of transmission will occur in clinical and care home settings where secondary handling of people and urine/fecal matter occurs. In addition, while SARS-CoV-2 RNA genetic material can be detected by in wastewater, this signal is greatly reduced by conventional treatment. Our analysis also suggests the likelihood of infection due to contact with sewage-contaminated water (e.g. swimming, surfing, angling) or food (e.g. salads, shellfish) is extremely low or negligible based on very low predicted abundances and limited environmental survival of SARS-CoV-2. These conclusions are corroborated by the fact that tens of million cases of COVID-19 have occurred globally, but exposure to feces or wastewater has never been implicated as a transmission vector.
Read more: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32836117/
Of course, most people don’t walk around in public naked – so in a sense we are already wearing butt masks in public, except when we do the business. A 2001 study suggested wearing clothes makes a significant difference to how how much environmental contamination can occur when someone farts.
Hot air?
“It all started with an enquiry from a nurse,” Dr Karl Kruszelnicki told listeners to his science phone-in show on the Triple J radio station in Brisbane. “She wanted to know whether she was contaminating the operating theatre she worked in by quietly farting in the sterile environment during operations, and I realised that I didn’t know. But I was determined to find out.”
Dr Kruszelnicki then described the method by which he had established whether human flatus was germ-laden, or merely malodorous. “I contacted Luke Tennent, a microbiologist in Canberra, and together we devised an experiment. He asked a colleague to break wind directly onto two Petri dishes from a distance of 5 centimetres, first fully clothed, then with his trousers down. Then he observed what happened. Overnight, the second Petri dish sprouted visible lumps of two types of bacteria that are usually found only in the gut and on the skin. But the flatus which had passed through clothing caused no bacteria to sprout, which suggests that clothing acts as a filter.
…
Read more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121900/
Lets just say I’m not exactly panicking about the hypothesised flatulence mode of transmission. Sneezing, coughing and surface contamination seem far more likely routes to infection than flatulence, though it seems remotely plausible that the occasional transmission through flatulence may occur.
Correction (EW): Sars-CoV-2, not Covid-Sars-2…
This gem from Fred Guttenberg (“victim of gun violence”, hater of Tucker Carlson, supporter of harassement of people Fred Guttenberg hates, BFF of Eric Swalwell):
https://twitter.com/fred_guttenberg/status/1419286833289064457
Not sure what accountability means for Fred “let’s harass TV anchors in stores” Guttenberg!
“It’s just 100 days of masking”
Another use for Griff’s butt plug.
The green… not Green, house effect.
This somehow reminded me of the Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles; the scene sitting around the campfire eating beans. Good thing Covid wasn’t a problem::)). Back in the 80’s I had a patient who played the pharmacist in the movie. He told me they spent so much time laughing they could hardly get anything done.
I would so love to see a properly set up fart study, it’s something I long wondered about.
And, what about the ‘filtering’ trousers/skirts bottoms and their contact with seats?
(and, people only wash hands AFTER they opened the stall door, so it’s possible to pick up droplets from the last user on the door handle and get unlucky despite handwashing if they stick to a skin crevice)
Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. It is unlikely that you will get exposed to covid but it happens; often with no clue of the source. It is prudent to prepare your immune system for the event.
IMO it is at-best irresponsible that essentially no one has made prominently available to the public the importance of adequate vitamin D to reduce the risk of getting sick with covid or anything else. Normal vit D is considered by medicos to be anywhere between 30 and 100 ng/ml. I have been taking 5000 IU vit D plus 2000 IU from a fish capsule every day for a year (I’m way past my use-by date, 180 lb, and don’t get much sun) and my level recently checked at 65 ng/ml. I also take 15 mg zinc and 250 mg vit C every day.
Available data has demonstrated that low vit D increases the risk of a bad outcome from covid. People with comorbidities e.g. obesity, diabetes are often deficient (< 20 ng/ml) in vit D. Low vit D is associated with bad outcome from covid. People living at high latitudes and/or with darker skin tone are more likely to have low vit D. Adequate vit D greatly reduces the risk of a bad outcome. https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2020/09/25/adequate-levels-of-vitamin-d-reduces-complications-death-among-covid-19-patients/ Taking a vit D supplement is probably a good idea even if you have been vaccinated.
“Adequate vit D greatly reduces the risk of a bad outcome”
IOW, systemic racism of Nature
Nature doesn’t play favorites. Lighter skin tone at low latitudes increases risk of skin cancer.
Fauci FIRST mentioned D in September of last year.
That proves he is a racist.
With his incredible qualifications there is no way he didn’t know the importance of D to People of Color.
Being a Democrat, he was willing to sacrifice POC to make TRUMP! look bad. The more POC dying, the worse for TRUMP!
total BS… or wiffs of it.
australia locks down AGAIN…. lockdowns work so well, they just keep doing them… like a tootsie pop, how many lockdowns will it take to get back to life prior to 2020? Answer…. as many as it takes according to Australian govt.
Call me crazy, but it seams like disparate versions of the Wuflu will be around for decades. The leaky vaccine will/is producing vaccine resistant versions. Lock downs forever??
sinovac using countries seem to be getting the “interesting variants” like delta and Lambda dont they? …hmm?
Lock downs forever?
I suggested as much middle of last year. What better way to keep the masses under control?
Yes, we keep letting infected people into the country just so we can have some more lockdowns.
“It all started with an enquiry from a nurse,” Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Oh yes, wacky crazy Dr Karl who is hip with the kids down at the ABC’s National Youth Network.
Credit where credit is due, Karl is entertaining.
On the other hand he is a radio personality and he process for answering questions on air was almost universally as follows
-Take question from listerner
-Stall
-Make joke about how awesome group sex is*
-Read out the answer his assistants have just looked up for him
*not making that up. Two or three times a show.
Karl is entertaining, and seems good natured and friendly, but still an entertainer with a good support team and fast ‘search’ fingers.
Believes CO2 is evil as well, although in his defence when you work on the ABC you need to toe the line.
Well some people call face masks “face nappies”. So maybe they are right.
I call them coffe filters.
Solution: wear your mask as a nappy.
A vegan diet is conducive to farting. It should be outlawed, verboten!
One, the Vegans shall not be offended, told to go back to Vega or called illegal extraterrestrials.
Two, this would be like killing a golden goose. The more flatulence there is, the more work for Fart Police.
Bats fart. They are up there laying down coronatrails above our heads. We are doomed.
The corona virus is present in our urine and feces. In the netherlands, they check the sewage water for the presence of the virus and use it as one of hte tools to map the spread of the virus.
The question is, is the virus still alive and able to do its work as a virus. In my humble opinion, that will be difficult. Any living organisms can survive within a range of environmental conditions. Humans survive between -50C and +50C; fish have a much smaller range. Fish can only survive if their water is is a certain pH-range. Viruses are the same. They like the pH of round 7. Due to the acid in our stomach, the pH down there is much lower than this. The corona virus has a very difficult time surviving there.
So what every virus comes out the other end is likely unable to do any damage anymore.
All instruments(medical) had to be autoclaved at over 100C due to HIV. You are mistaken about the upper limit of survivability of viruses.
early on I kept suggesting that PHAGE therapies would be useful
the russians used to take sewer outfall samples find the phages that were present and killing the required virus and breeding them up as therapies that DID work very well.
pity we are so IYI nowdays isnt it?
putting the loo lid DOWN before you flush is recommended at ALL times due to aerosolisation of fecal matter by the flush
thats been known for a long time but rarely followed by most
Ever see the Myth Busters program on the abundance of poo distributed by aerosol in the bathroom? It gets everywhere, including on toothbrushes!
Many public loos (at least here in the states) don’t have a lid to put down.
Wet or dry?
If a Rona fart is dangerous then a Rona shaft must be a major disaster! Major HAZMAT.
If a Rona fart is dangerous then a Rona shart must be a major biological disaster.
What’s next? An N 95 version of Depends?
So, the solution to this part of the problem is to avoid eating beans?
As noted by various others, a good and hearty exhalation of intestinal gases will definitively clear a room in less time than it takes to type this sentence. Perhaps the use of a colostomy bag could solve the problem, except that the essence is the problem, never mind the projectile quality or force of expulsion.
What’s next? Burping after a hearty meal spreads Covid??? It’s things like this that have me contemplating which bottle of wine to open this evening when I chow down on a plate of kielbasa with mixed beans, carrots, celery and onions. Usually, I consume Diet Coke or iced tea, but wine looks like a better choice right now.
Somebody please wake me when we get back to the Real World.
Good, but you are missing the power angle. How can mere “avoid eating beans” create more tax-funded jobs or at least increases importance of the existing ones? It doesn’t!
Now, creating a bean police, selling beans only to those who present vaccine passports, audits, raids on fart-easies… buying off police, with internal security and journalists jumping those who didn’t share…
Come on now, be honest…
Who here has not bet on a fart and lost?
Now we know, COVID didn’t come from a lab in China, it came from Raxacoricofallapatorius. It was the gas exchange what done it.
Doctor Who: “Excuse me. Would You mind Not Farting While I’m saving the world?” – YouTube
Jack Nicholson said it best in the 2007 film The Bucket List: “Never trust a fart.”
I always thought that was part of Billy Connolly’s advice on turning 60:
The global warming fart stopper also works to stop covid! Please buy the entire set – one size fits all.
And you just know that someone… somewhere… already tries to get funding for this fresh expanse of Science™. Now that fartology was demonstrated to be of eschatological importance too, it’s only a matter of time.