Toilets could be flush with coronavirus, masks struggle to contain repeated coughs – Physics World

Here is another very good reason to wash your hands after using the facilities – and you might also want to wear a mask. Yun-Yun Li, Ji-Xiang Wang and Xi Chen of Southeast University in Nanjing, China have published a paper called “Can a toilet promote virus transmission? From a fluid dynamics perspective”. The answer, at least according to their computer simulation, is an emphatic “yes”.

They found that as water pours into the toilet bowl it creates vortices that continue upward into the air carrying droplets to a height of nearly 1 m. These droplets are so small they float in the air for more than 1 min and could be inhaled or settle onto surfaces – say the researchers.