When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go! Public restrooms have always offered pungent but convenient relief to folks engaging with everyday outdoor life. As we cautiously resume our new normal activities; post Covid-19 but pre vaccine, public restrooms are slowly becoming more of a notorious petri-dish than ever before.
The usual grimy door handles, moist toilet seats, and side-by-side golden streams were already less than ideal pre-pandemic, but kids need to exercise some serious stealth mode between viral waves. The WHO and other local health officials leading us through the battle against Covid-19, have recognized that public toilets need to be reopened, but used with extreme caution. In addition to our privileged 20 seconds of hand washing, here are a few more tips on how to safely use a public restroom to reduce you & your children’s risk of catching Covid-19:
Know the Dangers
The most dangerous part of using a public restroom, or any other public space right now, is the fact that it is public. People are the baseline factor making these spaces dangerous.
Person-to-person is the most common transmission type for the virus – so any direct human contact with someone out of your social bubble can be problematic. When we pair this with a small, poorly ventilated space; the hazardous potential increases exponentially.
First up, if you have a choice, you’ll want to choose a restroom that regulates the amount of people going in at a single time. To reduce your risk, toilets that just have one stall/one person at a time would be ideal as you would not be sharing the indoor air with anybody else.
Since most public spaces currently rely on self-regulation, even if there are no safety stickers, you should line up with social distancing in mind. You’ll want to keep to a single-file and stand the regular 2 meters apart.
Keep Your Hands to Yourself (but don’t touch your face)
Once inside, ensure that you continue social distancing as much as spatially possible, and get in and out of there both quickly and safely.
Moms, we’ll have to skip our habit of fixing hair and make-up in public restrooms – you’ll need to keep your mask on, and avoid touching your face.
In fact, you’ll have to be hyper-vigilant about everything you touch. Restrooms have many steel surfaces (which can harbor Covid-19 for up to 5 days), and some of them are highly trafficked like; door handles, sinks, and manual flushing handles – so be conscious about what your hands land on.
Fatal Flushes
There is an ongoing medical debate about whether flushing a public toilet can promote the spread of Covid-19. In general, toilet plume can lift to about 3 meters high, linger in the air, and land on near surfaces. Super gross, but true.
In relation to the virus, research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), has confirmed evidence that the virus can be active in poop. Which means that even though we don’t have records of fecal-oral transmission yet, there is a chance of this happening.
To be safe, if the toilet has a lid, you should close it when you flush. If not, ensure that you turn your face away from the toilet bowl while you flush, and make a swift exit. I don’t know about you, but now that I know this, I’ll keep doing this long after we beat the virus.
Wash Your Hands
By now we all know the risks associated with poor hand washing hygiene. Yes gents. Ensure that you’re committed to the full 20 seconds of hand washing after using the toilet. In high-trafficked zones like public restrooms, experts recommend that you follow up your hand washing with an additional squirt of hand sanitizer once you’ve left the restroom.
Some lesser known tips are that you should always use a paper towel to turn off that potentially dangerous metal faucet. And use another to ensure that your hands are fully dry – wet hands are more of a bacterial trap and tool for transferring our tiny crowned foes. If the doors aren’t automatic, you may also want to save that paper towel for the notorious door handle on your way out.
Remember, we’re all still in this together. Go, but do it safely.
