Gross, I know, but this is a paper on covid virus concentrations from toilet flushing.
Supposedly, it can hang around in the air for up to three hours, so anyone entering the bathroom after that might inhale it. I wonder if spread then through the air ducts is possible, which could partly explain some of the spread in ships, apartment buildings, etc., although the paper is focused on hospitals and nursing homes.
A lot of patients in nursing homes, in particular, are incontinent, and there could be transmission to the staff even more directly than through the toilet flushing.
When this is more under control they're going to have to totally revamp sanitation procedures in care homes, but even in hospitals. Even hospital staff, who should be even better trained, are lax as hell from my experience in them. After one procedure, well, I won't go into the gory details, but I told the nurses aide not even to think about touching me until she disinfected her hands and then put on sterile gloves. Otherwise, I'd apply the ointment myself, thank you very much. And this was a university teaching hospital.
As for nursing homes, both the patients and the staff have to be better protected by the staff wearing face masks and gloves if need be when tending to the patients.
See:
"
Particle concentrations measured before and after the flush were found to be significantly different (0.3–10 μm). Bioaerosol concentrations when flushing fecal waste were found to be significantly greater than background concentrations (p-value = 0.005). However, the bioaerosol concentrations were not different across time (p-value = 0.977) or distance (p-value = 0.911) from the toilet, suggesting that aerosols generated may remain for longer than 30 min post flush. Toilets produce aerosol particles when flushed, with the majority of the particles being 0.3 μm in diameter. The particles aerosolized include microorganisms remaining from previous use or from fecal wastes. Differences in bioaerosol concentrations across conditions also suggest that toilet flushing is a source of bioaerosols that may result in transmission of pathogenic microorganisms.Conclusions
This study is the first to quantify particles and bioaerosols produced from flushing a hospital toilet during routine patient care. Future studies are needed targeting pathogens associated with gastrointestinal illness and evaluating aerosol exposure reduction interventions."
https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-018-0301-9#Sec9