People are not getting to the bottom of this. Virus goes from one host to the other via the means of aerosol/droplet particulates. There is some evidence that it can stay "active" while on a surface such as a door knob.
Everything else is external.
So, whether you test or not, the fundamentals of aforementined mechanism most likely won't change. Cleaning public areas with disinfectant, educating the public of detailed ways of how this virus spreads (I mean really detailed information... not just what the media is doing currently) and doing everything to make sure there is no shortage of sanitizing supplies.
I can't seem to find exact details of experiments or academic research on how this virus mechanically moves from one body to the other. No newspaper is publishing information about it. Turns out a lot of academic jargon can be explained to laymen if you have someone like Feynman write an article. So, if we can understand the precise mechanism of spread, we can bring down the R value close to 1 or below slowing down the exponential growth.
If there is a probablistic aspect to the containment strategy, say for example, no matter what contingencies we put in place, no matter how clean the society gets, there is always some probability of propagation. That means we're not trying hard enough to understand the virus propagation and to enforce containment procedures. Ultimate goal would be to a get vaccine invented and distributed.
There was a case of the virus being transmitted that way but it shouldn't be a concern if the plumbing is up to code with things like s-curves in the pipes. There are a lot of viruses and bacteria like norovirus and cholera that are much better at traveling that way than a coronavirus and modern toilet and sewer systems should be designed with that in mind.
Larger scale, a decent size rain can upset a wastewater treatment plant, and that is also assuming nobody is dumping waste directly into the river, intentional or otherwise.
Additionally, there have been multiple articles of detection via feces.
The water treatment plant may be redistributing the virus from an upstream contamination.
In general feces from people infected with various varieties of Coronavirus aren't infectious. You can find segments of RNA in it but, though I'm not an expert on it, the good folks at This Week in Virology think that's just from mucus that's been swallowed. We had one instance of fecal transmission with the first SARS but it wasn't typical the way it is with other viruses and we haven't seen that with the new virus.
Comments
People are not getting to the bottom of this. Virus goes from one host to the other via the means of aerosol/droplet particulates. There is some evidence that it can stay "active" while on a surface such as a door knob.
Everything else is external.
So, whether you test or not, the fundamentals of aforementined mechanism most likely won't change. Cleaning public areas with disinfectant, educating the public of detailed ways of how this virus spreads (I mean really detailed information... not just what the media is doing currently) and doing everything to make sure there is no shortage of sanitizing supplies.
I can't seem to find exact details of experiments or academic research on how this virus mechanically moves from one body to the other. No newspaper is publishing information about it. Turns out a lot of academic jargon can be explained to laymen if you have someone like Feynman write an article. So, if we can understand the precise mechanism of spread, we can bring down the R value close to 1 or below slowing down the exponential growth.
If there is a probablistic aspect to the containment strategy, say for example, no matter what contingencies we put in place, no matter how clean the society gets, there is always some probability of propagation. That means we're not trying hard enough to understand the virus propagation and to enforce containment procedures. Ultimate goal would be to a get vaccine invented and distributed.
This is a paper about how coronaviruses can survive in water and wastewater systems.
https://west.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/data/Gundy2008_...
Has anyone looked at the water supply as a method of transmission?
There was a case of the virus being transmitted that way but it shouldn't be a concern if the plumbing is up to code with things like s-curves in the pipes. There are a lot of viruses and bacteria like norovirus and cholera that are much better at traveling that way than a coronavirus and modern toilet and sewer systems should be designed with that in mind.
I am not talking vent pipes...
Larger scale, a decent size rain can upset a wastewater treatment plant, and that is also assuming nobody is dumping waste directly into the river, intentional or otherwise.
Additionally, there have been multiple articles of detection via feces.
The water treatment plant may be redistributing the virus from an upstream contamination.
In general feces from people infected with various varieties of Coronavirus aren't infectious. You can find segments of RNA in it but, though I'm not an expert on it, the good folks at This Week in Virology think that's just from mucus that's been swallowed. We had one instance of fecal transmission with the first SARS but it wasn't typical the way it is with other viruses and we haven't seen that with the new virus.