So what about the coronavirus?

In general, contact with contaminated surfaces is not believed to be a primary method of coronavirus infection, but this is still understudied. While shared bathrooms can increase the spread of gastrointestinal infections, we don’t know how bathrooms play a role in the transmission of a respiratory virus, such as the coronavirus, that has also been identified in stool.

We also don’t know the risk — if any — posed by coronavirus aerosols in the toilet plume, so admittedly there are a lot of unknowns.

What we do know is that there are certain bathroom behaviors that will help protect you from many nefarious microbes.