The silent but deadly disease? Minister claims Covid can be spread by flatulence
THE official advice is to open a window to slow the spread of coronavirus but now there may be an added incentive: the virus could be spread by flatulence, according to one government minister.
The minister said they had read “credible-looking stuff on it” from other countries, although UK scientists are yet to produce a paper on it.
The source said there was evidence of a “genomical-linked tracing connection between two individuals from a [lavatory] cubicle in Australia”.
He said there were also “well documented cases of diseases spreading through waste pipes during lockdowns in Hong Kong once the U-tubes had dried out”. However, another minister told The Daily Telegraph that as Covid is “a respiratory transmitted disease” then “transmissions and shedding is [via] mouth and actually mainly nose”.
A spokesman for Boris Johnson said he was not aware of the claims that coronavirus could be spread by flatulence.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We keep the latest scientific evidence under review.”
Healthy people tend to break wind five to 25 times a day. Testing has found Sars-cov2 can be present in faecal matter but the risk of spreading Covid-19 this way is thought to be reduced because underwear filters harmful particles, in the same way a face mask can.
Suggestions of spreading Covid-19 through flatulence first emerged in Australia last year when Norman Swan, an Australian medic, advised on an ABC podcast: “No bare-bottom farting.”
Scientists discovered early in the pandemic that genetic fragments of the virus could be detected in sewage.
In the UK, officials ramped up its programme to analyse waste water for early signs of coronavirus in May. Sewage-testing now covers two thirds of England’s population.
Samples are sent from treatment plants to a laboratory in Exeter. The programme has helped detect local outbreaks and variants of concern.
Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, described it as “an additional detection system” for Covid-19.