Don’t Fart If You Have Coronavirus, You Might Be Spreading It
Australian doctors have discussed whether people with COVID-19 can spread it by farting, with the discussion happening during the Friday episode of ABC podcast ‘Coronacast‘.
Dr. Norman Swan is the producer and host of the Coronacast podcast, and told his listeners “No bare-bottom farting“, with an amused tone. Swan said that “Luckily, we wear a mask, which covers our farts all the time” and by masks for our butts, he means your jeans, pants, shorts, dresses, and probably most important of all — your underwear.
Dr. Swan added: “I think that what we should do in terms of social distancing and being safe is that … you don’t fart close to other people, and that you don’t fart with your bottom bare“.
It wasn’t just Dr. Swan either, with Australian emergency physician Dr. Andy Tagg also tagging into the fart-out-coronavirus theory, where he asked on Twitter: “So, can the bottom-based emissions of someone with coronavirus be silent and deadly?”
Tagg pondered whether flatulence itself is an “aerosol-generating procedure.” (His determination: yes.) A recent study, in fact, suggested a post-flush toilet plume could even be cause for concern when it comes to spreading the coronavirus via “aerosolized feces.” Righty-o.
Mount Sinai South Nassau epidemiologist and professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dr. Aaron E. Glatt said: “Studies have clearly shown that a significant percentage of COVID-19 patients do have GI [gastrointestinal] symptoms (alone, or in combination with respiratory or other general symptoms) at the time of illness presentation“.
He added: “However, there are no published data on whether flatulence alone presents any risk of transmission, although in a clothed person, it would be unlikely to be a significant route of transmission“.