As if we can’t get any more anxious about the world’s current crazy, we get a study from Yangzhou University in China claiming that coronavirus can be passed to the next user after flushing the toilet. This may or may not sound like a subplot of a thriller we hate.

According to The Washington Post, a study by Yangzhou University in China suggests that merely flushing the toilet could spread COVID-19 to the next person who uses the same stall. This is because of “virus-containing clouds that waft into the air when a toilet is flushed.”

In an email, co-author Ji-Xiang Wang shared that “flushing will lift the virus up from the toilet bowl.” In a simulation, they found out that “aerosol droplets forced upward by a flush appear to spread wide enough and linger long enough to be inhaled.” Although the virus can be found in the stool of COVID-19 patients, it still hasn’t been determined whether the virus that gets tangled into droplets is enough to actually infect a person.

“The risk is not zero, but how great a risk it is, we don’t know,” University of Arizona microbiologist Charles P. Gerba told The Post, according to Complex.

As we all gradually turn into germophobes, is there anything we can do? Wang advised we close the toilet’s lid first before flushing. If closing isn’t possible, we just have to wash our hands—thoroughly. Take it away, “Happy Birthday.”

Still from “Bob’s Burgers”