The deadly COVID-19 could be escalating throughout the world through farts, according to doctors.
Tests were accomplished this year have concluded that the coronavirus was present in the feces of more than half of patients who tested positive.
On the possibility of farts spreading disease, Mental Floss posed the question and looked at a small bit of science.
Mental Floss concluded, "Earlier this year, a Beijing district office for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that pants should be an effective barrier against farts that might carry the novel coronavirus. So to avoid spreading COVID-19, practice responsible social distancing-and avoid farting naked around other people."
A nurse asked Australian science author Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki the same question in 2001 because she was curious that she was infecting the operating room she worked in when quietly farting throughout procedures.
Kruszelnicki asked for help from Canberra microbiologist Luke Tennent who asked one of his colleagues to fart straightly into two Petri dishes from a distance of five cm - first with pants on and then a second time without pants. While the first Petri dish stayed clean, the second one grew bacteria overnight, seemingly suggesting that clothing acts as a barrier from the bacteria that might be discharged by a fart.
Kruszelnicki and Tennent's experiment did not delved too deeply into all types of bacteria that a pants-less person will be able to spread, but China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did.
The Beijing district disease control center also declared that pants are an effective tool to cut off coronavirus transmission through farts.
A lengthy and simultaneously humorous and serious article on their WeChat account, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of Tongzhou district in Beijing asserted that farts typically do not account for an alternative transmission route of the coronavirus, unless the other person takes a good sniff in close proximity of the gas from a pantless patient.
Doctors have alerted that farts consist of small poo particles that can transmit bacteria.
Scientists are undertaking an ongoing learning about how the coronavirus gets transmitted to more and more people.
It was previously made known to the public that it becomes prevalent via droplet and contact transmission.
The comments from the Tongzhou district CDC were prompted by netizens' concerns that patients who contracted the coronavirus may spread the illness via passing gas. The concerns were due to recent findings from a research team spearheaded by Chinese top medical adviser Zhong Nanshan that proposed that they had isolated novel coronavirus strains from samples of infected patients' feces and urine.
An article suggested to stay away from places where people are not fully clothed such as beaches to avoid catching the virus from a person's flatulence.
This was also deemed as a good rule of etiquette for life in general.
Doctors have remarked that more research are needed to be carried out to rule out passing the disease on to other people through omitting bodily gases.
Being aware and learning about the signs and symptoms of the coronavirus was deemed important. According to the CDC, "Americans should prepare for serious disruptions to their lives from the coronavirus here at home."
