Beware the Lidless Toilet
An early-pandemic theory of COVID transmission now seems dubious. But there are other reasons to fear the toilet plume.
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Don’t be fooled by the unsettling elegance of the phrase toilet plume. It describes the invisible cloud of particles heaved by a toilet when flushed, and was once feared to be a vector for COVID-19. My colleague Jacob Stern recently revisited the toilet-plume panic for The Atlantic, writing that although this early-pandemic fear hasn’t been substantiated, there are still other reasons to beware of the open lid. I called him to find out more.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
