I thought someone would ask this.
Yes, coronavirus can indeed contaminate waterways through faeces (though there is no evidence to show burials caused waterway contamination yet). However, the fact is, the virus particles are highly diluted if anyone happens to drink it. You have to be exposed to a certain concentration of viral particles to be actually infected from it. Therefore, by the time the viral articles contaminate ground water and reaches human consumption, it is in a highly diluted state with no potential risk to infect anyone. That is why we say Covid19 infection is not water born, but is only air-born or droplet transmission. Other method of transmission is through contact surfaces (but this mode is also low compared to air born transmission). The most likely way of transmission is though air-born by staying close to a covid19 infected patient in an enclosed space (that is why so many factory workers, fish market workers have been infected). So based on the research available, despite the fact that Covid19 CAN contaminate waterways, the viral load is still not enough to infect people.
That said, all this research is still not even one year old. So who knows, sometime later maybe someone else will discover Covid19 CAN be transmitted rarely through ground water. That is why I too am against burials.
Also the biggest argument against burial is that standard infection control method of getting rid of hospital bio-hazard waste is by incineration. We do NOT usually bury bio hazardous hospital waste in Sri Lanka. This fact has been very conveniently forgotten by most so called experts, even by WHO specialists, and our own virologists. I am at the moment very disappointed by the fact that many in the scientific community are bending backwards to please some religious extremists.
Quite true. I have posted about the viral loads a long time ago in the Covid megathreads and recently made several comments regarding incineration when this matter was raised. I totally agree with you on this issue.
Previously, I have stressed that during a pandemic, what's normal need not necessarily apply and the safety considerations of the living takes precedence over those dead. Pls refer to what I posted about a while ago (26th December 2020) on another thread about keeping frozen bodies and the news that these tested positive several days later.
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Only made a few comments on this issue. Simply because it's useless to argue. Only made thie following statement a couple of days ago...
-The whole problem is just because of the well established fact that...... "Religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence". -
It may be that no one did studies with deceased humans. But the obvious fact is that the colder the environment is the viruses will stay active. The warmer things are they tend to get inactivated.
Covid is an enveloped virus.... and dry environments lead to faster rates of inactivation. In general, non-enveloped viruses can tolerate higher temperatures and lower humidity levels than enveloped viruses.
There are studies made on avian influenza viruses which are enveloped. In Chicken, 90% of the virus was inactivated in around 15 days when the carcass was left at room temperature. But if the carcass was held at refrigerator temperatures (4C/40F), the virus lasted 4.5 times longer – that’s more than two months.
This is exactly what these guys noted.... and it's not rocket science.
It's also important to
remember that while 90% sounds like a lot, you have to keep in mind that viruses make a
lot of copies of themselves. It’s not unusual for viruses to make billions if not trillions of copies. So, if it takes 15 days at room temperature for 90% of the virus to be inactivated and you have 1,000,000 or more viruses in there, it could
take as long as 3 months or more before all the virus is gone. ....
I also wrote on another thread that from a 7,000 year old tooth researchers were able to detect and sequence the complete genome of the hepatitis B virus, or HBV. Note the only difference is that HBV is a DNA virus whereas Covid is RNA.
In a Pandemic situation the cleanest method of disposal is incineration. Religious sensitivities should not be even on the discussion table. I am not taking any views based on any religion.
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