New Research in Coronavirus in Water

[KKell]

I was looking up resources and found this helpful lit-review of studies. Looks like properly maintained pool would zap it in 10-20 minutes, or at least during a slam, but I might be reading this wrong.

“The same study showed that chlorine was more effective than chlorine dioxide in inactivating E. coli, f2 phage and SARS-CoV and a free residual chlorine of 0.5 mg/L from chlorine or 2.19 mg/L from chlorine dioxide in wastewater ensured complete inactivation of SARS-CoV. In the experimental conditions of the study, SARS-CoV was inactivated completely in presence of 10 mg/L chlorine and a minimum contact time of 10 min or in 1 min using 20 mg/L chlorine.”

Coronavirus in water environments: Occurrence, persistence and concentration methods - A scoping review - PMC

Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses causing a spectrum of disease ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). The recent outbreak ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Where this matters more than for a pool is for my church if we’re planning on baptizing multiple people without doing a complete water exchange.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I was looking up resources and found this helpful lit-review of studies. Looks like properly maintained pool would zap it in 10-20 minutes, or at least during a slam, but I might be reading this wrong.

“The same study showed that chlorine was more effective than chlorine dioxide in inactivating E. coli, f2 phage and SARS-CoV and a free residual chlorine of 0.5 mg/L from chlorine or 2.19 mg/L from chlorine dioxide in wastewater ensured complete inactivation of SARS-CoV. In the experimental conditions of the study, SARS-CoV was inactivated completely in presence of 10 mg/L chlorine and a minimum contact time of 10 min or in 1 min using 20 mg/L chlorine.”

Coronavirus in water environments: Occurrence, persistence and concentration methods - A scoping review - PMC

Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses causing a spectrum of disease ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). The recent outbreak ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Where this matters more than for a pool is for my church if we’re planning on baptizing multiple people without doing a complete water exchange.

Those studies assume no CYA in the water. 20mg/L FC in zero CYA would create about 10ppm hypochlorous acid (HOCl) which would be incredibly irritating to anyone enter the water.

If you must do baptism by immersion (not all denominations require that), then you should probably come up with an alternate means such as using small kiddie pools and then dumping the water each time and disinfecting. I’m sure many churches find themselves in your same situation and have come up with creative solutions...

 

[bmoreswim]

Haha, crack the ice and hit the river. Like the days in the Jordan a few thousand years ago.

 

[KKell]

Those studies assume no CYA in the water. 20mg/L FC in zero CYA would create about 10ppm hypochlorous acid (HOCl) which would be incredibly irritating to anyone enter the water.

If you must do baptism by immersion (not all denominations require that), then you should probably come up with an alternate means such as using small kiddie pools and then dumping the water each time and disinfecting. I’m sure many churches find themselves in your same situation and have come up with creative solutions...

Thanks,
if you don't mind, I'd like to ask a few more questions. I've seen people discuss the safety of singing, but I haven't seen anyone talk about the safety of baptism yet, so if I can get some good information to other pastors that might be helpful.

So the actual study is this https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2011.07.012

So two questions: Let's assume the actual baptismal I'd be working with, which is already on the level of "kiddie pool" Portable Baptistry, Baptistry Heater, Church Baptistries, Baptistery : Church Baptistry | Baptistery Heaters | Portable Baptistries | Baptismal Pools | PortableBaptistry.com, the Portable Baptistry is the truly portable baptismal pool

It holds 150 gallons and has a tiny heater that takes about 24 hours to heat up. So water replacement isn't a great option. First, to make sure I'm getting the pool math right, mg/L is the same as ppm, which is generally called FC here (when we're talking chlorine atoms), correct?

If I'm doing the pool math correctly, to get to 20 FC in 150 gallons I'd just need 3.1oz of regular 6% household bleach (assuming it isn't deteriorated from storage, etc.). So, if I pout that in, mix it up, and wait about 5 minutes, it should kill every Coronavirus in there.

If I then have too much HOCL, couldn't I just re-belenace it with appropriate chemicals to get it to something you can more comfortably be in for about the one minute it takes to get baptized? And then, if that product takes down the FC, get it back up with another 3 oz for the next person?

Yes, that would mean I'd be standing there with a Bible in one hand and TF testkit in the other, but by goodness, Catholics have been having all the fun turning bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Jesus, let a baptist have some fun transforming potentially dangerous water into safe water for a change. Not that I've currently got people lined up out the door waiting to get baptized, but I'm trying to get ready just in case as an act of faith if you will.

Thanks again for any help or tips on doing this safely, at least as far as the water is concerned.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Leaving aside a rousing discussion of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, this might give you some comfort in using 20ppm FC (yes, ppm and mg/L are equivalent for the purposes of the DPD chlorine test) -

Eczema bleach bath: Can it improve my symptoms?

A diluted bleach bath may help treat chronic eczema.

www.mayoclinic.org

Dermatologists sometimes prescribe “bleach baths” for their patients. The FC levels are very much higher than 20ppm. However, people aren’t generally clothed in a bleach bath and don’t typically dunk their heads. So you can probably do as you describe, maybe even up the FC a bit but just ensure people aren’t wearing their “Sunday best” and maybe give them access to a shower afterwards. Definitely close your eyes and hold your nose before taking the plunge...

 

[Newdude]

PortablebaptisteryDOTcom ????? What a time to be alive !! What would we do witbout the interwebs ?

So how many baptisms would need to be done in one service ? For the forseeable future it would probably be best to spread them out to 2 a week with a 15 min break inbetween to sanitize. Baptism, hymn, collection, long hymn, baptism. (Or whatver parts you'd prefer of course). The pastor could hang out nearby (unfortunately wet) while someone chlorinated, waited the 5 min kill time and then added hydrogen peroxide to lower the high chlorine to a tolerable level for the second one. If it was only one you could cover the baptismal pool and dose it after the service ended.

 

[mgtfp]

I would be very careful here. The consequences of getting your calculations wrong could be enormous - you don't want to be responsible for a new cluster of infections. There is no cure for Covid-19. That is a big difference compared to other potentially dangerous diseases that are at least treatable, so that outbreaks can get contained. There are always two sides you have to consider when doing a risk assessment: Occurrence probability, and severity if the event does occur. With proper chlorine treatment and water filtration, you might be able to reduce the occurrence probability. But without a cure or vaccination for Covid-19, I would assess the severity as high.

I haven't read the paper that you are referring to, but it sounds like the authors were investigating SARS-COV-1, and not the current SARS-COV-2 virus. I don't know if the results can get transferred. The general behaviour might be similar (they are both corona viruses after all) , but if you want to know if you have to wait 10 or 20 or ??? minutes in-between baptisms, then you want reliable CT-values. Further, literature CT-values are usually based on the assumption that the source of your water contamination, e.g. faecal matter, has been removed from the water or at least evenly dissolved in the water, so that your chlorine can get in contact with the pathogens and kill them. You probably wouldn't have to deal with faecal matter here, but you might have other pathogen clusters (like snot, mucus) in your water that dissolve only slowly, but are difficult to remove without an efficient filtration system, and may protect pathogens from chlorine attack.