OREANDA-NEWS. CNN reports that Hong Kong authorities suspected that the coronavirus COVID-19 could spread through sewer pipes.

This hypothesis was prompted by an incident that occurred in one of the residential buildings. One of the infected was a 62 year old woman who did not visit the Chinese city of Wuhan, which became the center of the epidemic, and did not communicate with other infected people. The only possible source of infection was a 75 year old man who was hospitalized a week earlier. According to preliminary information, the man and woman were not familiar, but the same sewer riser pipe passed through their apartments.

Since infection through the sewage system in Hong Kong already occurred during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002, the authorities evacuated part of the residents of the house and began to check the water supply and sewage systems. They did not find a virus in them. In other apartments, through which the suspicious pipe passes, no infected people were found.

Specialists noted that there is no threat of spreading the virus, because with the normal pipe arrangement COVID-19 will not be able to go outside, because water in the system will stop it (in 2002, there was no water in the pipes).