Good thing summer’s ending: Swimming pool facts to make you squirm
Posted by staff / August 16, 2014
There’s nothing more refreshing than taking a dip in the local watering hole, right?
Wrong, particularly if you’re a germaphobe, because that chlorine smell isn’t the comforting smell of clean water, it’s the smell of chlorine interacting with body nasties like urine, feces and sweat, many of which are never entirely conquered by the mighty chemical.
According to News Mic:
When the germs inside those fluids hang around in the pool, they can make us sick. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a category for the types of illnesses brought on by a dip in a public pool. Recreational water illnesses (RWIs) are every bit as nasty as they sound, and include infections of the skin, intestinal tract, ear and eyes. Swallowing pool water is especially dangerous, since many illnesses, including diarrhea (the most common RWI) enter the body this way. This is especially alarming considering that reported cases of cryptosporidiosis, the parasite that causes diarrhea, jumped 200% between 2004 and 2008, from 3,411 cases to 10,500.
Bring on fall!
Full story at News Mic.
Feature graphics credit: Canva
Comments are off for this post.