One-in-seven public toilets in New Zealand don't have any soap and some don't even have taps that work, a survey of the nation's bogs has found.
Despite the worldwide pandemic, less than a third of the loos University of Otago health experts looked at had lids to prevent "droplet splatter and aerosol clouds", as the World Health Organization recommends. Even fewer had motion-activated taps or flushing (just 28 and 18.5 percent), and only one in eight had COVID Tracer QR codes on display.
Fewer than one in 50 even had a sign reminding people to wash their hands, if they were lucky enough to be in a facility that had soap and water.
"In the sense that we've been in a period of pandemic risk, I think the results were a problem," study co-author Nick Wilson told Newshub.
Rural latrines fared even worse. While most of the thrones looked at were in cities - predominantly Wellington, Hutt City and Porirua - the researchers also dropped into some elsewhere in the country when they travelled for other reasons.
In these "convenience samples", which were mostly in provincial and rural areas, loos were 12 times more likely to have no water than in the city and more than twice as likely to be without soap.
"Only one council that we could identify had increased the provision of soap in response to the pandemic," said Dr Wilson. "Clearly it's really not a good situation, far from ideal."
The overall results weren't much better than in a previous study conducted in 2012. While soap was slightly more prevalent in 2020 than eight years earlier, there was no improvement in the number of wharepaku without water.
"From a qualitative perspective, we noted that several COVID-19 signs in tourist areas were in Chinese language, and a few handwashing signs included te reo Māori," the study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal on Friday, said.
"We also noted that some automatic water and soap dispensers took some time to activate and then dispensed too little soap or too little water for a satisfactory handwash (ie, repeat activation was required)."
Newshub contacted the Wellington, Hutt City and Porirua councils, where the majority of the inspected dunnies were located.
There are 28 public toilets run by the Porirua City Council. Manager of property Vic McGuigan said they're satisfied with the level of hygiene.
"Regular inspections are carried out by council staff and repairs done if required. The public do let us know if a facility is in need of repairs, a clean, or if soap or toilet paper is out via our contact centre, after hours if necessary, and through the Antenno app. This information is acted upon as quickly as the situation allows."
Soap is also available at "all these facilities", McGuigan said, as is information about COVID-19.
"While council makes every effort to provide soap, toilet paper and other necessary things at our public toilets, we do however spend tens of thousands of dollars each year making repairs to these facilities due to vandalism. This makes an obvious impact on the availability, usefulness and quality of our public amenities."
The other councils are yet to respond.
The researchers, both of them men, were limited to looking at male and unisex toilets - but note "internationally, there are indications that the quality of public toilet facilities for females may be poorer".
It's not actually a legal requirement that COVID Tracer QR codes are present on public toilets.
Dr Wilson said the study didn't cover privately owned toilets available to the public, such as those in service stations and malls. He said public toilets internationally aren't very good, but singled out Japan for being "far ahead" in both design and cleanliness.
"There's a culture in Japan around really high-quality public facilities, so New Zealand could learn from the Japanese approach."
