See e.g., https://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/did-people-in-the-middl..., which describes the many bathing habits of the Middle Ages that contradicts the original article's claims, including this anecdote:

> The Dutch philosopher Erasmus, writing in 1526, notes the fall of the public bathhouse. “Twenty-five years ago, nothing was more fashionable in Brabant than the public baths,” he remarked. “Today there are none, the new plague has taught us to avoid them.”

That is, water does spread disease, and public baths went out of fashion during the Renaissance, not the Middle Ages.