How is it possible for us to be ill when we have barely been out?

[MrsHookey]

I had sore throat and muscle aches and swollen glands last week and had to take time off sick and now the children are complaining of sore throats. We've literally been to the A&E and health surgery over the last 2 weeks, once each, wearing masks all the time. Those are the only places we have been in 12 weeks. This doesn't seem like coronavirus. How do you get ill when you haven't really seen anyone outside your family or been many places for weeks?

We didn't go to a&e with a sore throat! God never. The GP told me to take the little one on a definitely non covid matter.

My niece has corona at this very moment and she hasn’t been out a single time since the day the schools closed.

You are saying you’ve ‘literally been to the A&E and health surgery’ like you’ve been for a healthy walk in the deserted countryside!

I listened to an episode of This American Life recently where a woman and her husband had been isolating - washing their groceries, cleaning their post, etc. She was trying to find out why, even after all of the precautions, her husband had gotten a cold.
In the end there was a doctor who came to the conclusion that it had been dormant inside the husband for a while, apparently it was just lurking around waiting to make an appearance.
Not the best description of the episode but here’s a link to the segment if you wanted to listen.
www.thisamericanlife.org/703/stuck/act-three-6

The more I hear about these tests the more I am absolutely convinced that they are giving a huge number of false negatives. Still.

Myself and my 7 month old son had those exact same symptoms and had not been out of the house for weeks and had no contact with anyone else who had. I had a negative test for covid through the zoe app. I took my son to the gp who said he had tonsillitus. I guess it may have been bacterial rather than viral. Antibiotics seemed to clear my sons throat.