How are most people contracting covid-19?

[FreierFall]

Is it on public transport, in hospitals, care homes, supermarkets? Is there any data on this? I bet it's not from walking within 2 m of someone in the street!

Imo we caught something -sore throat cough etc from supermarket delivery person or shopping. Not sure if covid.

schools shut 4w ago
so up to 28 days or higher incubation.
Then those living with family could be +28d or more because they may avoid it a few days at stsrt

of contagion but if you are contagious 20 days then could be 28d on that.
So imo 56d.
Also as kids can be asymptomatic you cant isolate from them.
Then yes supermarkets.
Care home stsff.
Nhs staff and their kids.
Cyclists
Runners.
Asymptomatic people on walks.
Post/delivery
Possibly the wind can make droplets carry.
Even germs on the pavement tracked into your house.
Frozen food packaging.
Public transport.
Recycling and bins.

As we arent wearing masks it is likely everywhere and lives on surfaces for days.
So yes i think it will take oionger for numbers to drop here thab in other places after all the nhs staff havent got the ppe.
Once schools open it will spike straight up again as they likely wont have social distancing or smaller classes or masks

@Cam77

I don’t think you can say that actually... the level of testing is so inadequate that it’s impossible to say what the current transmission levels are with any certainty.
Testing when it is undertaken is not very accurate- you can test Covid negative 7 days after becoming symptomatic. Tests can also be inconclusive or incorrect.

Case in point being my friend who had 2 tests done in a 24 hour period (she was in hospital for a routine treatment, showed symptoms but also showed symptoms of a side effect for her treatment) first test back negative- medical staff needed to be certain, no change in symptoms ... asked for another test... that one was positive.

I think sometimes the incubation period can be much longer than 2 weeks, and there’s also the possibility of having caught it from someone else in the house who’s asymptomatic.

"The majority of viral infections come from prolonged exposures in confined spaces with other infected individuals. Person-to-person and surface contact is by far the most common cause. 78-85% from long term living together, or day to multi-day exposure."

So say the WHO.

Pre lockdown there were all sorts of ways. People I know caught it at pubs, on planes, business meetings, and at gigs. Since then I think there's been a secondary group of family members of people who caught it pre lockdown, plus keyworkers, especially those who use public transport or work in care homes.

But we're well mainly guessing or going off small numbers we know if. I'd love to see some actual statistics if anyone knows of any?

Three ways: respiratory - when someone coughs or sneezes and transmit the virus through droplets which other people breath in, this is the reason behind the 2m social distancing as most droplets within that distance will fall to the ground; aerosol - when people breath they release very fine infected particles that can remain suspended in the air for up to three hours; touching contaminated surfaces (hence washing hands). Everything I've seen suggests the first two are more common than the last. There hasn't been enough time to say definitely that X% contract the virus any one way.

Apparently in Italy it was largely passed to others in hospitals. My friend's mum got it (hospitalised and positive result) and she hasn't left her house for several weeks (she has other health problems). Her husband has so she must have caught from him although he's had no symptoms at all.

People I know caught it at pubs, on planes, business meetings, and at gigs

How do you know so many people with confirmed cases?

I've been thinking about this too OP.
I'm not interested in how people caught it pre-lockdown, but 4 weeks in, it would be interesting to know whether household with covid

• has someone working in frontline health/care
• has someone still working with contact with others (eg supermarkets, delivery etc)
• some kind of 'isolation compliance' measure (eg 0 if attending parties, 6 if social distancing but still shopping without masks, 10 if isolating and washing shopping)

Public transport is down by 80%.

I reckon I caught it at work or the supermarket, and DH and DC caught it from me.

The only person I directly know of was the neighbour opposite my house.
70rs old, v healthy, fell and fractured her wrist in the garden.
Taken to hospital, contracted Covid-19 in the hospital, passed away on Friday.
Tragic.

I reckon mostly hospitals, their families and care homes.

Initially on busy public transport too I bet but I suppose that's not an issue now.

If it was a major problem at supermarkets many staff would be off and we'd know about it. I spoke to local sainsbury's manager and he said he had same proportion of staff off as usual.

If I've understood correctly then you can be carrying it before you have symptoms, or carry it and not have symptoms, so people could still be going out shopping etc before they take ill. I also suspect that households aren't being as strict as they could be if one person has symptoms and seeing the way some of my neighbours are still mixing households it could soon spread if one of them contracts it. I only know 2 people who think they've had it (GP fairly certain without testing) and they both had it when the incubation period would have been while offices were still open, commuting to work on public transport etc.

I reckon there will be a rise in cases soon in my area.
Mainly thanks to the Bbq my ndn is currently having..

I think public transport was a major risk which is evidenced by the number of bus drivers dying. I haven’t heard statistics for supermarket workers or teachers, so hopefully they are/were not at increased risk. Even in a hospital setting 2/3 of people tested seem to be testing negative, so I assume 2/3 of the people on this thread who think they’ve had it probably haven’t.

A PP said it can't be supermarkets as all areas have these. Therefore, why are some places hotspots.

Why does Bristol have so few cases in comparison to Birmingham?

What about population density? Surely, looking at London too it has to be that. But....Cumbria is greatly infected too and I assume that's nowhere near the density of the 1st and 2nd cities.

Stumped.

my area doesn't have many cases so I don't see how a main reason can be from supermarkets or there wouldn't be such differences between the regions.

The difference could easily come from the cases in the area before the lockdown, then spreading them amongst households and supermarkets etc

I would guess most of the people catching it now will be from other family members. Or key workers catching it at work, or their children catching it at school.

I doubt that there are many cases being caught by walking past someone at a distance of 1.5 metres, or from unwashed shopping /post. But it will be interesting to hear how many confirmed cases there are from people who live alone and are not going into work.

Im working at home because I’m pregnant but I would estimate that more than 50% of my colleagues who have kept going into the office have had it and they all caught it at at work (Westminster).

@PlesantVille - I know (loosely) two people who died of it - one caught it in hospital (where he was already quite ill) and the other at a pub gig, where his band mates caught what was obviously also Covid at the same time. A friend's husband also caught it most likely at a business meeting where a colleague had just picked it up on a plane. That was just before they stopped contact tracing, so he was tested. By the time he realised he might have it, he'd passed it on to my friend and she'd passed it on to quite a few other friends at a gig. They all went down with it at the same time and some were quite poorly, see seems very likely they had it. I do know quite a lot of people. But all of this contagion was pre-lockdown. I don't personally know anyone who's caught it since.