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Covid

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Original poster

Does anyone else not know where they caught covid from?

26 replies

Jackieweaverishere · 08/10/2021 18:03

I felt ill last week and tested positive. None of my close contacts - family or work colleagues - have tested positive on PCRs. During the possible infection time I'd always been with one of them. Apart from being in a couple of shops for 1-2 mins.

I find it hard to believe that I could catch it from a minute in a shop and then not pass it to my DH, unless being double jabbed greatly reduced how infectious I was ..

Does anyone else have no idea how they caught it? Or think they caught it from a brief visit to a shop?

OP posts:

Bunn5 · 08/10/2021 18:26

It could be that the people you spent time with within the infection time were a asymptomatic and passed it on to you unknowingly.

Original poster

Jackieweaverishere · 08/10/2021 18:58

@Bunn5 that's possible but then I wonder why didn't anyone else in my family test positive? Including quite elderly, vulnerable parents....

OP posts:

YourKidsIf · 08/10/2021 21:07

And you don’t have any children? My guess would be that someone you know was positive but got a false negative on a PCR. Or only tested on a LFT. Or just pretended they tested. Or you’ve forgotten that you went somewhere - like the dentist, I really doubt you caught it in a shop.

Original poster

Jackieweaverishere · 08/10/2021 21:21

@YourKidsIf I do have children but they've tested negative on the PCR. It could be from children at work but the other adults would have got it as they spend much more time with them. I agree children are probably the weak link and a quick visit to a shop is quite an unlikely way to catch it.

I haven't forgotten anywhere I've been though I am quite forgetful to be fair but I've checked my Google location record.

One possibility is that I've had the nasty virus that's going round and also had mild / asymptomatic covid. A friend's son is ill with both RSV and covid at the moment...

OP posts:

Flup · 08/10/2021 21:40

Yes me.
I go out very little. In the days leading up to my positive I went to a few shops and had family round. None of them got it, all double jabbed and this was August so they all had to isolate, all tested negative and had no symptoms, including DH who seldom leaves the house. Not false negatives because one got it 8 weeks later and the other two had negative antibody tests.
Must have been the shops.

Original poster

Jackieweaverishere · 08/10/2021 21:44

@Flup that's interesting, hope you weren't too ill. I wasn't in a shop for more than 5 mins, and I was usually wearing a mask. I was in restaurants but fairly well ventilated and with family who then tested negative on PCRs. It's very odd.

OP posts:

TheNarwhalBalloon · 08/10/2021 22:10

If you've been in restaurants or other public places, you don't have to be sitting with someone to catch covid from them. It's airborne and the 2m rule is a load of nonsense where indoor spaces for prolonged periods are concerned.

Original poster

Jackieweaverishere · 08/10/2021 22:43

@TheNarwhalBalloon yes I completely get that, there were some interesting case studies about restaurants I saw last year, but no-one else I was with (8 others including 4 70/80 yr olds) caught it, even asymptomatically. You'd think at least one other person in my family would get a positive PCR test even if they weren't symptomatic. They're all negative on their PCR tests. The restaurant was also empty and we were sitting by an open window.

I'll never know where I got it from but I just wondered if other people had no idea either, all their close contacts testing negative etc. It just seems surprising to me that I could get it from 2 mins in a shop.

OP posts:

Nofilter90 · 08/10/2021 23:24

Yes me, currently on day 5 of having covid and no idea where I caught it from as have been at home with child off nursery with chickenpox no one else in my family have tested positive on lateral flow or pcr.

Original poster

Jackieweaverishere · 09/10/2021 09:41

@Nofilter90 hope you're feeling ok. Did your nursery age child have a PCR? I've tested negative on the LFT all the way through so if they were negative on a LFT I'd assume they were asymptomatic and had brought it home from nursery. The incubation could be 10 days.

DH and DD have both had another negative PCR test so they definitely haven't caught it from me. I find it so weird that I've not passed it on to someone I'm sharing a bed with or an office with but at the same time it's so infectious I've picked it up from a few minutes contact

OP posts:

YourKidsIf · 09/10/2021 10:36

I love a mystery! Have you considered the whole issue with negative PCRs when people are actually positive? Sounds like a real issue in the South West.

icedancerlenny · 09/10/2021 10:41

I have no idea either. I barely go anywhere - pooped into the post office twice but the only other person in there was the lady behind the post office screen. My daughter who I have sneezed and coughed all over has had 2 negative PCRs.

annabell22 · 09/10/2021 10:52

@icedancerlenny better not to poop in the post office

My 21yo DD had it in August, she spent a couple of nights with a friend and they went out to a pub. Her friend didn't have it, nor her flatmate, or her dad and partner, or anyone else she had been a close contact of. She drove to friend's town so we think she must have caught it in the pub or possibly a shop there. Fortunately, symptoms were mild for most of the days, she had about three days of feeling terrible and lethargic.

Original poster

Jackieweaverishere · 09/10/2021 11:23

at pooping in the post office!

I have heard of getting a negative PCR plus a positive LFT, I suppose that's possible - say my DS is asymptomatic but then has false negative on a PCR... And a false negative on a LFT.

It is a mystery... I have seen articles (a Spanish newspaper article?) about a covid positive person breathing into a room and then leaving. Another person then walks into the empty room into the covid aerosols, which is totally possible in a shop. But it would be a very brief exposure for me, I don't like shopping so I'm pretty brisk!

@annabell22 sounds like my experience isn't unusual

OP posts:

GoldFrankensteinAndGrrr · 09/10/2021 11:33

Only place I'd been for a week before I tested positive was the supermarket. It was quiet and I was in and out in ten minutes. DH hadn't been anywhere, he wfh and had only been out of the house to put the bins out. We don't have visitors and don't spent time with anyone.

I'm astounded that I could've caught it from a brief visit to a quiet supermarket but I suppose I must have!

2boysand1princess · 10/10/2021 08:42

Just because your DC tested negative, it does not mean they definitely didn’t have covid. My sister’s kids were all negative when my sister tested positive. She believes her kids had it with no obvious covid symptoms, so no test for them and then they passed it to her. By the time she was testing positive, her kids were now negative. Perhaps they would’ve been positive if she had them tested a week earlier. Many people only get positive pcrs in the first 4-5 days and if not tested within that window they will test negative.

TaRaLa · 10/10/2021 08:47

@TheNarwhalBalloon

This in spades. Did you visit the restaurant toilet? Walked down a corridor in a school? You can get the AIRBORNE virus from anywhere. Including a shop. The 2m thing or outside isn’t magic. Just the government cut off that they thought people would adhere to and to make T&T have something to work too.

SheWoreYellow · 10/10/2021 08:49

Yeah, I would guess children. They had it very mildly before you. By the time you’ve tested them (harder to get a good sample from children), their viral load is low. Plus you do get false negatives on PCRs.

TaRaLa · 10/10/2021 08:49

@Jackieweaverishere yes you are right about the covid aerosols. You only need one breath in if someone else’s to get infected.

Have you not seen smokers outside in the winter? How far breath travels? And you can smell their smoke and step away to avoid breathing it in? Same with covid. So unless you are living in a box you can’t avoid it

Nofilter90 · 10/10/2021 22:35

@Jackieweaverishere yes sorry me and my little girl tested positive on lateral flow so had to have a pcr done.

HSHorror · 10/10/2021 22:54

Yes hangs in the air. Also think coughers are
1 not now masked
2 more comfortable going out and about coughing

We went to a theme park.
Several q's were inside.
There were several coughers. Lots of school kids (6% positivity), even the guy doing the which q you should wait in was coughing.
We were masked
but we shall see if we catch it (again?)
Noone else was masked.

Did you not see in aus they had a delta case identified as just walking past inside in shopping mall. And others from potentially doors opening near each other in quarantine hotels.

I do worry that some of us will be more vulnerable to catching it. Which is why whole family vaccination slows the rates much better.

AmyDeirdre · 10/10/2021 23:00

My friend caught it in a shop. She was being really careful too, always masked (cloth mask only though), sanitising, wouldn't share an elevator etc.

bearfood · 10/10/2021 23:11

I work in a school and when I eventually caught it, I fell ill on the last day of a half term holiday and tested positive on what should have been my first day back. No idea where it came from but I'd been out and about lots...mainly outside though apart from shops. Spread it to my whole family though...

Megan2018 · 10/10/2021 23:20

My 2 year old has Covid, she is all over me, all day every day. I don’t have Covid-all tests negative (I am double jabbed).
DD got it from nursery and half the staff have it, and about 1/3 of the kids. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why some have it and some haven’t (all the staff are double jabbed). Everyone has had at least 1 PCR.
I think there are plenty of people passing it on unknowingly and the tests are very unreliable. I can’t believe there’s no virus detected on me when DD literally licks my face…

KingdomScrolls · 10/10/2021 23:36

IKEA

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