Having spent the best part of 3 years shielding, disinfecting, reduced socialising, mask wearing, and continuously washing hands, I finally succumbed to COVID after cleaning the doormat! Yep, surprised me as well, so during my self-isolation, I spent 3 days doing research (where's 2greys when you need him!) and finally found this paper on "SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in soil": sciencedirect.com/science/a....
What seems to have happened is that, after having my pond relined (a muddy job), I had brought in some contaminated soil from the garden onto the mat. Having allowed it to dry out for a few days, I vacuumed it but decided that was insufficient, so I took it outside and beat it, not putting on my FFP2 mask until I realised how dusty this process was going to be (though, from years of experience with asbestos, any dust will cling to your clothes and you'll walk about in an invisible cloud - should have known better!). That night, the bronchiectasis played up significantly, though I tested negative in the morning. Two days later (when the neighbours came round for tea, and have now got it themselves!), I started to feel shaky and my wife got a sore throat, then we both tested positive the next morning. It seems, from the research, that COVID can last 90 days in soil with a 10% moisture content, and even though the mat had dried out , it was insufficient to destroy enough of the virus.
Not sure what the moral of this story is (don't clean doormats? don't work in the garden? don't breath in any dust?), but thought I would flag it up just in case anyone was minded to make the same mistake.
Keep safe.
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Superzob
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I am so sorry to hear you and your wife have covid after taking so many preventative measures the past three years. Well thank you for posting this, that's the last time I will be beating the doormat after coming in from the garden. Wishing you a speedy recovery .
You have my sympathy. Same has happened to me and the wife I missed one booster due to cancer treatment, i really after all the care we have took in the past, missed the booster after that. I still have covid, my wife in negative. I can sat this covid has hit me as hard as any COPD flare up. Nasty virus I can't shake. I will be writing a post on this tomorrow - I am being treat for a rotton chest infection..I hope you are both better soon, take care,
That’s really interesting, I would never have thought about the virus staying in the soil for so long. The question that concerns me is how did the virus get into your soil in the first place.
Thanks helenlw7 , the source puzzled me too. The only thing I can think of is that the guys working on the pond may have brought it into the garden, although they were clearly symptomless and only there for just over a day - they never entered the house. We also get a lot of cats and foxes, but wouldn't have expected a large viral load from any of these.
However, I recall seeing early pictures, especially from China, of people spraying roads and footpaths, so there was definitely a belief that the virus could contaminate those surfaces.
Unfortunately, we're still testing positive after a week. I don't feel too bad, but my wife has a nasty cough which she can't shake off. And we'd only just come back from our 4th and 5th jabs, respectively, a week before! C'est la vie!
Our surgery has stopped prescribing antivirals for COVID, so I guess we'll have to sit it out. I had heard that up to 2 weeks was not unusual - just hoped we might be luckier. Oh well, that's my Bridge games out of the question this week!
I think it is only a matter of time before everybody will have had covid in one form or another. I think I had it recently although my tests were negative. Like Helenw7 I have to wonder how this got in the soil in the first place. I do ho
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