[James_Henry]

Also, they are very meticulous about taking their shoes off before going into a home and about keeping their floors clean. Which may be more important, especially in dense locations, than we might be realizing.

A Chinese study found that the virus was probably being moved around by people's shoes https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0885_article

[BubRoss]

That says they detected it on floors in hospitals. Does it talk about it being on shoes, entering homes and ultimately infecting people?

[James_Henry]

No, there's evidence of it on half of the soles of ICU workers' shoes, and they found the virus on the floor of areas where patients were not found. From this they proposed that within the hospital, shoes could be a vector and highly recommend that people disinfect shoe souls before walking out of wards with Covid-19 patients.

There are not any reported cases of the virus infecting anyone by shoe though.

[gedy]

I’m confused/concerned by this as the US authorities are emphasizing that this is a respiratory virus and no need to be concerned about food transmission, etc

[SpicyLemonZest]

The best evidence is that there's no need for the average person to be concerned about food transmission. The hospital context is very different; transmission routes that are normally negligible can start to matter when you have 200 people coughing coronavirus into the air.

[greedo]

They tested in hospital/ICU areas. I think the odds are much higher in such an environment. Obviously medical workers should keep from transferring viral material to their homes, but to imply that this is being transferred by non-medical personnel is inaccurate.

[James_Henry]

Definitely there is more of the virus in hospitals and in the ICU. The virus is also probably on the floors of subway cars, elevators, and other public places if someone infected emits droplets in those areas.

Of course, I'm only suggesting that the idea of shoes as vectors might be something.