Coronavirus: COVID-19 can hitch a ride on your shoes - study

Shoes
Shoes could be a literal carrier for COVID-19. Photo credit: Getty

Chinese scientists have discovered the virus behind COVID-19 can be carried around on people's shoes.

Swabs taken from different parts in a hospital where the ill were being treated for the deadly disease found it in places where no patients ever went.

"As medical staff walk around the ward, the virus can be tracked all over the floor, as indicated by the 100 percent rate of positivity from the floor in the [hospital] pharmacy, where there were no patients," a new study led by the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing found.

"Therefore, the soles of medical staff shoes might function as carriers."

Seventy percent of floor swabs taken in the hospital's ICU tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, and has killed more than 154,000 people worldwide. Fifteen percent of floor swabs taken in the general ward were also positive, despite no infected people entering it.

Three-quarters of all computer mice tested in the ICU were positive, and 20 percent in the general ward. 

Bigger droplets of course fall to the ground, where the Chinese researchers found they could latch onto shoes and be carried around. Half of all medical staff in the ICU had the virus on their shoes, their testing found.

Air samples were 35 percent positive in the ICU and 12.5 percent in the general ward. 

"The maximum transmission distance of [coronavirus] aerosol might be four metres," the study said, far beyond the two metres most public health officials have recommended as a safe social distancing measure. 

An air quality expert from the Queensland University of Technology this week said the virus should be treated as if it's airborne, despite official advice that it isn't. 

"Small droplets can carry their viral content metres, even tens of metres, away from the infected person," said Professor Lidia Morawska.

"Air transmission research should be undertaken now and its likelihood as a means of spread should be taken seriously with due precautions taken now."

The good news is that none of the medical staff at the hospital where the swabs were taken caught the disease, showing PPE gear can be effective at preventing its spread. The latest research was published online by journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.