Can you pass chicken pox along to hospital patients (infants and children) during the early stages of shingles?

Fomite transfer: Shingles may be the same virus but the ability to transfer to others is a bit different. Kids with chickenpox have the virus in their oral secretions at least a day before they break out & their viral load is heavy & transmission easy. With shingles you do not have virus in your secretions, only from any weeping lesions on your skin. Covering the area & close attention to hygiene can reduce the cha.

Yes: Varicella virus is transmitted from a shingles infection if another person comes into direct physical contact with the shingles lesions.

Yes: You are infective if you have active lesions, and should not exposure the lesions to vulnerable people.

Yes: It's possible to spread the herpes zoster virus from active skin lesions during an outbreak of shingles to a non-immune person and cause chicken pox. Direct contact with the blisters would be required.

Yes: Shingles is the reactivation of your childhood chicken pox virus that resides within you nervous system cells. That virus will cause chicken pox in any child that is not already immune to chicken pox, especially those < 1 year if age. It is passed by direct contact.

Maybe: Shingles is contagious to people that have not had chicken pox or the vaccine but is only spread through direct contact with the lesions. Unlike chicken pox, it is not spread through the respiratory tract- ie- breathing on someone. So if a young child has not had the disease or the vaccine and came in contact with the lesions, they could get chicken pox from them.