Why health experts aren’t warning about virus in food

Why aren’t health officials warning people about eating food contaminated with the new coronavirus?

The answer has to do with the varying paths organisms take to make people sick. Respiratory viruses like the new coronavirus generally attach to cells in places such as the lungs. Germs like norovirus and salmonella can survive the acid in stomachs, then multiply after attaching to cells inside people’s guts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other experts say there’s no evidence yet that COVID-19 sickens people through their digestive systems, though the virus has been detected in the feces of infected people.

Respiratory viruses like the flu and new coronavirus spread mainly through person-to-person contact and air droplets from coughing or sneezing.

When it comes to food and COVID-19, experts say the biggest risk is contact in grocery stores with other customers and employees, rather than anything you eat. It’s why stores are limiting the number of people they let in, asking customers to practice social distancing and using tape to mark how far apart people should stand.

The new virus can survive on some surfaces, so experts say to keep your hands to yourself as much as possible and avoid touching your face when shopping. After unpacking your groceries at home, the CDC suggests washing your hands.

It may be harder for viruses to survive on food itself.

“It’s a porous surface,

(so) the chances of anything surviving or coming out of it are small,” said Alison

Stout, an expert in infectious diseases and public health at Cornell University.

As for the coronavirus being found in the stool of infected people, the CDC notes that it’s not known whether the germs found there can actually sicken someone. Stout said the presence of the virus in the stool is more likely a reflection of systemic infection rather than its ability to survive the digestive tract.