With news about COVID-19 detected in foods, like frozen chicken wings and fish, you may be wondering if you can actually get coronavirus in food or food packaging. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now officially evaluating with some clarity – and assurance.
The FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agree that “there is no reliable evidence of associated food or food packaging or as a likely source of viral transmission” and the The risk of hiring COVID-19 in this way is “excessively low”, according to an FDA announcement by acting commissioner Janet Woodcock MD and USDA acting secretary Kevin Shea.
This is not a new position for the FDA, but the agency is strongly asserting its previous findings. “Consumers must be sure that we continue to believe, based on our understanding of the reliable scientific information currently available and supported by an overwhelming international scientific consensus,” says the statement, “that the foods they eat and the packaging of touching foods are highly unlikely to spread SARS-CoV-2, “the virus that causes COVID-19.
The agency’s stance is based on data from the United States, as well as from food security agencies in the UK and New Zealand and researchers around the world. “Despite the billions of meals and food packaging handled since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has to date been no evidence that food, food packaging or food handling is a source or important route of transmission for SARS-CoV -2 resulting in COVID-19, “wrote the International Commission for Microbiological Specifications for Food (ICMSF) in an opinion article of September 2020, quoted by the FDA.
Now, you may remember some headlines from last year about the virus being detected in frozen foods. Chinese health officials detected traces of SARS-CoV-2 in frozen chicken wings in August 2020, and of the live virus in packages of frozen cod in October 2020. But no real case has been related to frozen food.
Experts thought this was an unlikely scenario at the time, SELF reported. This is partly because COVID-19 spreads mainly through respiratory droplets and tiny particles expelled by infected people, while transmission by fomites (when the virus spreads through particles on surfaces) appears to be less common. And, as SELF reported, infectious disease experts and officials like the CDC said the virus is unlikely to be present in large quantities – and survive on the surface long enough – to actually infect a person.
“Given that the number of virus particles that could theoretically be collected by touching a surface would be very small and the amount needed for oral inhalation infection would be very high,” explains the FDA, “the chances of infection from touching the surface of food packaging or food intake is considered extremely low. “
Of course, having no evidence of viral infection through food or food packaging is not the same as having evidence that contracting COVID-19 in this way is impossible. But the FDA says that this type of transmission is extremely unlikely based on the large amount of data we have so far. And, as the FDA points out, there have been more than 100 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and no epidemiological evidence or surveillance data linking an outbreak to food or food packaging.
We probably have to thank the nature of the COVID-19 transmission for this – as well as the fact that food business operations must follow safety and hygiene precautions based on FDA regulations. So while washing your hands before eating is as good an idea as ever, you don’t have to worry about cleaning up your groceries and take-out food. Your efforts are likely to be better spent masking social detachment.
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Originally appeared on SELF