Does Covid-19 spread through food and food packaging?

US officials in a new joint statement from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that Covid-19 doesn't spread through food and food packaging.

Multiple types of research have been conducted before concluding that the possibility of being infected by touching the surface of food and eating it is extremely low. However, it is important to be hygienic while handling food to prevent any food-borne diseases.

"Consumers should be reassured that we continue to believe, based on our understanding of currently available reliable scientific information, and supported by overwhelming international scientific consensus, that the foods they eat and food packaging they touch are highly unlikely to spread SARS-CoV-2," said the joint statement.

Unlike food-borne or gastrointestinal viruses like Norovirus and Hepatitis A, which often make people ill through contaminated food, Covid-19 is a respiratory illness and is spread from person to person.

In more than one year period of the pandemic, there has been no credible evidence to this date that food, food packaging or food-handling has acted as a source or important transmission route for COVID-19 infection in people.

Usually, the number of virus particles that could be theoretically picked up by touching any surface would be very small and the amount needed for infection through oral inhalation is very high. Hence the chances of infection by touching the surface of food packaging or eating food are considered to be extremely low.