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COVID-19 From Touching Food or Food Packaging? Why FDA is Saying No

February 24, 2021

A year ago, when little was known about COVID-19, the Food and Drug Administration said no evidence existed that COVID-19 is transmitted from either food or food packaging.

It’s still saying that, with even greater certainty.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continue to underscore,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of food and drugs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “that there is no credible evidence of food or food packaging associated with or as a likely source of viral transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus causing COVID-19,”

Studies, notably published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, have shown that the virus can survive up to 24 hours on cardboard and even longer on other surfaces. But the FDA noted that COVID-19, a respiratory illness, is primarily spread person to person. Despite the studies that found the virus can survive for hours on hard surfaces, an infection would likely require a much higher concentration of viral particles.

“COVID-19 is more readily transmitted in human-to-human contact in closed, crowded and poorly ventilated spaces,” said Dr. Faiqa Cheema, a Hartford Hospital infectious disease expert.

The FDA, in a statement Feb. 19, cited an “international consensus” that the likelihood of infection from touching food packaging or eating food is extremely low.