We now know Covid 19 transmits via drops of liquid from an infected person who coughs and sneezes. There may be other person-person routes, but we are not sure yet. If this moisture enters a healthy person’s body via their mouth or nose, they become infected too. We wondered, could transmission by food cause Covid-19 too? and we decided to find out.
The Lifespan of Covid-19 outside the Human Body
A common flu virus only survives for 48 hours outside a human body, according to Live Science. However, a Covid-19 virus may linger for a week, although its potency reduces at temperatures above 30 ºC / 86 ºF. This is why it is so important to sanitize our hands regularly and practice high food hygiene too.
We take the virus in via our mouths and noses. Our hands could also move it to our faces if there are infected droplets on them. This means we could transport the virus from any surface including food. However, there’s no proof this happens when we actually consume. So could transmission by food cause the new corona virus then? The answer appears to be only via our hands to our mouths and noses.
Could Transmission by Food Cause Covid-19
The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Germany believes it is unlikely that imported foods are infected. Moreover, if they are, the virus can still only travel via our hands, or perhaps a cup or cutlery. Therefore, we should sanitize our hands before we eat, and perhaps those implements too if we want to be completely safe.
The WHO says we should avoid a virus jumping between raw and cooked food in our kitchens by using different chopping boards. The same applies to food like fruit, salads and raw vegetables. That’s because we can only kill the virus in food by thoroughly heating it during cooking.
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