Sunday, August 2, 2020

Can you catch COVID-19 from touching food packaging?

Can you catch COVID-19 from touching food packaging?

The main way the COVID-19 virus spreads from person-to-person is through contact with sneeze or cough droplets of an infected person. As the virus can exist on cardboard food packaging for a day, and plastic for several days, there is a remote risk of getting infected from touching a surface or object that has been contaminated by the virus and then touching your mouth, nose, or eyes. This includes food packaging. However, the risk of contracting COVID-19 from touching contaminated food packaging is very low and this form of infection has not been reported.


In stores, the biggest risk of contamination remains contact with other people and ‘high-touch’ surfaces such as weighing scales, shopping-cart handles or elevator buttons, although many stores are taking measures to sanitize these surfaces. Therefore, we should still wash our hands both after returning home from the shop and after handling newly purchased food packaging. By following these hygiene measures there is no need to disinfect food packaging themselves.

In general, to try and minimise our risk of infection we should take the following measures when buying and preparing food:

  • Wash your hands for 20 seconds  with soap and water before and after grocery shopping, unpacking foods, collecting takeaways, and after receiving delivered food
  • Keep a safe distance (minimum recommended distances vary from 1 to 2 meters) from other people when shopping
  • Don’t go shopping if you are sick, where possible, order your groceries online or have some family or friends drop them off
  • Avoid touching foods unless you are going to buy them
  • Try to limit trips to the supermarket by planning meals, shop at odd hours, use self-checkouts as much as possible and pay through electronic means
  • Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve when you cough or sneeze and remember to wash your hands after
  • Avoid touching your face, nose and mouth before washing your hands

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