On covid-19 in your food

What do I need to know about covid-19 and food safety?

Wash your hands and pray everyone else does too. That’s it.

Most food safety practices are intended to curb bacteria growth. This is because bacteria can multiply in food. If you leave a half-eaten Chipotle burrito in your backpack overnight, the bacteria counts will increase drastically— which is to say that the risk of bacterial food poisoning from that burrito will increase. 

Viruses cannot reproduce without a host. So if your leftover burrito was somehow contaminated with covid (likely because someone sick with covid touched their face and then prepared your burrito) then no amount of time or food safety neglect would increase the amount of virus on that burrito. Growth won’t start until it finds a host. Until then,  the virus will remain dormant— or, if enough time elapses, it will die. 

When it comes to transmitting covid, food is not much different than a doorknob or a subway pole. It’s just a surface that the virus can attach to. The only thing you can do is wash your hands before you eat and hope that the people who prepare your food are doing the same.