CDC: No Evidence Of Coronavirus Spread Associated With Food

COVID-19 has changed the way so many of us think about everyday tasks and the risk of exposure.

Many people are staying home or social distancing, washing their hands more, and using hand sanitizer. However, this leaves grocery stores to be a topic of concern when considering community spread. 

Reasor's is still open. In fact, grocery stores are some of the few places you can still go. Each grocery store has come up with their own guidelines on how grocery shopping will change for employees and customers because of COVID-19. Reasor's is asking customers to social distance, to stay 6 feet (two shopping carts) apart from other shoppers. They have opened their stores to at-risk shoppers from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and said they are sanitizing and cleaning even more than normal.

Experts at OU Medicine said there are unknowns but the most important thing you can do, is to keep washing your hands.

“Let’s say you do touch a surface that has the virus on it, the virus doesn't go through your skin, the virus gets into your body when you take your hands and touch your eyes, nose or mouth," said OU Medicine’s Enterprise Chief Quality Officer Dale Bratzler. "Hand hygiene is perhaps the most important thing that you can do reduce your risk of getting an infection from any surface."

Experts said cleaning surfaces that are frequently handled, might also be a good idea.

"I think the risk from grocery shopping is relatively low," said Bratzler. "Wiping down those high-touch surfaces, like the handle on the cart that you know a lot of people do touch. I think that is quite reasonable to do that."

As far as your actual groceries go, the CDC says, "there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures."

Experts said it is a good idea to make sure you’re washing your hands after touching any surface that is frequently handled examples could be ATM machines and gas pumps.