You may have been told to stay at home, but you still need to eat - this means getting groceries.
Whether you go to the store or get your food delivered, you may be worried that the food you’re bringing into your home could carry the coronavirus.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US says there’s no evidence of food or food packaging being linked to the spread of the coronavirus. But if you touch a surface with the virus on it and then touch your face, nose or mouth you could get infected that way.
However, this isn’t thought to be the main way the virus spreads - it appears to spread from person to person.
If you’re worried, make sure you wash your hands for 20 seconds:
- after handling food
- after handling food packaging
- after removing any packaging from food
You may also want to throw any food packaging away once the food has been removed from it.
Fresh produce like fruit and vegetables should always be washed under water to remove germs that could make you ill.
If you think you may have coronavirus, you can use our COVID-19 Symptom Mapper to check your symptoms and compare them with others around the world.
This should give you a better understanding of how the illness is affecting you and will help us to map the spread of the outbreak.
