Food packaging materials not a source of transmission of COVID-19

Since the beginning of the COVID crisis, food packaging was a concern for the transmission of the disease. There were at some point messages of developments of anti-viral coatings that would prevent the transmission by this route, but it was usually not scientifically validated.

On February 18, the US FDA released a statement concluding that there is no "epidemiological evidence of food or food packaging as the source of SARS-CoV-2 [the virus responsible for the COVID-19 disease] transmission to humans". This is the outcome of the monitoring and review of information available at a global level, at a time when over 100 million infections have been confirmed around the world. The article states that food and food packaging manufacturing with current Good Manufacturing Practices and good hygiene practices are sufficient to rule out this source of transmission.