As news gets around about restaurant closing in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, you may be thinking it’s time to up your take-out game — maybe add a few new apps to your phone as you hunker down to wait out the virus panic?

While that may sound like a great idea, you might want to take a moment to reconsider.

That’s because we still don’t know whether or not respiratory viruses like COVID-19 can survive on food, says Lawrence Goodridge, Leung Family Professor in Food Safety Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph.

And that has experts divided on whether or not ordering take-out food is safe.

“The risk of contracting COVID-19 from food appears to be low,” says Goodridge. “For foods that are cooked prior to consumption, COVID-19 will be inactivated by the heat.” Still, he warns that coronavirus may survive on some fresh foods like lettuce for up to four days.

I don’t think we can conclude that ordering in take-out is going to be safer than buying it or going to a restaurant. Too much is dependent on the restaurant owner

There are also other possible ways of transmission, such as through the actual delivery. Goodridge suggests minimizing contact with the delivery person by paying over the phone, rather than exchanging cash or pulling out a credit card. After all, that same delivery person who is accepting your payment is in contact with many people every day, some of whom may be quarantined at home due to the virus.

“Several delivery services have developed best practices for food delivery during the pandemic, including ringing the doorbell and leaving the food outside for the customer to pick it up, thus limiting person to person contact, in line with social distancing recommendations,” he says.

But Prof. Rick Holley, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba’s Food and Human Nutritional Sciences department, is not so sure that it’s enough to count on these extra safety measures.

Coronavirus may survive on some fresh foods like lettuce for up to four days

“I don’t think we can conclude that ordering in take-out is going to be safer than buying it or going to a restaurant,” he says, adding that too much is dependent on the restaurant owner — whether or not they are making sure employees are following safe food handing guidelines, ensuring staff are not sick and practising good hygiene, and making sure the delivery person is also healthy. As we know by now, sick workers — even those who are asymptomatic — can leave droplets of the virus on the various food containers and utensils, as well as the bags used to wrap the food. In fact, according to the World Health Organization, preliminary research on coronavirus suggests it may survive on surfaces for a few hours or up to several days.

Holley says removing the food packaging and washing your hands can help prevent transmission, as can heating the food for 15 minutes at 325 degrees, which will kill any viruses. But he’s not convinced it’s all worth it.

“It gives people a false sense of security,” he says. “At every one of those steps, there are many opportunities for cross-contamination to occur.”

Holley’s final decision? “I’m not encouraging people to order in.”