Jaykus: Not much, although I think it is very safe to say that this is not a foodborne virus in the traditional sense of the term. And if the virus were present in a food, it would still not be likely to infect the person eating that food—although it’s probably not impossible. However, for such an infection to occur, all the right factors would need to be in place. It is so much easier for the virus to jump from one person to another by close personal contact and respiratory secretions.

I believe putting our attention on foods takes attention away from what we already know works, which is social distancing and isolation.

Chapman: There are researchers around the world investigating the virus daily, helping us determine some of the very basic characteristics of SARS-CoV-2.

We also have a body of literature on SARS-CoV-1 that is giving us some indication on environmental stability, infection, shedding, symptoms, transmission, inactivation and other control measures that may apply to SARS-CoV-2.

The other big data set we’re all watching in real time is from the epidemiological studies that are coming out of some of the earlier clusters of outbreak. Work out of Wuhan, Washington state, and cruise ships are all adding to what we know. But yeah, being only months into this, there’s not a rich body of work to make decisions on. Comparatively, we have decades of data on norovirus outbreaks to make decisions on—but even with that virus, it took many years to figure out how to grow it in a laboratory. So what we know about SARS-CoV-2 is really still in its infancy.