How is takeaway safe?

[Spainintherain]

My husband and daughter want a takeaway tonight. I know this is being allowed by the government but how is it safe? Surely you can catch it from touching the outer packaging and containers ? Or am I wrong?

Why would it be any different from touching the packaging from supermarket food? That's probably handled by more people than a takeaway carton.

Take aways are not safe in my opinion, we love a take away but won’t be having one for a long time. It’s not so much the outer packaging, more the food, if someone preparing the food has the virus but only has mild symptoms and they cough on your food you will be ingesting the virus.

@DitheringDoris

To be fair, you can say this about any takeaway, any time.

I feel the same. What if the person cooking it and handling the food coughed on it or is an asymptotic carrier of the virus? I am being Uber paranoid, but given the situation I’m not ordering due to having a vulnerable person in my household.

because you are not sitting close to other diners coughing all over the place.

Obviously not safe, in fact it is worse than the factory packaged, you dont know if ppl cooking the food are coughing on it!!

There are obvious protocols for handling shopping items, use gloves, and at home put them away and wash your handles immediately taking care not to touch your face

@Soontobe60 You can, the advice for noro is not to prepare food for others and stay home for 48 hours after you start to feel better because you will still be shedding the virus. With CV it’s now known that gastro issues can be the first symptoms and the virus is carried in faeces, the food preparer may not have the best hygiene, nothing more to add really.
I would not risk a takeaway at the moment.

I know this is being allowed by the government but how is it safe?

It's not 100% safe - it's a balance of trying to keep people's businesses running and trying to keep some level of normalcy whilst also trying to stem the spread of the virus.

As a PP said - it's a lot safer than being around lots of other customers.

Surely you can catch it from touching the outer packaging and containers

Definitely - it's no different to anything else you bring in from outside your home that has been handled by other people.

Personally I won't be ordering take away as much as usual, but we probably will still order in once a week. We always make sure it's somewhere with 4-5/5 on their hygiene rating anyway because there are plenty of bugs around that I don't want to catch from a takeaway.

Pay by card

Get the restaurant to leave on your doorstep and call phone/ ring buzzer when it’s there (put a box out for it to be put in if you don’t want it on he floor for a second)

Take containers out of carrier bag
Throw carrier bag
Wash hands

Empty contents of containers on to plates then either bin containers or wash in boiling water/dishwasher

Wash hands again and eat

That’s what we did when we got a takeaway from the fancy restaurant last night.

Tbh your more at risk pushing a trolley in the supermarket, imagine how many people have touched that or manhandled the products you buy

@P1nkHeartLovesCake That's exactly what we'll be doing.

its the people making the food that worries me so no take aways for us until this gets better not worth the risk.

Whereas I will be buying more takeaways - from the local delis, pubs and cafes that have had to close their doors.

If they have a good hygiene rating then why not? All of our local shops are offering all sorts of takeaway and delivery options. Pubs are selling food parcels, their suppliers have already made the change to let them do this. It is probably vital to their survival that we use them.

Delivery lorries have been diverted supermarkets already and they have been pooling supplies and lorries for a while.

So far, it seems, anything sensible suggested on social media has already been considered and / or implemented by the industry. Or so they said on today's press conference.

I read last month scientists saying that the norovirus had taken off because of our eating habits, two thirds of cases originate from restaurant/take away food. That is a bit bleugh.

Apparently it continued in Wuhan and no evidence to say it loves on food as heat destroys it. Unlike surfaces

We had a takeaway last night. If I start worrying about it being on cartons then I am going to have to worry about it being on supermarket tins, bottles etc and where does it all end? I’m not going to wipe down everything that comes in the house. We all wash hands before eating, we decanted the food onto plates. My kitchen surfaces are cleaned regularly. We’re staying in the house all the time so we won’t catch it outside. Ok if we’re really unlucky I guess it is possible to catch it from our once a month take away but I can’t live in a sterile bubble.

What if the chef sneezes or coughs and droplets land on the food? Is that not a risk?

The food safety authorities say it's not a risk.

EFSA is closely monitoring the situation regarding the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that is affecting a large number of countries across the globe. There is currently no evidence that food is a likely source or route of transmission of the virus.

EFSA’s chief scientist, Marta Hugas, said: “Experiences from previous outbreaks of related coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), show that transmission through food consumption did not occur. At the moment, there is no evidence to suggest that coronavirus is any different in this respect.”

www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/coronavirus-no-evidence-food-source-or-transmission-route
www.fsai.ie/faq/coronavirus.html

Thank you all

It's very difficult for the virus to be transmitted via ingested food.

The main entry points are eyes, nose and throat, so as long as you dispose of the packing and wash your hands immediately you should be fine.

We're being very careful about everything but we will still eat takeaways.

Getting a takeaway is, statistically, safer than buying packaged food in a supermarket.

Your takeaway will have been handled by only one or two people (the delivery driver only handles the plastic bag). A tin of baked beans could have been handled by dozens of people in the long journey from factory, to lorry, to warehouse, to lorry again, to supermarket shelf. Unwrapped fresh produce in a supermarket could have been handled or coughed on by hundreds of people!

The official statement from the Food Safety Authority is that thorough cooking kills coronavirus. So even on the vanishingly tiny chance that the cook was infected, was somehow permitted to remain in a kitchen despite being visibly symptomatic, and was stupid/homicidal enough to actively cough directly into the cooking pot, you could still eat the food and not get infected.

Corona sticks to different surfaces to different degrees. For example it doesn't last or stick especially well on cardboard. It lasts three times longer on metal. So a pizza box is statistically far safer than tins.

You can't hermetically seal yourself away from the world. Every time the postie visits, that's exposing you to items that have been handled by far more people than your takeaway. But no one is doing a Vernon Dursley and nailing their post slot shut.

Besides healthy non-elderly people seem to be forgetting that all these safety measures - social distancing and self-isolation - are not to protect YOU, but to protect vulnerable people FROM YOU. All these measures exist to reduce the number of critical cases and thus flatten the curve and reduce pressure on the NHS. So many posts from people freaking out acting like they're about to keel over just because they went outside or touched something. If you are not elderly or at-risk then even if you did catch it you'd probably not have any symptoms or at worst have only mild symptoms. (Cue posters lining up to share anecdotes about how their 32-yr-old rugby playing DH went into the garden and waved at Doris from next door and fell over dead five minutes later.)

I'll be having a take away after my long long shift at work tomorrow.

Very useful post @SwerfandTurf thank you
Will now hopefully get a takeaway tomorrow

Thank you

Take aways are probably safer than buying food at the supermarket. The take away container has probably only been handled by one person, two at most. The delivery person only touches the bag. Where do people live that they think people are coughing and sneezing into their food? This wouldn't be ok even without coronavirus so it certainly wouldn't be ok now.

Take the bag and handle the containers to get the food onto the plates then bin the containers and wash your hands. Once that step is completed, your risk is gone. Even if someone disgustingly coughed near your food, I am pretty sure the cooking of the food/the virus sitting on piping hot food would have killed it off. Shopping at the supermarket means you are touching lots of things other people have touched and unable to wash your hands each time so there's more chance that you will unknowingly touch your face while your hands are dirty. Everyone should start wearing gloves to the supermarket then binning them and washing their hands after they leave then wiping everything down with hot soapy water when they get home. No one will though

It's a virus, so although gross if someone one coughs on it, it's unlikely you'll get anything. Viruses don't survive outside living hosts, the delivery boy would have to cough on you directly