NEW YORK – Chicken with salmonella can make you sick. So can romaine lettuce with E. coli and buffets with lurking norovirus.
So why aren’t health officials warning people about eating food contaminated with the new coronavirus? The answer has to do with the varying paths organisms take to make people sick.
Respiratory viruses like the new coronavirus generally attach to cells in places like the lungs. Germs like norovirus and salmonella can survive the acid in stomachs, then multiply after attaching to cells inside people’s guts. “Specializing in what tissues to attach to is typically part of the disease’s strategy to cause illness,” according to the U.S.