AP reports from New York that health officials are not 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 overall 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,” based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC and other experts note that the virus is new and still being studied. But they say there’s no evidence yet that COVID-19 sickens people through their digestive systems, even though the virus has been detected in the feces of infected people.

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