Over 480 million infections and 6 million deaths have been recorded since the novel coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic began over 2 years ago. Coronavirus disease 2019 is principally a respiratory illness caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which infects the cells of the airway and can also replicate in the gastrointestinal tract. Notably, over half of those with SARS-CoV-2 infections shed SARS-CoV-2 genomes in their stool,1 and infectious viruses can be isolated from their fecal samples,2 suggesting that the virus also infects and replicates in the intestinal tract.
