It's mostly reality. There are aqueous and UV coatings available (and more coming) that can make a surface unviable for many microbes. There is generally no special application requirement and the added cost is manageable if you have clients in travel, restaurant, health care, education, and other markets that see the benefit. Antimicrobial products are regulated by the U.S. EPA as pesticides. The active ingredients of coatings currently sold are registered with the EPA as non-public-health products, which restricts printing companies and their clients from making claims beyond product protection. A printing company could say that the special antimicrobial coating protects against damaging microbes that cause odor and product degradation, but not claim that the coating keeps end users safe from disease-causing microbes such as SARS-CoV-2. Testing has apparently shown that coatings can almost completely eliminate a range of dangerous bacteria and viruses, but until a coating ingredient gets registered as a public health product--no small task--claims to that effect in the U.S. are worse than hype, they're illegal. By the way, so far no COVID-19 transmission has been traced to a printed product.