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WELLINGTON / BEIJING, 13 August (Reuters) – China reported this week several cases of frozen food packaging infected with the new coronavirus, while New Zealand said it investigates the option that its most recent cases of COVID-19 can simply be attributed to the imported cargo.
Here’s what happened and what the experts say:
What happened:
-New Zealand reported its first cases of COVID-19 in more than 3 months on Wednesday, resulting in an immediate re-entry of movement restrictions. Health officials have raised the option that the virus would likely have arrived in New Zealand through freight transport, as one of the other inflamed people works in a new store carrying frozen products imported from abroad.
-China said Thursday that a pattern of frozen bird wings imported to Shenzhen from Brazil had tested positive for the virus. The discovery through local disease centers was part of revisions to meat and seafood import regimes since June, when a new outbreak in Beijing connected to the city’s Xinfadi wholesale center.
-Earlier this week, virus lines were discovered in China in frozen shrimp packages from Ecuador and on the outer packaging of imported frozen seafood that arrived at Yantai Port from Dalian in northeast China.
– Chinese customs officials first discovered the virus in Ecuador’s packaging on July 10. These were the first effects of 227,934 samples taken from imported food, its packaging and the environment.
WHAT EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE RISK OF PACKAGING INFECTION:
-Studies recommend that the virus may persist in packaging between hours and days, depending on https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/risk-comms-updates/update-20-epi-win – covid-19.pdf? sfvrsn – fivee0b2d7four_2, temperature and humidity, according to the World Health Organization. The virus can stay for four to five days on plastic or paper.
-Lately, there is no evidence that others can get COVID-19 in food or food packaging, according to WHO https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/qa-detail/questions-relating-to-consumers, a view supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government agencies. Coronaviruses multiply in food: they want a living animal or a human host to multiply and survive.
“Because the new coronavirus cannot be reflected on the surface of food or packaging, it can only gradually weaken a living cell outdoors,” said Jin Dong-Yan, professor of virology at the University of Hong Kong.
It did not ruled out a user being able to simply spread droplets containing the virus on the surface of a food or packaging, and else it can contract the virus by touching the surface and then its mouth or nose. But such a case would be weird, he said.
“Infection by contact with a frozen virus through imported food “should not yet be considered as a primary address of infection and is not yet an occasion that is expected to substantially affect public fitness policy,” said Eyal Leshem, director of the Travel Medicine Center. and Tropical Diseases at Sheba Medical Center in Israel.
“The amount of viral waste coming out of a person’s mouth or nose is much greater than a few remaining viral remains in frozen foods, touching them and then spreading them,” said T. Jacob John, a retired professor of clinical virology at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
“Among all the risks, they are very low risks.” (Report through Rocky Swift in Tokyo, Roxanne Liu, Muyu Xu, Dominique Patton and Hallie Gu in Beijing, Jane Wardell in Sydney and Anuron Mitra in Bengaluru; compiled through Sayantani Ghosh; edited through Neil Fullick)