Experts Respond to China’s Rationale for Emerging New Corona Cases Within It

The emergence of new cases of the novel Corona virus raised concern among Chinese health officials, who were quick to link them to imported foods, but experts questioned this, according to an NPR Radio report.

The report points out that health officials in Beijing said the recently emerged cases were of workers in contact with food and packaging imported from overseas.

And Beijing quickly banned nearly 100 suppliers from 20 countries and imposed travel restrictions on cities where these imported foods entered.

The report says the authorities’ theory of the emergence of new cases directly contradicts the International Health Directive, which says transmission of infection through frozen food is not possible.

And the report cites Emmanuel Goldman, a microbiologist at Rutgers University School of Medicine in New Jersey, that the possibility of transmission of infection through frozen surfaces remains very low.

The expert indicates that transmitting the infection in this way is not impossible, but it is unlikely, and he adds that you must touch a surface newly contaminated with the virus, such as a doorknob, then you must touch your face before washing your hands, and more specifically you must touch your mouth or nose, which are the entry points for the virus.

Earlier in November, China announced that it had detected the Corona virus on a package of shrimp imported from Saudi Arabia.

In a statement posted online, the Lanzhou Municipal Health Commission said it found a positive corona sample on a package of frozen shrimp imported from Saudi Arabia.

The report pointed out that the World Health Organization uses “highly unlikely” to describe the transmission of infection from frozen foods, but despite this, China has more than once announced the discovery of the virus on imported food products, which led to the imposition of an import ban.

It is worth noting that the Corona virus has so far infected more than 73 million and 462,340 people worldwide, of which at least 47,202,800 have recovered.

The virus has killed a million and 636,687 people worldwide since the WHO office in China was informed of the outbreak of the disease in late December 2019.