China CDC proposes investigation into origin of Covid-19 through imported frozen goods

Controversy aboutorigin of Covid-19between China and the US has not stopped. In the latest assessment, experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that frozen products may have introduced the virus to the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan - where the first Covid-19 outbreak in China.

Therefore, they proposed that the World Health Organization (WHO) should consider the cold chain as an important clue and directly investigate countries where the virus has been found on frozen product samples, and conduct epidemiological investigations on cold chain workers in countries that shipped products to Wuhan in 2019. In other words, the WHO's second phase of pandemic origin investigations should focus on the cold chain imported into the country and the packaging and transportation of them between September 2019 and December 2019.

Ms. Ma Huilai, an official of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cited that before the outbreak, Beijing had no community outbreak for 56 days, and Dalian had no outbreak for 111 consecutive days.

“A series of comparative analyses of the virus’s genetic sequences were performed with the cases and on the outer packaging of the positive frozen products. Numerous traceability investigation evidences have confirmed that the virus was introduced into China through the cold chain from other countries and territories,” said Ms. Ma Hoi Lai.

According to Ms. Ma, in the first half of 2020, at least 30 large meat factories, slaughterhouses, seafood processing factories... distributed in many countries around the world had Covid-19 outbreaks and had the common characteristic of being able to cause infection and spread through the imported cold chain transportation process.

She asserted, “This evidence suggests that the Covid-19 outbreak at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in late 2019 may have been caused by a cold chain virus import.”

Liu Jun, a researcher from the China CDC, also pointed out that the Huanan seafood market sold 29 types of frozen products from 20 countries and regions outside China. They also found that imported products sold from September to December 2019 in Wuhan came from 37 countries and regions with 440 types.

China has repeatedly claimed that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted through frozen food. However, scientists and WHO officials have affirmed that to date, there is no solid evidence that this virus can be transmitted through food.

The Chinese scientists' proposal comes as the WHO is planning a second phase of its investigation into the origins of Covid-19, which would include inspections of Chinese laboratories. Beijing has rejected the plan, saying it has been politicized, and has demanded that the second phase of the investigation be conducted elsewhere in the world.

On August 28, in an official response to the US intelligence report on the origin of the pandemic, Mr. Ma Trieu Huc, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, criticized that this was "completely a political report, a fake report, without scientific basis and reliability"./.