Chinese policymakers have been raising an improbable theory: the new coronavirus did not originate in China, but was imported from Europe. This is what a former head epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said at an academic conference last fall. One theory is that the virus entered Wuhan packaged with frozen food.
This month the World Health Organization visited China to investigate the origins of the virus. A member of the WHO delegation said it was “possible that a frozen carcass had been sent” to China and introduced the virus, giving some validation to the idea of packaging food. Reports have suggested that China demanded that the WHO agree to investigate the food hypothesis as a condition for entering Wuhan. By giving confidence to this improbable theory, the WHO is undermining confidence in the important project of finding out where the virus originated.
The most common culprit cited by Chinese officials is frozen salmon, although officials have also suggested the virus could have entered cod, pork heads or other frozen products. In response, Beijing has suspended imports of some food products and introduced inspections and testing of frozen foods, which has often held back imports from the US and Europe.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration weighed in last week with a forceful statement. “There is no credible evidence of food or associated food packaging or as a likely source of viral transmission,” Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock said Thursday in a Covid update.
Other scientific bodies have reached similar conclusions. The International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Food has stated: “Despite the billions of foods and food packages handled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, so far there has been no evidence that food, packaging or food handling is a source or an important route of transmission “. More than 100 million cases of Covid have been diagnosed worldwide and, outside of China, not a single case has been found in food or food packaging.