Covid can survive on frozen food packaging, says China’s CDC

According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) coronavirus is able to survive on frozen food packaging.

The Center is said to have detected and isolated a living sample on the outer packaging of frozen cod. Previously only traces of covid have been discovered on frozen items.

Questions over whether frozen cod is linked to Qingdao covid cases

The cod had been imported to the city of Qingdao in China, where two dock workers, who were responsible for unloading the frozen goods, had contracted the virus, a report from the Mail Online stated.

However, as the Mail Online goes onto read, there is no solid evidence that the frozen fish was the source of the two workers’ infection. What the CDC findings do suggest though, is that it is possible for the virus to live on frozen goods for long periods of time.

Cold environments, such as meat processing facilities, have been linked to several outbreaks of COVID-19 across the globe, which scientists have attributed to the ideal cold and damp conditions. Although arguably, a range of other factors could also be responsible for the spread of covid in such areas, including noisy machinery (causing people to shout and thereby, project droplets), as well as packed production lines where it may be trickier to socially distance, a report from the BBC stated.

The CDC has also said, as reported in Reuters, that there has been no known instance of a consumer catching covid via frozen food and the likelihood of this happening is very low.