A: Yes, this happened. No, you don’t need to throw away all your frozen food products.
So what happened exactly? Last week coronavirus RNA (i.e., genetic material from the virus) was detected from a surface sample of a batch of frozen chicken wings that was imported from Brazil to the Chinese city of Shenzhen during a regular screening of imported frozen food. The Shenzhen health authorities immediately investigated who else was in contact with the product and tested them-they all tested NEGATIVE. They also sealed off all related products and tested them-the products all tested NEGATIVE. They also disinfected the area where the products that tested positive were stored and are tracking all products from that brand that were sold.
So what does this mean? The first thing to keep in mind is that detecting coronavirus RNA only means genetic material of the virus was found and not necessarily that viable virus that could cause infection persists on food or packaging (could just be remnants of dead virus). Indeed, as noted by two experts in the NYT article below, “an extraordinarily unusual series of events would need to occur for the virus to be transmitted via a frozen meat product”. Key points highlighted in the article:
First, the virus would need to endure traveling in a frozen state (with possibility of melting and refreezing along the journey), remain viable on packaging or the surface of a food, and then someone would have to touch the contaminated product and then touch their nose or mouth (this chain of events is certainly possible, but super unlikely).
Second, even if the food itself (and not just the packaging) was contaminated the virus is unlikely to survive after being heated during the cooking process or encountering the acidic environment of the human digestive system once consumed (so again, unlikely that contaminated food would cause infection).
Key to remember also is that the virus cannot replicate in food, it needs a living human or animal host within which to replicate, so if a food product is contaminated, there isn’t going to be rampant reproduction of the virus in the food or on the packaging itself during travel, at the store or in your freezer.
What should I do now? No need to throw away all your frozen chicken wings or pizza or ice cream (definitely not the ice cream, I love ice cream!). Continue to wash your hands after putting away groceries, handling food packaging, and preparing or eating food, continue to wash your fruits and vegetables before consuming raw and continue to cook all meat products thoroughly before consumption (these are all recommended practices outside of the pandemic!).
Overall, CDC maintains that currently, “…there is no evidence to suggest that handling food or consuming food is associated with COVID-19” (for more information see the CDC website. Indeed, surface transmission (while not impossible), in general, is not thought to be the main route of transmission for coronavirus.
For more information see the NYT article and another report from CNN.
