Last week, the government of the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen said that an analysis of a sample of frozen chicken wings imported from Brazil tested positive for the coronavirus. The alarms were triggered for fears of another wave of contagion, and so on.
I believe that before news agencies get alarmed and publish things, situations must be weighed so, as much as possible, arriving to a level playing field of information.
It is known, or at least not found otherwise, that the new COVID-19 coronavirus is not transmitted on the surfaces, as well as on the soles of shoes, unless we lick them, which is unlikely. The virus does not come within meat either. It is transmitted - mainly - by saliva drops expelled through the mouth. Period.
Now, let's think of one thing: The point of contact for such a shipment is not just the plant of origin. It passes through various transports before arriving at the port, where it is shipped on the vessel that after a certain time arrives at the Chinese port. Already in China, it has to be unloaded and more transports and more hands come in. It is estimated that this takes about 45 days in total. Do they really believe that it could only have been contaminated at the poultry processing plant in Brazil? What about the other parts of the process and the destination port itself? Also, when and where did they take the sample? On the ship? At the port? Where?
On the other hand, the wings were frozen, of course. Although it is known that the virus can survive frozen, it seems that its livability decreases. Another issue is that it was never clarified on which surface it was detected. In the boxes? On the packaging? On the same chicken? We are full of unknowns.
Finally, as the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABPA) said, there seems to have been a mistake in translating Chinese about the surface in question. This is the last straw! An entire industry, an entire poultry export sector from Brazil is at the mercy of errors such as these.
With record chicken production numbers coming up from the Asian giant, could it be that they want to protect their industry?
What do you think?
I thank the reader who opened my eyes to these considerations.
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