Chinese Discover Covid-19 On Salmon-Cutting Table In Beijing Market

Salmon For Sale In Anchorage. (Photo, Copper River Country Journal)

 COVID-Contaminated Salmon Triggers Fears In China

The Chinese thought they had coronavirus under control, but over the weekend, they discovered dozens of cases in a Beijing food market. This is not the Wuhan Market where the original Chinese outbreak occurred.

According to the Washington Post, the sudden resurgence of the virus led to the immediate mobilization of 100,000 health workers, who tested 70,000 people on Sunday, and expected to test 100,000 more on Monday for COVID-19. Reports said over 130 people who had the virus and were linked to the Beijing market were identified.

The Beijing market is mainly a fruit and vegetable market.

After the discovery, China put its public back in a more stringent form of protection against the virus, telling students to wear masks to class and having gyms and movie theaters close again.

The Chinese checked items all over the market. In the seafood market, they found virus on a salmon chopping block. The market covers the area of 160 football fields, and sells wholesale to millions of people and retailers.

Although viral experts everywhere (including China) maintain that fish is not a transmitter of the virus, and can't directly transmit it to humans in the same way that mammals can, there are concerns about how the virus got onto the chopping block at the market. Experts believe maybe the virus was in contaminated water used in transportation or packaging.

A web site called "Intrafish" says that China imports 80,000 tons of chilled and frozen salmon every year, currently mainly from Chile, Norway and the Faroe Islands, a rocky chain of islands in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Norway.

In August, 2019, the Anchorage Daily News reported that a 25% retaliatory tariff by China on U.S.  imports caused a 36% drop in U.S. seafood sales.

"Until then, China had been Alaska's biggest seafood buyer purchasing 54% of seafood exports in 2017 valued at close to $1 billion," the Daily News said a year ago.

Reports are that, in response to the contaminated wood block, the sudden return of the virus, and the results of their extensive and rapid testing, China is destroying all imported salmon.