Thought of the Day - February 10 - COVID Can Spread Through Frozen Food

The WHO delegation, looking to discover the origin of SARS-CoV-2, held a three-hour findings press conference yesterday ( Thought of the Day - January 8 - Nothing To See Here ). They had three main findings:

1. "The laboratory incident hypothesize is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population". As it was a going-in assumption the source of the virus was cross-infection from animals and therefore the Wuhan Institute of Virology was not the main focus of the study the "did not come from a lab" finding is not surprising;

2. "The virus was spreading both inside and outside the market in Wuhan at the same time, which could indicate that it was not the original source of the outbreak". As there are no known zoonotic reservoirs around Wuhan it is not surprising that the seafood market was not the original source;

3. "The virus could have been transmitted through cold-chain food packaging" and "Studies have shown that the virus can survive for a long time not only at low temperatures but also at refrigerated temperatures, indicating that it can be carried long distances on cold-chain products" ( "Cold-chain" is just a fancy way of saying preserved through refrigeration). Leading to the final conclusion, the virus that broke out in Wuhan could have come from "anywhere in Southeast Asia". Wow, this is new!

I remember in the early days of COVID, we had discussions that you should stage the introduction of groceries in your house in case the packaging was infected. This was dismissed as unnecessary. We have to remember in Canada we have had outbreaks at the majority of our food processing facilities, particularly meat, and that there are also no restrictions on the movement of frozen food across North America, probably around the world for that matter. This new conclusion by world experts means we must revisit this. Should, for example, we defrost and sanitize our freezers?

This conclusion should be headline news, but it isn't. Is this because we do not trust the conclusion of these world experts, or is this a case of the western world in denial, your choice?

Cheers

Cliff