In January 2021, a year after the start of the pandemic, news reports appeared: in one of the Chinese cities of Tianjin, coronavirus was found in ice cream. We decided to check if this statement is true.
In mid-January, a message appeared on news portals: in the Chinese city of Tianjin, ice cream was tested for coronavirus, and the test was positive. The news was spread by such publications as China Daily, Sky News, The Huffington Post etc. Here's what China Daily wrote:
“On Thursday, three samples of local ice cream using milk powder from New Zealand and condensed whey from Ukraine, produced under the Daqiaodao brand in Tianjin, tested positive for COVID-19.
The city has since begun a campaign to close the refrigerated warehouses where this ice cream was stored.".
That's right. On January 15, the Tianjin municipal government released a statement confirming the news headlines: the coronavirus had indeed been found in three ice cream samples.
According to the statement, in one of the city's districts, epidemiologists tested several samples of Tianjin Daqiaodao Food Co., Ltd. ice cream for COVID-19. with different flavors, and three of them gave positive results. Their imported ingredients included, among others, milk powder from New Zealand and condensed whey from Ukraine.
After the coronavirus samples were discovered, municipal health authorities temporarily closed the company, and its employees were further tested for COVID-19. Here's what the statement says, translated from Chinese (simplified) into Russian on Google Translate:
“As of 14:00 on January 14, the enterprise is completely sealed and controlled, the entry and exit of personnel and goods is prohibited; the warehouse with goods in which the contaminated products were located is sealed, goods from the warehouse are tracked; All company employees are quarantined. Testing for RNA and antibodies is taking place, home isolation has been introduced for family members of employees; The work of retail outlets has been temporarily stopped, the flow of personnel is being checked and tested, a full sampling of raw materials, existing goods, the internal and external environment of the company, employee dormitories, etc. is being carried out. Disinfection is underway.”
In total, the company produced more than 4,800 boxes of contaminated ice cream — about 2,000 of which were sealed and awaiting shipment, the statement said. Another 2,750 packages managed to reach the market, more than 930 of them in Tianjin, and about 1,800 more went outside the city.
“If you have recently purchased this brand of ice cream, please report it to authorities,” the message said.
Commenting on the incident to Sky News, a virologist from the University of Leeds Stephen Griffin statedthat it was likely that one or more people transmitted the virus to the ice cream during production.
Griffin explained that it appears that the cold temperatures at which ice cream is stored and the fact that it contains fat may be the reason why the virus persisted in the product. However, the virologist added, there is no need to raise a big panic due to the discovery of COVID-19 in ice cream.
“This is likely a unique case,” Griffin said. “Of course, no level of contamination is acceptable and we must remain vigilant, but this situation is likely the result of production problems and poor hygiene regulations in the factory.”
Is it true
- Did Ice Cream Test Positive for COVID-19?
- COVID-19: Ice cream tests positive for coronavirus in China
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