China’s unproven testing of frozen food is generating a backlash from its trade partners

Since June, Chinese authorities have tested chilled and frozen food imports for SARS-CoV-2 repeatedly reporting particles of the virus on products and packaging from dozens of countries.

Packaging first became a major issue with outbreaks in China linked to wholesale food markets, so much so that many supermarkets now are selling imported meat with a sticker declaring it to be virus-free. China has also reported many cases of infection among freight handlers possibly linked to packaging, however China has not yet produced evidences for this claim, therefore the person-to-person transmission hasn’t been ruled out yet.

Despite this lack of evidence, Beijing wants cold-chain shipments disinfected and has imposed import bans on firms whose products have tested positive.

Trading partners, including the U.S., New Zealand, Canada and the EU, are pressuring China to stop its aggressive testing of their products for COVID-19 because it is comparable to an unfair trade barrier, since it does not adhere to global norms. The major food exporters are also questioning China's findings, being doubtful about the applied methodology, since China has offered no solid evidences or no evidences at all.

The WHO is aware of previous reports from countries including China, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand where virus was found on packaging of frozen food through PCR testing, however, so far, no evidence of people getting COVID-19 from consuming food has been demonstrated. A WHO spokeman has also highlighted that the number of food imports which have tested positive for COVID-19 in China was relatively low (ca. ten out of hundreds of thousand). Moreover, as explained by Andrew Pekosz of Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, a positive test “doesn’t indicate infectious virus, just that some signal from the virus is present on that surface”.