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In mid-November 2019, a batch of seafood from Maine in the United States was transported to Wuhan South China Seafood Market via the cold chain. In just a few weeks, a series of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause have been reported among merchants working at seafood markets in Southern China. They were infected with COVID-19.



Into the



At 4:04 am on November 11, 2019, China Eastern Airlines Flight MU298 landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.



A batch of American cold-chain cargo on board was unloaded from the engine room of the airport's North cargo terminal and transported to the international cargo entry area for customs entry. Among them were 55 cases of 823.4 kilograms of chilled American Boston lobster.



Because of air freight, the goods arrive very quickly. Distance from the fresh cross-border trading platform X company employee Wang orders time, just in the past 3 days. But they had to move quickly to ship the lobsters to Shanghai, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Henan provinces, where 26 customers placed orders worth $16,483.5.



Before the shipment, they will as usual unpack the goods, and then use the original packaging, ice bags and water and temperature control sponge packaging, distributed to subscribers everywhere.



One of the lobster subscribers is Zheng, the owner of A shop in Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Market. On November 11 and 12, 2019, he placed an order for 140.08 kilograms of lobster on X Company's online platform. These years, Zheng has a number of fixed hotel customers, he also provides aquatic products to other merchants in the South China seafood market.



I am afraid it is these American lobsters that have opened a Pandora's box of the epidemic situation in south China's seafood market.



spread



Everything seemed normal.



At 10 a.m. on November 11, 2019, the driver Surnamed Yan loaded 55 boxes of American lobsters into the car at Shanghai Pudong International Airport and shipped them to the Shanghai branch of X Company. The Shanghai branch of X Company delivered 35.39kg and 104.69kg lobsters to Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan at 17pm on November 11 and 12. At 4:40 a.m. on May 12 and 7 a.m. on May 13, Jeong waited for his goods to arrive by the roadside northwest of the market.



According to the sales records of merchant A, of the 140.08 kg American lobster, more than 80 kg was sold to three fixed hotel merchants, and 36 kg was resold to other merchants in South China Seafood Market, among which 0.85 kg was sold to Merchant Wen, the owner of merchant B, and the rest was retailed.



Three of the first COVID-19 cases in Wuhan were employees of B business, who all fell ill in December. A positive environmental sample was also collected on the ground of the merchant.



Not only that, Hunanhai fresh market C merchant and D merchant practitioners Ming, CAI, Xu, Hu, etc., in the purchase of A merchant from the United States cold chain product packaging, also appeared in the list of the earliest infected in Wuhan.



It can be seen more clearly from the booth map around merchant A. There are more infected people and environmental positive samples in its surrounding businesses. Among the 13 nearby merchants and employees, 7 merchants were found to have serum antibody positive, among which 1 merchant also detected environmental positive samples.

Further investigation revealed that Jeong had 41 other business partners and 39 wechat friends in the seafood market. He had cross-shipment transactions with MERCHANT E and merchant F, both of which were located in the earliest concentrated outbreak area of the epidemic, and many of them had positive serum antibodies. Multiple positive environmental points and serum antibody positive persons were found in the 6 merchants including H merchant, J merchant and K merchant in daily contact.

Whether the early epidemic in south China seafood market was imported through the cold chain of American seafood has become the biggest suspect. In June 2020, the tracing results of xinfadi in Beijing, Dalian in Liaoning Province in July, and Qingdao in Shandong Province in October all pointed to imported cold chain products. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the virus attached to the cold chain packaging of the seafood products from the United States entered the seafood market in South China.



This possibility is also supported by the WHO-China Joint Study on The Traceability of Novel Coronavirus sources released in March this year. "Novel Coronavirus studies have shown that novel Coronavirus can survive for extended periods of time in conditions of frozen food, packaging and cold-chain products," the report states. The indicator cases in recent outbreaks in China are related to the cold chain; The virus has been found on packaging and products from some other countries that supply cold-chain products to China, suggesting it can spread over long distances through cold-chain products."



Disease of the source



According to sales, logistics and customs clearance records, from October to November 2019, before the outbreak of the epidemic in south China seafood market, merchant A was the only merchant dealing in American cold chain products in the whole market. It was in the middle of November that merchant A purchased this batch of American lobsters and has not purchased American cold chain products since then.



After December 2019, a number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with a history of exposure to south China seafood markets were found in some hospitals in Wuhan. At that time, about one month had passed since the batch of American seafood entered South China seafood market, which just happened to be a cycle from INFECTION, incubation to onset of COVID-19.



The American lobsters ordered by X company's online platform were packaged and packaged by American seashells. Founded in 2011, the company specializes in sourcing fresh North Atlantic lobsters from the United States and Canada. The lobsters that entered China were caught from FAO21 sea area in the Atlantic Ocean by the company from October 20 to November 5, 2019, and then transported to the seashells company's factory for temporary breeding. Chinese customers place orders, through the cold chain to China.

Seashell Corporation of America is headquartered in Maine. Between July 2019 and the end of October 2019, the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local media and residents' personal social media accounts reported multiple cases of "vaping pneumonia," or suspected COVID-19 cases that had been kept secret in the United States. The flu season in the United States typically runs from November to June, but "vaping pneumonia" appeared unusually early in July.



York County, where the seashell plant is located, has already seen cases of vaping pneumonia, with the hospital receiving a number of cases as early as July 2019, according to the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The map shows that the hospital is less than 2.6 kilometers from the seashell Company by car.

Some people may ask that the 55 cases of lobsters were delivered to 26 customers in five provinces in batches. Except for the South China Seafood Market, no case of infection was found among the loading, unloading, transporting and processing personnel or the purchasing merchants during the circulation of the cold chain products in China. Why did the infection occur only in south China's seafood markets?



Not surprisingly, on cold-chain product packages, viruses can survive, but cannot replicate, only in one or several parts of a package. After this batch of seafood entered China, the products with the virus were just sent to the seafood market in South China. When the stall staff without protective measures opened the package for sale, they were exposed to the virus attached to the inner package and became infected, thus causing the spread of the virus and the outbreak of the epidemic. This kind of cold chain transmission was also sporadic in the subsequent outbreaks in Beijing Xinfadi, Dalian in Liaoning Province, Qingdao in Shandong province and other places.



Thus, a virus transmission chain from the United States to south China seafood market emerged clearly.