NEW EVIDENCE FROM GERMANY RE HOW VIRUS SPEADS BY AIR

Fresh Meat, Fish and Poultry Which Has Been Refrigerated Has the Potential For Contamination

In Germany in late June a new outbreak of Covid 19 was detected which unsettled the German epidemiologists (Les premiers reconfinements en Allemagne 25 June 2020, Eurojournaliste). These German abattoirs and packing plants —among them one of the largest in Europe—were hit by 1500 COVID 19 cases.  Some pointed to the use of low wage immigrant labor, poor working conditions and poor hygiene.  Revisiting a “shutdown”  of certain  affected “cantons” counties (?) imposed by the German authorities.

But more recently (July 23, 2020, Bloomberg: “Virus can travel 26 feet at cold meat plants with stale air“) a follow up German study in these same meat packing plants revealed that in cold stale (stagnant air) virus particles can remain viable and infect others as far away as 8 meters (eight Chinnok Salmon or about 26 feet).  The study helped explain to the investigators how 1500 workers could be infected and how several of these places have become  local “epicenters” of the disease. But a corollary conclusion was the unthinkable—that the virus could remain viable over those long distances and for long periods of time.

Apparently, as this author has noted earlier (arguing that transmission is primarily air borne),  the spittle droplets which enter the air as workers talk, cough or sneeze can remain lofted in the air under varying atmospheric conditions.  In confined, cold, stagnant air, infected droplets apparently can remain viable over much longer periods of time and if circumstances permit them to remain lofted they could infect others as far away as 26 feet. That discovery suggests that those droplets which settle onto to cold moist surfaces may as well remain viable for longer times than expected.  This seems to give support to the contention of Chinese investigators who claimed that refrigerated Norwegian salmon may have been contaminated in a Norway packing plant and the covid virus remained capable of infecting Chinese workers in a Beijing fish market.

Recall the case of the Norwegian salmon which in early June 2020 was implicated in an outbreak of Covid 19 in Beijing’s Xinfadi market. .  Chinese authorities banned Norwegian salmon for a period of time and began testing for viral contamination.  Norway demurred as did some Chinese experts.   But China did establish that the strain of the virus that they isolated in the Beijing fish market was not a local strain—but one that had come from Europe.  One possible explanation is that the fish was contaminated in Norway Or in transport and under the conditions of high moisture and low temperatures the virus remained viable as a surface contaminant during its period of refrigerated passage.

After this most recent meat German plant outbreak and investigation, the Chinese are now testing meats arriving in China from German (and others) packing plants where covid 19 outbreaks had occurred.

For costumes here it seems prudent to exercise care when preparing and cooking meat and fish as well as poultry which has been refrigerated and arrives fresh in your kitchen.  (There is no evidence about long frozen foods as yet.)  Although our CDC and other “experts” have claimed all along that the surfaces of foodstuffs as well as meat and fish were very unlikely sources of contamination —-recall they were wrong on several occasions already —“no masks necessary in March—but masks  in June“.

Therefore, in light of these recent studies I would view fresh fish, meat and poultry as: although unlikely to be contaminated— the possibility of viable virus on the meat surface does exist.  Thorough cooking of course would denature or kill any microbes or viruses on the surface, but  handling of the raw product could contaminate your hands, cutlery and cutting boards . So prudent hygienic practices should be employed after handling and preparing these products.

Fresh vegetables which are harvested and packaged  by people who could be sick and are comestibles often implicated in transmissible disease-/but these are less likely to be contaminated by viruses which probably could not survive on surfaces exposed to open air-drying, to solar UV light and the heat of the sun.  But how they are handled once they are harvested is an open question.

But hey, canned foods are totally safe!