this week, Videos Of health workers wearing dangerous clothes and sticking cotton buds into the mouths of fish and crabs, it has gone viral on Chinese social media, prompting complaints that the country’s no-coronavirus policy has gone too far.
Since the epidemic, China has relied on mass testing, extensive quarantines and sudden shutdowns to stem any resurgence of the coronavirus. But the highly contagious variant of Omicron has challenged China’s tougher measures to combat Covid.
In Jimei District of Xiamen, the authorities released a file Notice Last month he requested that both “hunters and their catch” be tested for Covid.
Since June, she said, “illegal trade and illegal contact” between fishermen in Fujian Province and overseas ships has led to the spread of COVID-19 in China, “causing great social harm.”
Xiamen reported 10 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the total in the latest outbreak to 65. The port city has conducted three rounds of mass testing for its 5 million residents, starting on Wednesday.
Taihainet.com, a state-run news website in Fujian, mentioned That the test requirement for both fishermen and their catches has been implemented to “strengthen the line of defense against the marine epidemic and strictly prevent the import of the epidemic from the sea.”
Jin Dongian, a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Biomedical Sciences, told CNN that the policy was a “waste of resources.”
“They should focus on people rather than fish,” he said.
According to Jane, the catch test was “completely useless” because the chances of the fish testing positive and spreading the virus to humans were “very low”.
“It is possible for these fishermen to be infected 100 or 1,000 times by other fishermen. There is no evidence that fish can transmit the virus,” he said.
Chinese officials previously blamed the country’s Covid-19 outbreak on a variety of imports, including frozen seafood, suggesting that people may be sick after handling contaminated packages.
However, since 2020, the World Health Organization has confirmed that there is no evidence that people can catch Covid from food or food packaging. In January 2022, the Animal Health and Welfare Center of City University of Hong Kong was established He said The risk of contracting COVID-19 from animals was “negligible”.
Previously, there were reports of SeafoodAnd the cattle and fruit Even crops being tested for COVID-19 in China. Authorities have also implemented strict measures to test food import packaging for traces of the virus, even halting imports from companies that have tested positive and causing delays and blockages at ports.
Xiamen’s testing policy comes as China takes extensive steps to maintain its Covid-free stance, including a lock Ikea branch in Shanghai this week after discovering a close contact of a Covid-19 case to the site, stranded More than 80,000 tourists On the island resort of Hainan last week to stop the outbreak.
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