Beijing restricts frozen food import from high-risk covid places
Live MintChina’s capital city urged companies to halt imports of frozen food from countries that have been severely hit by the pandemic as fears continue to mount over the possibility of transmission through packaging. The Beijing city government on Monday told companies to avoid importing frozen food from high-risk nations, without naming any. Chinese customs and local governments have repeatedly detected traces of the pathogen in imported cold-chain foods at a time when foreign food companies continued to report new infections, Beijing’s commerce bureau said on its website. China’s top virus expert in August warned that the government should prevent coronavirus from spreading into the country through imported frozen food, while the US Food and Drug Administration said it is “not aware of any evidence” to suggest that food can transmit the respiratory virus.