In mid-November 2019, a batch of Maine seafood was shipped to the South China Seafood Market in Wuhan via the cold chain. Within a few weeks, many merchants in the South China Seafood Market discovered the novel coronavirus pneumonia.
Arrival
At 4:4 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 cabin of the airport's north cargo station and transported to the international cargo arrival area for customs declaration. Among them, there are 55 boxes of 823.4 kilograms of frozen Boston lobster.
Due to air freight, the goods arrived soon. Only three days have passed since Mr. Wang, an employee of Company X, placed an order on the fresh food cross-border trading platform. But they had to act quickly and send the goods to Shanghai, Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan and other places. Twenty-six customers ordered this batch of lobsters for a total value of US$16,483.50.
Before delivery, they will open the box for inspection as usual, and then seal it with the original packaging, ice bag and water temperature control sponge and send it to local users.
Zheng is also one of the subscribers of this batch of lobsters. He is the owner of a merchant in Wuhan South China Seafood Market. From November 11 to 12, 2019, he ordered 140.08 kilograms of lobster on the X company's online platform. In recent years, Zheng has a group of regular hotel customers. He also provides aquatic products to other merchants in the South China Seafood Market.
The Pandora's Box that opened the epidemic at the South China Seafood Market is probably this batch of American lobsters. It seems normal to
spread
everything.
At 10 am on November 11, 2019, at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the driver Yan loaded 55 boxes of American lobsters and transported them to the Shanghai branch of Company X; at 17:00 on the 11th and 12th, the Shanghai branch of Company X sent to Wuhan twice The South China Seafood Market shipped 35.39 kg and 104.69 kg of lobster; at 4:40 am on the 12th and at 7 am on the 13th, Zheng waited for the goods by the northwest road of the market.
According to the sales records of merchant a, more than 80 kilograms of 140.08 kilograms of American lobster were sold to three fixed hotel merchants, 36 kilograms were resold to other merchants in the South China Seafood Market, of which 0.85 kilograms were sold to Wen, the owner of merchant B, and the rest It's all retail.
Three of the first patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan were B business, and they were all infected in December. The merchant also collected an environmentally positive sample on the ground.
Moreover, the employees of merchants Ming, Cai, Xu, and Hu of South China Seafood Market C and D, who borrowed the packaging of American cold chain products purchased by merchant a, also appeared in the list of the first cases of infection in Wuhan.
It can be seen more clearly from the booth map around merchant a. There were more infected persons and positive environmental samples from nearby businesses. Among the 13 nearby businesses and employees, 7 businesses were sero-positive, and 1 business also detected environmental positive samples.
Merchant surrounding businesses were more likely to infect
further investigation found that Jeong has 41 trading partners and 39 micro-letter friends in the seafood market. He has cross-border transactions with merchants E and F, both of which are located in the areas where the epidemic first concentrated. Many of them tested positive for serum antibodies; six merchants including merchant h, merchant J, merchant K, and found multiple positive environmental points and serum Those with positive antibodies.
A merchant, Zheng's multiple trading partners and WeChat friends were infected with the
South China Seafood Market. Whether the early epidemic was imported through this batch of US seafood cold chains has become the biggest question. The traceability results of the epidemic in Xinfadi in Beijing in June 2020, Dalian in Liaoning in July, and Qingdao in Shandong in October 2020 all point to imported cold chain products. Therefore, it is entirely possible for the virus to attach to the cold chain packaging of these seafood products in the United States and enter the South China seafood market.
This possibility is also supported by the joint research report on COVID-19 traceability issued by China in March this year. The study pointed out that “COVID-19 has been able to survive for a long time under the conditions of frozen food, packaging and cold chain products.” The recent cases in China are all related to the cold chain. The virus is packaged and produced in other countries that provide cold chain products to China, indicating that it can be spread over long distances through cold chain products.
Origin of the disease
According to sales, logistics and customs records, from October 2019 to November 2019 before the outbreak of the South China Seafood Market, Merchant A was the only merchant in the market that operated American cold chain products. Moreover, in mid-November, Merchant A purchased this batch of American lobsters, and has not purchased American cold chain products since then.
After December 2019, a new coronavirus pneumonia case was found in Wuhan's new coronavirus pneumonia cases, and a batch of American seafood entered the South China seafood market for about one month. This is just a week for the new coronary pneumonia from infection to latent disease. The first time was in December 2019.
A batch of American lobsters ordered by Company X's network platform was packaged by American Shell Company. Founded in 2011, the company is a wholesaler specializing in purchasing fresh North Atlantic lobster from the United States and Canada. The lobsters entering China were caught by the company from fao21 in the Atlantic Ocean from October 20 to November 5, 2019, and then transported to the Haibei company's factory for temporary breeding. After a Chinese customer places an order, it will be transported to China through the cold chain.
The timetable for this batch of American seafood from Maine to the South China Seafood Market in Wuhan. The
US Shell Company is headquartered in Maine. From July to the end of October 2019, the new coronavirus pneumonia was carefully concealed and referred to "e-cigarette pneumonia" in the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local media and residents. The flu season in the United States is generally from November of that year to June of the following year, but "e-cigarette pneumonia" appears as early as July, which is very abnormal.
Cases of "e-cigarette pneumonia" have long been discovered in York County, where Haibei's factory is located. According to information released by the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as early as July 2019, York County Hospital received multiple cases of "e-cigarette pneumonia". The map shows that the hospital is less than 2.6 kilometers away from Haibei Company.
The map shows that the York County Hospital in Maine is less than 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) from Haibei Company.
Someone may ask that these 55 boxes of lobster were delivered to 26 customers in 5 provinces in batches. Except for the South China Seafood Market, no cases of infection have been found in the domestic loading and unloading, transportation, processing, and purchasing merchants of this batch of cold chain products. Why does the infection only occur in the South China Seafood Market?
This is not surprising. In the packaging of cold chain products, the virus can survive, but cannot replicate, and can only survive in one or several parts of a package. After this batch of seafood entered China, the virus-carrying products have just been shipped to the South China Seafood Market. Booth staff who did not take protective measures were infected with the virus attached to the inner packaging when they opened the sales packaging, which led to the spread of the virus and the outbreak of the epidemic. This sporadic cold chain spread also occurred many times in subsequent outbreaks in Beijing, Dalian, Liaoning, Qingdao, and Shandong.
At this point, a chain of virus transmission from the United States to the South China seafood market has clearly emerged.