Coronavirus: China halts salmon imports over possible link to Beijing outbreak as consumers leap to conclusions
- Some restaurants drop salmon from menu while others reel from the impact on their business as public exercise caution
- But link to infections at Xinfadi market is only a hypothesis, experts say, while Hong Kong’s imported salmon tests negative for coronavirus
State-run newspapers reported that the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at Beijing’s Xinfadi market, at the centre of a cluster of infections that has sparked fears of a second wave of the pandemic in China.
The reports prompted major supermarkets in Beijing to remove salmon from their shelves.
“We can’t send any salmon to China now, the market is closed,” Regin Jacobsen, chief executive of Oslo-based salmon supplier Bakkafrost, told Reuters.
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New coronavirus outbreak at Beijing food market fuels fears of second wave of cases in China
“We have stopped all sales to China and are waiting for the situation to be clarified,” said Stein Martinsen, head of sales and marketing at Norway Royal Salmon.
Genetic traces of the virus from the Beijing market outbreak suggested it could have come from Europe.