The telegraph
China reports coronavirus-contaminated ice cream
The coronavirus was found in ice cream produced in eastern China, leading to a recall of boxes from the same batch, according to the government. Daqiaodao Food Co., Ltd. in Tianjin, adjacent to Beijing, was sealed off and its employees were being tested for coronavirus, a municipal government statement said. There was no indication that anyone had contracted the ice cream virus. Most of the 29,000 boxes on the lot have not yet been sold, the government said. The company said 390 units sold in Tianjin were being tracked and authorities elsewhere were notified of sales for their areas. The ingredients include New Zealand powdered milk and Ukrainian whey powder, the government said. The Chinese government suggested that the disease, first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, came from abroad and highlighted what it says are discoveries of coronavirus in imported fish and other foods, although foreign scientists are skeptical. Chinese authorities attributed the pellet outbreaks to frozen food products imported from countries such as the United States, the EU, New Zealand, Canada, India, Germany and Ecuador. And recently, China attributed an infection in a current cluster outbreak to an imported virus strain that allegedly contaminated a package of steamed breads. The World Health Organization said that cases of live viruses found on packaging appeared to be “rare and isolated”. Other health experts have warned against establishing causal links between food packaging and outbreaks – finding traces of the virus indicates that it is present on a surface, but does not mean that it can cause infections. The report came when China confirmed 109 new cases of Covid-19, two-thirds of them in a northern province bordering Beijing, and no deaths. There were 72 new cases in Hebei Province, where the government is building isolation hospitals with a total of 9,500 rooms to fight the rise in infections, according to the National Health Commission. The Health Commission on Saturday attributed the new infections to travelers and imported goods that, according to her, brought the virus from abroad. China’s death toll is 4,653 out of a total of 88,227 cases.