In a bid to stem the spread of covid-19, authorities in the Chinese port city of Xiamen have been testing all newly caught seafood, including crabs and shrimp, for the virus.
According to the city’s fishery supervisor, PCR testing must be conducted on all fishermen and their live catch upon their return to Xiamen in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian.
A member of staff at the Xiamen Municipal Oceanic Development Bureau told the South China Morning Post: “We test humans as well as what they caught at the same time, sample tests for the same batch of seafood”
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“We’re not the only place doing this. We took the lesson from Hainan, which is witnessing a serious outbreak. It’s said that it may be triggered by marine product transactions between local fishermen and their overseas counterparts”
Chinese media have long expressed concerns that sealife might have links to covid. The first ever outbreak was linked to a live animal and seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
However the country’s zero-covid stance has been ridiculed after a bizarre video showing medical staff in hazmat suits giving live sea creatures PCR tests, went viral.
A reporter from VICE asked an epidemiologist who said that fish could not carry Covid-19.
Could we be about to witness a lockdown of the ocean?
