Tech Times reported this week that the possible cause of the new Chinese outbreak was from eating salmon. Thursday, June 18, the odds may not be in favor of this theory after experts disagree with the claim. They said that mammals only acquire the same virus strands found in Coronavirus, not fish. But, where could the Chinese people get the new COVID-19 virus? Here's a new theory.  

Nope, eating salmon won't get you COVID-19  

If you are worried that you can no longer eat salmon due to the new China's COVID-19 outbreak, here's good news. It might be a false alarm. 

In Beijing, China, fresh cases came up after weeks of reporting zero virus cases. One of the most talked-about assumptions of the sudden comeback of the virus comes from eating and buying salmon fish in the city's biggest wholesale market.

As reported, virus strands were found in the market's chopping board wherein an imported salmon was sliced off. This became the main argument that salmon fishes have the same Coronavirus strands. 

Chinese-state media first released this news, until the Chinese government decided to withdraw all importations of salmon fishes from European countries.

"We can't send any salmon to China now, the market is closed," Regin Jacobsen, CEO of Oslo-listed salmon supplier Bakkafrost, told Reuters.

"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.

This theory even arises more after, on Wednesday, June 17, a 22-year-old man living near Beijing was found positive with the virus. It was said that the man was a regular buyer of frozen fish inside the market. 

Since then, almost 150 fresh new cases in China were related to the biggest wholesale market in town. 

Chinese CDC and WHO don't believe the 'salmon theory'

Though its convincing that salmon could have infected hundreds of Chinese people with COVID-19, the country's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) think otherwise.

Both of them believe that it is very unlikely for salmon to be the host for a virus. First, mammals are the only ones that can release the same virus structure with COVID-19, not fishes. Secondly, the WHO said that food could not be contaminated with the virus. 

"Viruses must rely on the viral receptor on the host cell surfaces to infect cells. Without a certain receptor, they cannot enter into cells successfully," Cheng Gong, a virologist at Tsinghua University, told CGTN. "All known evidence so far suggests this kind of receptors exist only in mammals, not fish."

"Coronaviruses cannot multiply in food; they need an animal or human host to multiply," WHO said in a document published on its website. "It also said it was "highly unlikely" that it could spread through food packaging.

So now we can peacefully eat sushi, right?

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