Bloomberg News has corrected its erroneous report that China found the COVID-19 virus on "both the inside and outside of ... shrimp packaging" associated with imported shrimp from Ecuador.
Ecuador's president and even the US seafood industry are among the many to have responded recently to reports on Friday that China's General Administration of Customs found the coronavirus on the outside of about five shrimp packages and the inside of a shipping container, raising questions again over whether the pathogen can spread through food or frozen products. The samples were from three Ecuadorian plants, and imports from those processors are being stopped, though a leading Ecuadorian shrimp exporter has disputed the findings.
And at least one element of the story was reported incorrectly on by Bloomberg. The major media service reported incorrectly that the virus was found on the inside of the packaging, though it fixed the article and pointed out the error on Monday.
The National Fisheries Institute (NFI), the US seafood industry's biggest trade association, said it "reached out to the reporting team and their editors" to bring attention to the mistake.
“There was genuine confusion caused by this inaccurate reporting,” said Brandon Phillips, NFI’s senior director of communications and advocacy, in a statement. “This was not an issue of semantics. It was an issue of specificity. Reports of a positive test on a shipping container as opposed to inside a product’s packaging are two very different stories.”
As noted by NFI, the US Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture have clarified that COVID-19 is not a food borne illness, issuing a statement in June.
“Efforts by some countries to restrict global food exports related to COVID-19 transmission are not consistent with the known science of transmission,” the statement read, adding, "[There's] no evidence that people can contract COVID-19 from food or from food packaging.”
“We’re disappointed that Bloomberg didn’t get the facts right the first time but we applaud them for correcting their mistake,” Phillips said. “Seafood continues to be a safe, healthy and available food that consumers should choose.”
July 14, 2020 at 10:40PM
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Bloomberg corrects report about China finding COVID inside shrimp packaging - Undercurrent News
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