A multi-stage green barrier strategy for the control of global SARS-CoV-2 transmission via food cold chain

He, Xu; Liu, Xinwang; Li, Pan; Wang, Panpan; Cheng, Haijun; Li, Wenqian; Li, Boda; Liu, Ting; Ma, Jun

Recently, “Object to Human” transmission route of SARS-CoV-2 with cold chain food as the medium has been confirmed by the frequent occurrence of Covid-19 infected patients who are practitioners of global cold chain logistics. The effective disinfection for cold chain food is the key to cut off this transmission route. However, there are great challenges to achieve the goal, due to the extremely massive commodities involved in global cold chain logistics of food, and the need to conduct disinfection at the temperature below freezing point. To solve this problem, in this study, a system of multi-stage barriers for virus transmission is established by making targeted disinfection strategies for five key steps throughout the whole life cycle of cold chain food (i.e. cold chain processing, refrigerated warehouse storage, refrigerated transportation and distribution, refrigerated retail, post-consumption). Moreover, the comparison of various disinfection methods which can be applied in the system is made to clarify the green disinfection. Conclusively, the cumulative disinfection for cold chain food provided by this system will play an important role on the normalized epidemic prevention and control.