COVID-19: TRANSMISSION QUESTIONS

Transmission - is this all?

Whilst we hear about the possibility of tighter restrictions in England, and whether enough people are following the existing restrictions, we don't yet know how well the new 'lockdown' restrictions are working.

I have long advocated that the best thing to do was ultra-tough restrictions to drive the infection rate well down in  the shortest possible time.  Instead the existing semi-tough 'lockdown' restrictions look as if they will be dragging on.

Indeed the spread of the new variant of the virus makes me wonder, as a scientist, how well we understand its transmission.  Infection rates dropped during the November lockdown and the earlier Welsh 'firebreak', but not as much as might be hoped. And these initiatives were before the new variant, which is spreading more rapidly.

Are we missing something important?  Could it be that there are other important transmission methods?  Perhaps:

• Transmission via food?
• Via drinking water (this is a virus not bacteria)?
• Via packaging of food and other essentials? 
• Takeaways?
• Frozen food?
  
• Other mechanisms?
  

We need to keep an open mind.  We're still learning about this virus.

Update 17Jan21:  There is now news that the virus behind COVID-19 has been found in ice cream.

Also, a cold store was suspected as the source of one of the early outbreaks in New Zealand. 

Even so, organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the US's CDC say "There is no scientific evidence that eating hygienically made frozen food and ice-cream spreads the new coronavirus."  

We know that the virus survives intact and infectious for longer in colder conditions.  So we need to be testing for the virus in foodstuffs and packaging, especially those that are frozen.  We also need to investigate any cases where there is no obvious cause of transmission.

Maybe there is truth in the virus surviving in food and its packaging.  I sincerely hope not.  But at this stage we should not ignore the possibility.

Washing hands thoroughly after handling frozen foods is certainly a sensible precaution.