The Covid-19
virus has run like wild fire through the Midwest meat packing industry.
That means
that a lot of the meat processed by theses plants were processed by people who
were hosting the virus, but had not tested positive. People who were capable of transmitting the
virus were packing our meats.
What does
this mean for the safety of the meat at our local markets? Is it possible that some of these products are
contaminated by the virus?
I don’t
know?
Not looking
to start a conspiracy theory; but it is a legitimate question.
I would be
interested in the opinion of PipeTobacco, The Thoughts of a Frumpy Professor - a
university biologist. I think a post
from him on the science of the pandemic would be interesting.
the Ol’Buzzard
My opinion.... properly cooked meat SHOULD likely be safe. But, with that said.... there are many quirky aspects about how this virus behaves, so I cannot say for sure.
ReplyDeleteNormal, full cooking of meat would kill the typical virus if present. Also, with the likely delay from contamination to consumption being at minimum a day, that would further SUGGEST like the viability of Covid-19 viruses that may be on meat products SHOULD be very low. But again, with the novelty of this virus, nothing is certain.
If this virus has more resiliency on animal tissue, say like prions do..... then... the risk would be enormous if one ate infected meat. There have been a few cases reported where non-human, living animals have acquired Covid-19, and it has show a negative effect on their health, but it has thus far been seen only very infrequently. The viability of Covid-19 in dead animal tissue, has to the best of my knowledge, not been firmly established.
We really have no strong evidence yet for many things because of this virus’s newness. I wish (as do we all) that there were definitive things to state about this pathogen at the moment.
PipeTobacco
As far as I know there has been no tests on raw meat or cooked meat products infected with CV-19, yet. If I worked for the CDC, that would be a priority in testing besides the longevity of CV-19 on surfaces. As a retired medical lab microbiologist and hematologist that would be my first question.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the information from PipeTobacco. I think that is one less thing that I have to worry about when it comes to COVID-19 but I am sure there will be plenty of new concerns tomorrow to fill that void.
ReplyDeleteI hope the professor is right and that the lag time from processing to plate is sufficient to ensure non viability. But it does raise a good point.
ReplyDelete