The capital of China’s southern Guangdong province has suspended imports of frozen meat, fish and seafood from coronavirus-hit countries, as Beijing intensifies scrutiny of refrigerated food as a possible carrier of the disease.
中国南方省份广东省的省会已暂停进口来自新型冠状病毒疫区国家的冷冻肉类和水产品。北京方面正收紧对冷冻食品的管理，认为冻品可能携带新冠病毒。
Guangzhou authorities on Sunday announced the temporary ban from virus hotspots, without naming specific countries, and ordered all workers who had come into contact with frozen goods to undergo RNA tests for Covid-19.
上周日广州有关部门宣布了对疫区的这条临时进口禁令，不过并没有指明具体国家，同时还要求所有接触过冻品的工作人员进行新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19，即2019冠状病毒病）的核酸检测。
Guangdong is China’s most populous province with 113m residents and is an important manufacturing hub responsible for more than a 10th of the country’s economic growth. In the first half of 2020, Guangzhou, the provincial capital, imported more than $665m in frozen meat, fish and seafood.
广东省是中国人口最多的省份，有1.13亿居民，也是一个重要的制造业中心，对中国经济增长的贡献率超过10%。2020年上半年，省会广州市进口了逾6.65亿美元的冷冻肉类和水产品。
Last week Shenzhen, the Guangdong city on the border of the Chinese mainland with Hong Kong, said that a sample collected from imported frozen chicken wings from Brazil had tested positive for the virus.
上周深圳市表示从巴西冷冻鸡翅中采集的样本检测呈阳性。深圳市位于广东省，与香港接壤。
The Brazilian government rejected the claims, pointing out that World Health Organization experts had said there was no evidence that frozen food or its packaging were a risk factor in spreading the virus.
巴西政府否认了这一说法，指出世界卫生组织(WHO)的专家已表示，没有证据表明冻品或其包装是病毒传播的风险因素。
But Chinese officials continue to raise concerns about the trade of refrigerated food. Since late June, when Chinese customs launched widespread swabbing of imported goods, there have been 10 incidents of frozen goods or their packaging testing positive.
但中国官员依然加强了对冷冻食品贸易的关注。自6月底中国海关开始对进口商品进行大规模采样以来，已发生10起冻品或其包装检测呈阳性的案例。
Xi Chen, a public health policy academic at Yale university, said that the positive tests were probably triggered by lingering genetic material of a dead virus, which would be incapable of infecting humans.
耶鲁大学(Yale University)公共卫生政策学者陈希表示，导致检测呈阳性的原因可能是死病毒的残留遗传物质，这些物质不会感染人类。
“China thinks it has the virus under control so they want to use any means possible to prevent a return . . . but we need to look at the science and work out measures that do not disrupt international trade,” Mr Chen said.
陈希说：“中国认为自己已经控制住疫情，因此他们想动用一切可能的手段来阻止疫情死灰复燃……但我们需要从科学角度出发，制定出不扰乱国际贸易的措施。”
He added that global monitoring of imports by epidemiologists was needed to confirm whether the concerns were warranted.
他补充说，需要流行病学家对进口进行全球监控，以确认这些担忧是否合理。
A Guangdong official who works on coronavirus prevention said he did not expect a blanket ban, but that at this initial stage it was necessary to be more stringent.
一位从事冠状病毒预防工作的广东官员表示，他预计不会出台全面禁令，但在这个初始阶段，有必要采取更加严格的措施。
“Right now there is a lot we have yet to clear up, including the source of the infection and the scope of spread,” said the official, who declined to be named. “As it happened in Shenzhen, a place with a huge flow of people, we are to an extent racing against time.”
这位不愿透露姓名的官员表示：“目前我们还有很多问题需要明确，包括传染源和传播范围。正如人流量巨大的深圳的情况，我们某种程度上是在与时间赛跑。”
Guangdong has launched a testing drive spanning the whole supply chain of a groceries and restaurant chain backed by technology company Alibaba, after one of its employees in Shenzhen was found to be infected.
在阿里巴巴(Alibaba)旗下食品杂货和餐饮连锁企业的一名深圳员工被发现感染新冠病毒后，广东省对该企业整个供应链启动了检测。
On Saturday, Fresh Hippo announced it was temporarily closing 21 stores across Shenzhen. Authorities have dispatched teams to 36 Fresh Hippo stores as well as 12 warehouses and processing plants across the province.
上周六，盒马鲜生(Fresh Hippo)宣布暂时关闭深圳的21家门店。当局向全省36家盒马鲜生门店以及12个仓库和加工厂派出了工作小组。
The chain of supermarkets and eateries, which offers fresh produce from stores in busy shopping malls, is a central part of Alibaba’s efforts to add bricks-and-mortar stores to its ecommerce empire.
贩卖生鲜食品的盒马鲜生开在人流密集的购物中心里。盒马鲜生是阿里巴巴为其电商帝国增加实体店的核心努力之一。
Last week, Ecuador’s minister of trade said that a deal had been negotiated with China to restart imports of frozen shrimp from the Latin American nation. In July, China suspended some imports from Ecuador after samples collected from shipments tested positive for Covid-19.
上周，厄瓜多尔贸易部长表示，已与中国谈判达成协议，中国将恢复从这个拉美国家进口冻虾。今年7月，在厄瓜多尔冻品样本检测出新冠病毒呈阳性之后，中国暂停从该国进口部分产品。