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China Punishes Cold-Chain Managers for ‘Obstructing’ Covid Prevention

The Beijing branch of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has accused several people involved in the cold storage business of management and supervisory failures


China
With stepped up inspections on food imports, Hong Kong is again following in the footsteps of mainland China on Covid-19 policies. Photo: AFP.

 

Investigations into China’s cold-chain sector have led to several managers, officials and business owners being punished for failing to meet Covid-19 prevention standards, the country’s corruption watchdog said in a notice.

The Beijing branch of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) accused several people involved in the cold storage business of management and supervisory failures when it came to controlling Covid-19.

It accused one manager in an industrial park in southwest Beijing of “poor leadership and non-standard management that led to the spread of the epidemic”.

Several officials have been expelled from the Communist Party and could face further criminal punishment, according to a notice published by the CCDI late on Sunday.

After linking a number of local cases to the cold-chain industry, Beijing also promised earlier this month to tighten its screening procedures.

China has been an outlier in asserting that Covid-19 can be transmitted via cold-chain imports such as frozen meat and fish, even though the World Health Organization has played down the risk.

 

  • Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard

 


 

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Jim Pollard

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years and has a family in Bangkok.