Beijing has in the past week seen a spike of Covid-19 cases - almost all of which have been linked
to a huge wholesale food market.
State media said the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at the Xinfadi
market - sparking fears across the country.
Supermarkets and restaurants across Beijing hurried to pull salmon from their shelves, and imports
from Europe were halted.
On Wednesday it was announced that a 22-year-old man - known to have occasionally cleaned frozen sea
food - had tested positive for the virus in Tianjin, near Beijing.
But China's Centre for Disease Control (CDC) said that it was unlikely that salmon carried the
virus. So how and why did the panic emerge?
What happened in the market?
Last Thursday, Beijing reported its first virus case after 57 days without a locally-transmitted
infection.
Since then, almost 150 cases have been confirmed - almost all of which have been linked to the
city's largest wholesale market.
Xinfadi supplies 80% of Beijing's vegetables and meat and is used by tens of thousands of people a
day.
But unlike the market in Wuhan, there is no evidence of a wildlife trade in the Xinfadi market.
Traces of the virus were found on a chopping board used by a seller of imported salmon, said
reports.
But some 40 samples from the market tested positive for the virus - some of which were not from chop
ping boards used to cut salmon, said a spokesman for Beijing's Municipal Health Commission.
Could salmon be a host for the virus?
It's very unlikely.
An official at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control said there was no evidence that salmon was the
host - or even an intermediate host - for the virus.
Shi Guoqing, deputy director of the CDC's emergency response centre, said there was no trace of the
virus on the salmon before it reached the market - suggesting the virus was present in the market,
rather than in the salmon itself.
And experts agree.