A recent study suggests that the cousins of SARS-CoV-2 can survive in frozen meat and fish for as much as a month.

Prompted by COVID outbreaks in Asia, where it was suspected that the virus got here from packaged meat, researchers conducted a study on frozen chicken, beef, pork and salmon.

The findings were then published recently in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society of Microbiology.

Emily Baily, the primary writer and assistant professor of public health at Campbell University in Buies Creek, NC, said her team conducted the research without using the coronavirus behind the COVID pandemic-19. Instead of that, the team used three surrogate viruses with similar protein spikes, all of which got used as stand-ins in previous studies of SARS-CoV-2.

The viruses were placed in frozen meat and fish subjected to refrigerator temperatures (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and freezer temperatures (-4 degrees Fahrenheit). 

“Although you may not store meat within the fridge for 30 days, you may store it within the freezer for that long. We even found that the viruses might be cultured after [being frozen for] that length of time,” said Bailey.

The researchers found that the viruses didn’t fare well in refrigerator temperatures in comparison with freezer temperatures. What’s more, the numbers also differed by food item.

The viruses managed to survive for prolonged periods of time at high concentrations of each temperatures.

Based on the researchers, the findings are crucial because SARS-CoV-2 may reproduce within the gut and never just within the respiratory tract, where patients normally feel the effect of its symptoms.

“Continued efforts are needed to forestall contamination of foods and food processing surfaces, employee hands, and food processing utensils corresponding to knives,” wrote the authors before adding that food disinfection before they get packaged and sold in stores must be addressed properly.

The researchers also emphasized the necessity for “rigorous and sustained food sanitation and hygiene within the harvest, transport, processing, and distribution of those foods.”