PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • October 1, 2021
A shipment of Maine lobster has been identified by Chinese media as a likely culprit for the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a claim a Maine official called “nonsensical.” A recent article in the Sina news portal, one of the most read on China’s state-controlled internet, reported that in mid-November 2019, a batch of seafood from Maine was shipped to the “Wuhan South China Seafood Market,” also known as the Huanan Seafood Market, where the virus was first reported in late 2019. According to the translated Sina article, within a few weeks, employees in the market began experiencing “symptoms of pneumonia of unknown origin one after another.” Sina named “the Seashell Company” in York County as the original source of the lobster. The Seashell Company does not exist, but a map in the article identifies the company’s headquarters as those of York-based lobster exporter Maine Coast Shellfish.