The National Health Commission on Thursday released a guideline for low-risk areas during summer under normalized COVID-19 prevention and control, which offers health tips for food consumers and employees in the food industry among others.

File photos by CFP

Employees in the food industry, including processing, sales and service staff, need to hold health certificates to work. Food enterprises should strengthen personnel hygiene training and provide personal protective articles such as masks, gloves and hand-washing facilities.

Food industry workers should reduce gathering activities, such as dining together or parties. They are required to actively monitor their health and report their health status via phone call or WeChat. Those who have symptoms such as fever and cough should immediately stop working, report their condition and seek medical treatment.

Food consumers should adhere to good hygiene habits and protect themselves well when shopping or dining. People should wear a mask and practice social distancing, cover mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. Once home from shopping, people should wash their hands.

Consumers should buy fresh food ingredients and use clean water when washing and processing food, cleaning cooking utensils and tableware as well as washing their hands.

People should pay attention to hygiene at key points while preparing food at home, especially after processing raw meat, poultry and aquatic products. They must wash their hands with soap and running water for at least 20 seconds.

Do not wash raw meat products directly under the tap, to prevent splash contamination.

Avoid touching eyes and nose with hands when purchasing and manufacturing raw food materials. Raw and cooked food should be processed and stored separately, especially when processing raw meat and aquatic products so as to avoid cross-contamination.

Try not to eat raw aquatic products. Boil and cook food thoroughly. When processing meat and aquatic products, boil and cook them thoroughly. Food shall be packaged separately and stored in layers.

Raw meat, aquatic products and other foods should be divided into small pieces and packed separately before being put into the frozen layer of the refrigerator. Packaging bags should be intact. Raw and cooked foods should be stored in different layers. Advocate the use of public chopsticks and spoons.