Residents of Beijing’s Dongcheng district line up for Covid-19 tests on January 22. Blockages in China are also becoming more difficult, rivaling the severity of the brakes placed on Wuhan a year ago.
Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
China is stepping up efforts to neutralize the coronavirus as new outbreaks challenge its already stringent pandemic strategy, with another weapon added to an arsenal of frontier curbs, mass testing and rigid blocks: anal swabs.
Although there is no national policy on the use of the technique, some residents in northern China – where more than 1,700 cases have emerged – have been subjected to swabs without notice. The method involves inserting a cotton swab dipped in saline about two to three centimeters into the anus, with the sample tested for active traces of the virus.
More than 1,000 schoolchildren and teachers in Beijing received anal, throat and nose smears last week, along with a separate antibody test, after an asymptomatic virus case was detected on campus, according to local authorities.
A medical worker collects a cotton swab from a child’s throat in Beijing on 26 January. Scientists have found that some patients with Covid-19 have active and prolonged intestinal viral infection.
Photographer: Shi Tielei / VCG / Getty Images
On Monday, passengers on a flight from Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, to Beijing, were told to disembark after officials found that someone from an area considered to be at high risk for transmitting the virus was on board. They were then taken to a hotel where health workers collected nose and anal samples, said a passenger who asked to be identified only by his last name, Wang.
Some people arriving in Beijing are also being asked to have anal smears, with a traveler who came from Hong Kong a few weeks ago telling Bloomberg News that she should smear herself during the hotel’s mandatory quarantine. The person, who declined to be identified for privacy reasons, also had to have three nose and throat exams, a blood test and his hotel room was examined twice.
More accurate
The use of the new detection technique is based on research that traces of the virus found in the anus may last longer than in the respiratory tract, said Li Tongzeng, deputy director of the respiratory and infectious diseases department at Beijing You An Hospital in Beijing. an interview with state television last week. Anal smears can be more accurate than throat and nose tests, especially in the detection of asymptomatic cases, he said, adding that they were only being used in risk groups, including quarantine sites.
Still, there is no evidence that transmission of the virus is more common among patients with a positive test in the anus area, and the anal smear has not been performed in other places that have successfully achieved near elimination of the pathogen, such as New Zealand.
Since suppressing his original outbreak in the central city of In Wuhan last year, China mounted a relentless effort to eradicate the coronavirus from its vast population, often using resources and powers that would not be viable or even supported in other countries.
While Western nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom still struggle with adequate virus testing, China is not only testing populations of entire cities every week, but also millions of people. frozen food imports and the containers they arrive every day for detailed pathogen traces.
This zeal, driven in part by local government officials concerned about the repercussions should their cities become the next Wuhan, has worked to keep outbreaks under control, but the use of techniques such as anal smear is being questioned by some experts – even in the country state media. So far, it appears to be being used only consistently in the north, including the capital.
“I don’t understand why Beijing added anal swabs. It’s not like poking your throat. You need a certain place and the risk of these transmission routes is less, ”said Jiang Qingwu, professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at Shanghai Fudan University. “Maybe they want to find remains? It is true that the virus can be detected there. “
Scientists have found that some patients with Covid-19 have active and prolonged intestinal viral infection, even though they do not show gastrointestinal symptoms. For these people, stool samples are usually positive even a week after their respiratory samples are negative, researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found.
While more research is needed to determine how effective anal smears are, the stool test was “grossly underutilized” in the pandemic, said Francis Chan, dean of the university’s medical school and director of the Intestinal Microbiota Research Center. The virus was still actively replicating in the stools of at least half of the study participants after they cleared it from their lungs, he said.
More difficult lockdowns
China’s ability to withstand the disruption of business and everyday life in its fierce fight against coronavirus is a hallmark of its approach.
It is the only country that has repeatedly detected traces of the virus in imports of frozen food, with efforts that include disinfecting packaging and delays at ports, where containers of products have been. piling. Local consumers are avoiding foreign foods for fear of infection, and meat imports from China are expected to drop by up to 30% this year, from a record in 2020.
Blockages in China are also becoming more difficult, rivaling the severity of restrictions placed on Wuhan a year ago, even as case levels have declined compared to elsewhere. China has reported only two deaths from Covid-19 since April and new infections at the height of the current outbreak, around 100 a day, compared with hundreds of thousands in the United States
Covid locks are spreading a year after China shocked the world
In Tonghua, a city of 2 million people in Jilin province, on the border with North Korea, all residents were banned from leaving their homes since January 21, after 100 infections were detected. Some complained on social media of insufficient food supplies after the sudden order, which led to a apologies from the local authorities.
There are signs that the central government is trying to encourage some moderation.
THE An editorial by the state news agency Xinhua said on Jan. 16 that local officials should stop using the phrase “war measures” to describe their containment efforts. These slogans can cause unnecessary panic, “paralyze people’s minds” and affect normal activities, the editorial said.
Disinfection of a market in Beijing’s Daxing district on January 21. China is not only testing millions of people every week, but also tons of imported frozen food and the containers they arrive in every day looking for traces of the pathogen.
Photographer: Noel Celis / AFP / Getty Images
But with the Lunar New Year holiday approaching mid-February, when officials expect 1.7 billion trips to be made despite calls for people to stay home, the war situation is likely to continue. The country is also doubling vaccination, with plans to inoculate 50 million people by the holiday with locally developed vaccines.
See how China fares on Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker
“We do not tolerate the circulation of the virus. As soon as we find it, we immediately repress it and outbreaks are not allowed, ”said Lu Hongzhou, an infectious disease physician who advises the central and Shanghai governments on treatment with Covid-19.
“Our country has always pursued this strategy and it cannot be adjusted.”
– With the help of John Liu, Claire Che, Dong Lyu and Jinshan Hong
(Updates with comments from Hong Kong scientists in the 13th paragraph.)