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China’s Zero-Tolerance Covid Tactics Now Include Anal Swabs (1)
2021-01-27 12:30:26.866 GMT
By Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- China is ramping up efforts to neutralize
the coronavirus as new outbreaks challenge its already stringent
pandemic strategy, with another weapon added to an arsenal of
border curbs, mass testing and hard lockdowns: anal swabs.
While there’s no nationwide policy on use of the technique,
some residents in China’s northern regions -- where more than
1,700 cases have emerged -- have been subjected to the swabs
with little warning. The method involves the insertion of a
saline-soaked cotton swab about two-to-three centimeters into
the anus, with the sample then tested for active traces of the
virus.
More than 1,000 schoolchildren and teachers in Beijing were
given anal, throat and nose swabs last week, along with a
separate antibody test, after one asymptomatic virus case was
detected on campus, according to local officials.
On Monday, passengers on a flight from Changchun, the
capital city of Jilin province, to Beijing were told to
disembark after officials discovered that someone from an area
deemed as high risk for virus transmission was on board. They
were then brought to a hotel where health workers took nose and
anal swabs, said a passenger who asked to be identified only by
his last name, Wang.
Some people arriving into Beijing are being asked to
undertake anal swabs as well, with one traveler who came from
Hong Kong a few weeks ago telling Bloomberg News she was told to
do the swab herself while in mandatory hotel quarantine. The
person, who didn’t want to be identified citing privacy
concerns, also had to do three nose and throat tests, one blood
test and her hotel room has been tested twice.
More Accurate
Use of the new detection technique is based on research
that traces of the virus found in the anus can last longer than
in the respiratory tract, Li Tongzeng, deputy director of the
respiratory and infectious disease department of Beijing You An
Hospital said in an interview with state television last week.
Anal swabs could be more accurate than throat and nose tests,
especially in detecting asymptomatic cases, he said, adding they
were only being used on at-risk groups, including at quarantine
sites.
Still, there’s no evidence that virus transmission is any
more common among patients who test positive in the anus area,
and anal swabbing has not been conducted in other places that
have successfully achieved near-elimination of the pathogen,
like New Zealand.
Since quelling its original outbreak in the central city of
Wuhan last year, China has mounted a relentless drive to stamp
out the coronavirus within its vast population, often deploying
resources and powers that wouldn’t be viable or even
countenanced in other countries.
While Western nations like the U.S. and U.K. still struggle
with adequate virus testing, China is not just testing entire
city populations every week, but also millions of frozen food
imports and the containers that they arrive in every day for
minute traces of the pathogen.
That zeal, driven in part by local government officials
concerned about repercussions should their cities become the
next Wuhan, has worked at keeping outbreaks in check, but the
use of techniques like anal swabbing is being questioned by some
experts -- even in the country’s state-run media. So far, it
appears to be only being used consistently in the north,
including the capital.
“I don’t understand why Beijing added anal swabs. It’s not
like poking the throat. You need a certain place and the risk of
such transmission routes is lower,” said Jiang Qingwu, a
professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at
Shanghai’s Fudan University. “Maybe they want to find remnants?
It’s true that the virus can be detected there.”
Scientists have found that some Covid-19 patients have
active and prolonged gut viral infection, even if they don’t
manifest gastrointestinal symptoms. For such people, stool
samples often test positive even a week after their respiratory
samples have gone negative, researchers from the Chinese
University of Hong Kong found.
While more research is needed to determine how effective
anal swabs are, stool testing has been “grossly underutilized”
in the pandemic, said Francis Chan, dean of the university’s
faculty of medicine and director of its Centre for Gut
Microbiota Research. The virus was still actively replicating in
the feces of at least half of the study participants after
they’d cleared it from their lungs, he said.
Tougher Lockdowns
China’s capacity to endure disruption to business and
everyday life in its ferocious fight against the coronavirus is
a hallmark of its approach.
It’s the only country that has repeatedly detected traces
of the virus on frozen food imports, with efforts that include
disinfecting packaging adding to delays at ports, where
containers of produce have been piling up. Local consumers are
shunning foreign food for fear of infection, and China’s meat
imports are projected to plunge as much as 30% this year from a
record in 2020.
China’s lockdowns are also getting tougher, rivaling the
severity of curbs placed on Wuhan a year ago even as case levels
pale in comparison to elsewhere. China has reported just two
Covid-19 deaths since April, and new infections at the height of
the current flare-up number around 100 a day, compared with
hundreds of thousands in the U.S.
Covid Lockdowns Are Spreading a Year After China Shocked
World
In Tonghua, a city of 2 million people in Jilin province
bordering North Korea, all residents have been banned from
leaving their homes since Jan. 21 after 100 infections were
detected. Some have complained on social media of insufficient
food supplies after the sudden order, prompting an apology from
local officials.
There are signs that the central government is trying to
encourage some moderation.
An editorial from the Xinhua state news agency said Jan. 16
that local authorities should cease using the phrase “wartime
measures” to describe their containment efforts. Such slogans
could cause unnecessary panic, “paralyze people’s minds” and
affect normal activities, the editorial said.
But with the Lunar New Year holiday approaching in mid-
February, when officials expect 1.7 billion trips to be taken
despite pleas for people to stay home, the wartime footing is
likely to continue. The country is also doubling down on
vaccination, with plans to inoculate 50 million people by the
holiday with locally-developed vaccines.
See how China fares in Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker
“We don’t tolerate the virus circulating. Once we find it,
we immediately quash it and outbreaks are not allowed,” said Lu
Hongzhou, an infectious disease physician who advises both the
central and Shanghai governments on Covid-19 treatment.
“Our country has always pursued this strategy and it can’t
be adjusted.”
