The Chinese have adopted a new testing protocol for COVID-19: smears will be taken not only from the nose but also from the anus

According to The Washington Post, Chinese state media reported on the new test protocol, causing public outrage.

Some Chinese doctors say that this is a scientifically based solution. They argue that patients recovering from COVID-19 can test positive for lower GI virus infection even when their nasal and pharyngeal smears are negative.

For many, however, such a solution turned out to be excessive government interference in people’s lives after years of already difficult and degrading years.

“Everyone involved in the process will be ashamed,” a resident of Guangdong province told Weibo on Wednesday.

A survey conducted on the Weibo platform showed that 80 percent of respondents “cannot accept” such an invasive test method.

Even Chinese doctors who support the application of the new test method say the method’s inconvenience means that its application would only make sense for selective populations. For example, those in quarantine centers.

“Adding an anal swab test method can increase the number of identifiable infected patients. But of course, since anal swabs are not as convenient as throat swabs, only rare groups, such as those currently in quarantine centers, will be tested both ways, ”Beijing You’an told the media. state. Infectious disease specialist Li Tongzeng Hospital.

The new study protocol was introduced a year after the sudden spread of the coronavirus in China. Authorities fear there will be an Eastern New Year celebration next month, often called one of the world’s largest migrations. In non-pandemic years, there are about 3 billion trips during this holiday, which means that a single inadvertent case of coronavirus could very quickly increase the number of new cases across the country.

China aims to vaccinate 50 million before the Christmas season. people, but that’s only 4 percent. all populations. This is too low a percentage to prevent a massive spread of the disease.

Authorities have tightened restrictions in recent weeks, with 10 million people quarantined in isolated outbreaks. As before, foreign arrivals are quarantined for 2 weeks at the hotel. However, an additional week of home quarantine and a week of daily health reports for healthcare workers have now been added.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has not avoided imposing extremely strict quarantine conditions to limit the spread of the coronavirus, even if the restrictions caused enormous inconvenience to the population. In the early days of the quarantine, public health officials even boiled apartment doors to keep people out.