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Months-long lockdowns. Entire city populations herded through the streets for mandatory testing. The people of China could be forgiven for thinking they had seen it all during the coronavirus pandemic.
But now they face a new indignity: the addition of anal swabs — yes, you read that right — to the testing regimen for those in quarantine.
Chinese state media outlets introduced the new protocol in recent days, prompting widespread discussion and some outrage. Some Chinese doctors say the science is there. Recovering patients, they say, have continued to test positive through samples from the lower digestive tract days after nasal and throat swabs came back negative.
Yet for many, it seemed a step too far in government intrusions after a year and counting of a dignity-eroding pandemic.
"Everyone involved will be so embarrassed," one user in Guangdong province said Wednesday on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. In a Weibo poll, 80 percent of respondents said they "could not accept" the invasive method.
[...] The new protocol comes just over a year after the virus began spreading rapidly in the country. Chinese officials are worried about the approach of Lunar New Year next month, often called the world's largest annual migration. Some 3 billion trips are made over the holiday during a non-pandemic year, which means even a single silent coronavirus case could rapidly leapfrog across the nation.
Journal Reference:
Mei Sun, Dong Guo, Jing Zhang, et al. Anal swab as a potentially optimal specimen for SARS-CoV-2 detection to evaluate hospital discharge of COVID-19 patients [open], Future Microbiology (DOI: 10.2217/fmb-2020-0090)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday January 28 2021, @10:59PM (8 children)
All Chinese people walk funny with their hands on their ass...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 28 2021, @11:35PM (7 children)
These are people who piss and shit in the middle of crowded sidewalks and malls. Even the lowliest canines at least look for a fire hydrant of a patch of grass. Chinks are not only sub-human, they're sub-canine. People don't call them "insectoids" for nuthin'.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday January 29 2021, @12:37AM (4 children)
Jesus, someone modded that funny?
There are some weirdos on this site.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 29 2021, @12:52AM (3 children)
Probably because a "-1, Sad Truth" mod doesn't exist.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 29 2021, @06:38AM (2 children)
Eth has a record. If you know his real name, publicly available on the San Diego Court Proceedings. Public defection. Public urination. Public indecent exposure. Public being a dick. It's all there. That is our Ethanol_fueled. Mod him down if you have spare points, please. For the sake of humanity.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday January 29 2021, @01:18PM (1 child)
If you know it, drop it. I'd love to see this guy's rap sheet.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday January 29 2021, @05:10PM
Might I suggest a prophylactic dose of Maalox, Kaopectate or Pepto-Bismol before you put eyes to paper?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by DannyB on Friday January 29 2021, @03:04PM (1 child)
Shirley you are not talking about China, but rather are talking about San Francisco.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday January 29 2021, @11:21PM
Oddly enough, I spent about six hours playing tourist in SF last summer, and didn't see any of that going on, perhaps because a huge percentage of the homeless people were indoors where they could use toilets.
The problem on SF's streets & sidewalks is directly linked to the lack of functioning public bathrooms, and cropped up after they shut down the old public bathrooms maybe a decade or two ago. The city did add about 125 high-tech self-cleaning toilets scattered around the city several years ago, but they're often broken, and a handful of staffed "pit stops" in the worst areas, but a potentially-broken toilet every square half-mile isn't enough.