China

China using anal swabs for testing COVID-19: report

Published

10 months ago

January 27, 2021

Staff Writer

China has begun testing people it considers as high risk for contracting COVID-19 with anal swabs amid a new outbreak, Newsweek reported Tuesday, saying that more than a million Beijing residents have undergone such a test. Local experts are reported as saying the rectal method is more accurate than the commonplace nasal test.

Public health authorities in Beijing said they were seeking to screen over 2 million people in 48 hours, according to the publication. Of those people, about 1.6 million Daxing residents were to be given antibody tests in addition to the throat, nasal, and rectal nucleic acid swabs.

Notably, the publication reported that anal swabs have been used since last year—but for those living in coronavirus hotspots such as Shanghai, according to an infectious disease expert quoted by China’s state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday.

“Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, we’ve tested for the virus using mainly throat swabs. Its characteristics are convenience and speed, so it’s suitable for large-scale testing,” Beijing You’an Hospital’s Li Tongzeng said, per Newsweek. “Nasal swabs are more accurate than throat swabs, but nasal swabs can be uncomfortable.”

“In some asymptomatic cases or in individuals with mild symptoms, they tend to recover from the illness very quickly,” he added. “It’s possible that there will be no trace of the virus in their throat after three to five days.

“What we’ve found is that in some infected patients, the coronavirus survives for a longer period of time in their digestive tract or excrement than in their respiratory tract,” Li also said.

The anal swabs are meant to be inserted 3 to 5 centimeters (1.2 to 2 inches) up the patient’s rectum, according to guidelines published by China’s National Health Commission, per Newsweek.

On Sunday, CCTV said that anal swabs would not be used as widely as other methods, saying the method was “not convenient,” according to The Guardian.

Li also said that anal swabs boost the COVID-19 detectability rate and decrease the likelihood of false positives.

“Of course, anal swabs aren’t as convenient as throat swabs, so they’re only being used on individuals in key quarantine areas,” Li added, per Newsweek. “This will reduce the return of false positives.”

This reporter reached out to the White House and to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for comment about these rectal tests but received no response.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.

Related Topics:china coronavirus covid-19 testing

China

Experts Say United States Vulnerable to ‘Electromagnetic’ Attack by Chinese

Published

2 days ago

November 30, 2021

Staff Writer

When Joe Biden was trying to convince Americans to vote for him to become the next President back in 2019, he belittled the concept that China is a danger to the U.S. “Come on man, China’s not a threat” said Biden.

Experts, however, continue to show just how wrong Biden has always been. Fox News reports “experts are warning that the United States is vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack from adversaries such as China, and that time is running out to invest in defending the country from it.”

Last week during a virtual forum hosted by the Universal Peace Federation, Peter Vincent Pry, the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, said “that poses a real threat of possibly being able to win a war with a single blow by means of an EMP attack.”

“Moreover…they don’t envision employing an EMP by itself. It would be used in conjunction with cyberattacks and physical sabotage, and non-nuclear EMP” added Pry. Experts also warn that while an EMP attack would be “bloodless” at first, a yearlong blackout could kill roughly 90% of the American population.

Fox News reports:

The U.S. electric grid and other infrastructure – such as communications and transportation systems and water and sewer services – could all be devastated by such an attack, experts like Pry warn, noting that time is of the essence for the U.S. to defend itself.

China already possesses “super EMPs” and last summer tested a new hypersonic glide vehicle that analysts warn could deploy the EMP and cause a long-lasting blackout that would shut down key infrastructure and cripple the military’s ability to communicate.

A Pentagon report on Chinese military capabilities details how China has invested heavily in its EMP program, with a strategy that “emphasizes suppressing, degrading, disrupting or deceiving enemy electronic equipment throughout the continuum of a conflict while protecting its ability to use the cyber and electromagnetic spectrum.”

“The PLA is likely to use electronic warfare early in a conflict as a signaling mechanism to warn and deter adversary offensive action. Potential EW targets include adversary systems operating in radio, radar, microwave, infrared and optical frequency ranges, as well as adversary computer and information systems” adds the report.