China
China using anal swabs for testing COVID-19: report

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.

China
Biden to lift sanctions on China in exchange for third promise to combat fentanyl

Reportedly President Joe Biden is making deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help improve anti-drug trafficking measures. China is one of the top fentanyl producers and distributors, culminating in a pandemic of fentanyl overdoses and deaths in the United States.
The Biden administration will be lifting sanctions on a Chinese government ministry, in exchange for bolstering anti-drug trafficking measures, Bloomberg reported. “We’re hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming week,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, according to the New York Post. “That could then open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren’t just managing things, but we’re actually delivering tangible results.”
The Daily Caller News Foundation noted that should a deal materialize, it will be at least the third time that China has promised to get tough on fentanyl. In 2016, China agreed to increase counter-narcotics operations, and Xi again agreed to launch a crackdown in 2018. Nonetheless, China and Mexico are “the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States,” according to a 2020 DEA intelligence report.
“China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States.”
President Joe Biden and Xi are meeting for the first time in over a year during this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco. Sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will crack down on Chinese companies manufacturing chemical precursors for fentanyl in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science, which the Commerce Department added to the Entity List in 2020 for “engaging in human rights violations and abuses” in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
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