[World Now] China’s ‘corona anal test’ resurgence… Human rights violation controversy

With only 9 days left before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Chinese quarantine authorities have revived the Corona 19 ‘anal test’, which was suspended due to human rights violations.

According to British media ‘The Sun’, Beijing’s quarantine authorities recently conducted an anal sample collection gene amplification (PCR) test on 27 residents.

In Beijing, where the number of confirmed cases was ‘0’ for more than two months, the cumulative number of patients has exceeded 50 since the first confirmed case on the 15th.

As the opening of the Olympics on the 4th of next month approaches, it seems to be urgent.

Anal examination is a method in which a medical staff inserts a cotton swab up to 5 cm into the anus, rotates it several times, and then collects a sample.

Controversy over human rights violations in and outside China has not ceased since recipients not only have to take off their bottoms, but also feel uncomfortable and humiliated during the inspection process.

In March of last year, there was a claim that quarantine authorities in many large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Qingdao forced this anal examination on foreigners who entered the country, and many countries criticized it harshly.

At the time, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu said, “After arriving in China, the Japanese government informed the Chinese government that they were subjected to a PCR test through the anus and suffered great psychological distress.” said.

The U.S. State Department also said, “We did not agree with this inspection method and directly complained to the diplomatic authorities about the fact that some mission officials were subject to inspection.”

Opinions within China are divided as to the effectiveness of this testing method.

Chinese health authorities claim that the coronavirus can live longer in the digestive tract than in the respiratory tract, and the anus test is far more accurate than the existing test method.

However, some scholars say that this test method is ineffective because the COVID-19 virus is transmitted through the respiratory tract, and is mainly distributed in the upper respiratory tract such as the nose, throat, and larynx, and is rarely detected in feces.