New Report Claims China Using Anal Swabs On U.S. Diplomats; China Denies All.
Michael Cantrell
|
After reports have surfaced claiming that China gave U.S. diplomats anal swabs to test for the coronavirus “in error,” the Chinese government has issued a statement denying it ever happened.
Both Vice and the Washington Post issued reports stating that even though diplomats are exempt from the anal swab test, they were still administered to diplomatic staff.
The claim prompted foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian to say at a press briefing on Thursday, “I have checked with my colleagues. As far as I know, China has never required U.S. diplomatic staff in the country to take anal swab tests.”
Business Insider notes that the test “involves a cotton-tipped swab inserted around 3 cm to 5 cm — 1 to 2 inches — into the rectum, with the swab then tested in a lab in the same way a polymerase-chain-reaction coronavirus test taken from the nose or throat is.”
On Wednesday, Vice reported:
The Chinese government has promised to stop using anal swabs on American diplomats to test for COVID-19 after Washington complained that the practice was undignified, the U.S. State Department said. “The State Department never agreed to this kind of testing and protested directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when we learned that some staff were subject to it,” a State Department spokesperson told VICE World New son Wednesday. The spokesperson said Beijing had assured Washington that the test was given “in error” and that diplomatic personnel were exempt from the test, which was mandatory for incoming travelers in some parts of China.
“The Washington Post reported last week that some U.S. personnel had told the department they had been subjected to the anal tests,” Yahoo wrote in a report published on Thursday.
“Tests using anal swabs can avoid missing infections as viral traces in fecal samples or anal swabs could remain detectable for longer periods than in those from the respiratory tract, Li Tongzeng, a respiratory diseases doctor in Beijing, told state TV recently,” the New York Post said. “Stool tests also may be more effective in detecting infections in kids as their waste carries a higher viral load than adults, researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong said in a paper published last year.”
Well, given the fact that China fudged on the number of infections and deaths in the beginning states of the coronavirus pandemic, and since the World Health Organization announced it had discovered 92 people hospitalized in the same region of the country as Wuhan back in October of 2019 who had symptoms of the coronavirus, which was two months before China acknowledged the disease, it seems logical not to trust the Chinese Communist Party when they say our diplomats were not tested using anal swabs.
Just my two cents on the subject.
Share: