CHINA has brought back its “undignified” anal Covid swabs just two weeks before the Beijing Winter Olympics begin.
The Communist regime claims the virus test — which involves inserting a 5cm long saline-soaked swab up a patient’s bum and rotating it — is more accurate than other on-the-spot virus tests.
Chinese newspaper The Beijing News said at least 27 people underwent the anal swab tests at an apartment building in Beijing where a 26-year-old woman had caught Omicron — the city’s first recorded case of the variant.
The anal tests involve inserting a sterile cotton swab into the rectum and rotating it several times.
The swab is removed and analysed in a lab.
When the tests were proposed in March, Li Tongzeng, a respiratory disease medic, told state media that Covid traces stay detectable for longer in poo samples than they do in the nose or throat.
However, the prospect of foreign visitors being swabbed up the bum has sparked controversy.
Japan is calling on China to stop using the “undignified” test as some passengers said it caused them “psychological distress”.
China allegedly ordered American diplomats to undergo anal tests sparking a row with the State Department.
Beijing has denied the claims but Washington has slammed the tests as “undignified” .
In response, Lu Hongzhou, a Chinese doctor, told state media that travellers could provide a poo sample at the airport instead.
China’s capital city Beijing is in the middle of a strict lockdown and testing regime after the city reported its first local Omicron infection on January 15.
Eleven cases have been confirmed in the capital,l Xinhua News Agency reported.
Earlier this week, China cancelled plans to sell tickets to the public for the Olympics and said only ‘selected’ spectators could go.
Organisers today said the already scaled-back Olympics torch relay will be cordoned off from the public to stop the virus from spreading.
