Every day in China, fully shielded agents use hundreds of millions of disposable cotton swabs to perform large-scale PCR tests. The problem is that all of this generates a huge amount of medical waste.
The Asian country is the only major economy trying to prevent infections at all costs with its zero covid strategy, officially trying to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by the low vaccination rate of the elderly.
In the arsenal: mandatory quarantines, selective restraints and mass testing, which in some places have become almost daily.
Cities from Beijing to Shanghai and Shenzhen, home to numerous tech companies, are now brimming with stations offering free PCR tests.
Hundreds of millions of people need to be tested every two or three days, and in some cases every day.
PCR testing, which generates an enormous body of medical waste, is a growing economic burden for local communities, which are already heavily indebted and must spend tens of billions of dollars on them.
“The amount of medical waste produced daily is almost unprecedented in human history,” said environmental expert Yifei Li of New York University in Shanghai.
multiplied by six
China is seeking to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, an ambitious and uncertain goal given the Asian giant’s dependence on coal.
The generalization of testing represents a new environmental challenge.
For the few dozen positive cases detected every day in China, hundreds of millions of people are being tested using tubes, swabs, dressings and protective combinations.
Medical waste can contaminate soil and rivers if not disposed of properly.
According to an AFP census, Chinese cities and provinces with a total population of 600 million people have announced that their populations are being tested in one form or another on a general and regular basis.
No national data are available, but Shanghai officials said last month that 68,500 tons of medical waste was generated during the city’s quarantine between mid-March and early June.
This represents a daily amount that is six times higher than normal.
Under Chinese regulations, authorities are responsible for separating, disinfecting, transporting and storing this waste, usually before disposal by incineration.
Benjamin Steuer of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology estimates that some local communities may not know how to handle this huge amount of waste or simply store it in landfills.
Questioned by AFP, the Ministry of Health stated that it had formulated “specific requirements regarding the management of hospital waste.”
The government requires state capitals and cities of at least 10 million to implement test sites within a 15-minute walk from each resident.
But generalizing regular, mandatory testing to all of China could cost between 0.9% and 2.3% of the country’s GDP, according to forecasts by analysts at Nomura bank last month.
For Jin Dong-yan, a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Biomedical Sciences, these widespread PCR tests are “ineffective and expensive” and are forcing local communities to forego other beneficial investments in the health sector.
He said that because the Omicron variant spreads so quickly and is more difficult to detect, authorities are at risk of ignoring positive cases.
“It’s not working. It’s like throwing millions of dollars out the window,” he concludes.
source: Noticias
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