The Fort Worth Press - China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain

USD -
AED 3.672931
AFN 67.93001
ALL 93.193946
AMD 386.923413
ANG 1.801781
AOA 912.999671
ARS 997.103104
AUD 1.547341
AWG 1.8025
AZN 1.703673
BAM 1.857034
BBD 2.018544
BDT 119.466191
BGN 1.854223
BHD 0.376748
BIF 2951.893591
BMD 1
BND 1.345309
BOB 6.907618
BRL 5.789698
BSD 0.999734
BTN 84.379973
BWP 13.7232
BYN 3.271695
BYR 19600
BZD 2.015126
CAD 1.406455
CDF 2866.00005
CHF 0.88937
CLF 0.035356
CLP 975.579787
CNY 7.23401
CNH 7.243415
COP 4481.75
CRC 510.622137
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 104.696706
CZK 23.993899
DJF 178.02275
DKK 7.07656
DOP 60.463063
DZD 133.904275
EGP 49.549401
ERN 15
ETB 123.922406
EUR 0.94865
FJD 2.27485
FKP 0.789317
GBP 0.78905
GEL 2.725033
GGP 0.789317
GHS 16.070301
GIP 0.789317
GMD 71.000115
GNF 8615.901679
GTQ 7.720428
GYD 209.156036
HKD 7.782685
HNL 25.243548
HRK 7.133259
HTG 131.35034
HUF 385.46702
IDR 15907.1
ILS 3.741525
IMP 0.789317
INR 84.45765
IQD 1309.646453
IRR 42104.999694
ISK 138.220286
JEP 0.789317
JMD 158.263545
JOD 0.709099
JPY 156.4735
KES 129.219667
KGS 86.376503
KHR 4060.610088
KMF 466.498376
KPW 899.999621
KRW 1398.579954
KWD 0.30758
KYD 0.833092
KZT 495.639418
LAK 21961.953503
LBP 89524.727375
LKR 292.075941
LRD 184.450901
LSL 18.299159
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.883306
MAD 9.985045
MDL 18.109829
MGA 4683.909683
MKD 58.422784
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999946
MOP 8.014356
MRU 39.742695
MUR 47.149715
MVR 15.460342
MWK 1733.51184
MXN 20.47466
MYR 4.478975
MZN 63.849636
NAD 18.299159
NGN 1679.689752
NIO 36.789837
NOK 11.14296
NPR 135.008261
NZD 1.706994
OMR 0.386496
PAB 0.999729
PEN 3.809397
PGK 3.960922
PHP 58.834983
PKR 277.672857
PLN 4.10015
PYG 7807.745078
QAR 3.644486
RON 4.720201
RSD 111.069126
RUB 99.474049
RWF 1372.604873
SAR 3.756031
SBD 8.383384
SCR 13.614088
SDG 601.504102
SEK 10.989285
SGD 1.3435
SHP 0.789317
SLE 22.697547
SLL 20969.504736
SOS 571.317344
SRD 35.356498
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.747751
SYP 2512.529858
SZL 18.306462
THB 34.936501
TJS 10.657058
TMT 3.5
TND 3.157485
TOP 2.342097
TRY 34.421302
TTD 6.787981
TWD 32.514983
TZS 2660.000162
UAH 41.213563
UGX 3668.871091
UYU 42.471372
UZS 12804.018287
VES 45.450249
VND 25397.5
VUV 118.722009
WST 2.791591
XAF 622.834653
XAG 0.033047
XAU 0.000391
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.753148
XOF 622.834653
XPF 113.237465
YER 249.849915
ZAR 18.29015
ZMK 9001.200034
ZMW 27.416836
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    61.8400

    61.84

    +100%

  • VOD

    -0.0700

    8.68

    -0.81%

  • GSK

    -0.7200

    34.39

    -2.09%

  • RYCEF

    -0.3200

    6.79

    -4.71%

  • NGG

    0.2500

    62.37

    +0.4%

  • CMSC

    -0.0600

    24.55

    -0.24%

  • BTI

    0.0700

    35.49

    +0.2%

  • BP

    0.4800

    29.05

    +1.65%

  • RELX

    -0.1700

    45.95

    -0.37%

  • RIO

    -0.1900

    60.43

    -0.31%

  • AZN

    -0.2500

    65.04

    -0.38%

  • SCS

    -0.1000

    13.27

    -0.75%

  • JRI

    -0.0300

    13.21

    -0.23%

  • BCC

    -2.2000

    140.35

    -1.57%

  • BCE

    -0.3700

    26.84

    -1.38%

  • CMSD

    -0.0050

    24.725

    -0.02%

China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain
China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain / Photo: © AFP

China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain

Hazmat-suited workers poke plastic swabs down millions of throats in China each day, leaving bins bursting with medical waste that has become the environmental and economic levy of a zero-Covid strategy.

Text size:

China is the last major economy wedded to stamping out infections no matter the cost.

Near-daily testing is the most commonly used weapon in an anti-virus arsenal that includes snap lockdowns and forced quarantines when just a few cases are detected.

From Beijing to Shanghai, Shenzhen to Tianjin, cities are now home to an archipelago of temporary testing kiosks, while authorities order hundreds of millions of people to get swabbed every two or three days.

Mass testing appears set to stay as Chinese authorities insist zero-Covid has allowed the world's most populous nation to avoid a public health catastrophe.

But experts say the approach -- a source of political legitimacy for the ruling Communist Party -- creates a sea of hazardous waste and a mounting economic burden for local governments who must plough tens of billions of dollars into funding the system.

"The sheer amount of medical waste that is being generated on a routine basis (is) at a scale that is practically unseen in human history," said Yifei Li, an environmental studies expert at New York University Shanghai.

"The problems are already becoming astronomical, and they will continue to grow even bigger," he told AFP.

Beijing has positioned itself as an environmental leader, cracking down on air and water pollution while setting the goal of making its economy carbon-neutral by 2060, a target experts say is untenable given the current trajectory of investments in coal.

Blanket-testing is now posing a new trash challenge.

Each positive case -- typically a few dozen a day nationwide -- unspools a trail of used test kits, face masks and personal protective gear.

If not disposed of properly, biomedical waste can contaminate soil and waterways, posing threats to the environment and human health.

- Burning questions -

Cities and provinces home to a total of around 600 million people have announced some form of routine testing in recent weeks, according to an AFP analysis of government notices and Chinese media reports.

Different regions have imposed different restrictions, and some areas have suspended the policy in step with falling cases.

Nationwide data on the waste footprint has not been disclosed. But Shanghai officials said last month the city produced 68,500 tonnes of medical waste during its recent Covid lockdown, with daily output up to six times higher than normal.

Under Chinese regulations, local authorities are tasked with separating, disinfecting, transporting and storing Covid waste before finally disposing of it -- usually by incineration.

But disposal systems in the poorer rural parts of the country have long been overburdened.

"I'm not sure that... the countryside really has the capacity to deal with a significant increase in the amount of medical waste," said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The spike in waste may prompt some local governments to process it improperly or simply "dump it on the ground" in temporary landfills, said Benjamin Steuer, of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In a statement to AFP, China's health ministry said it had made "specific demands for medical waste management" as part of national Covid protocols.

- Waste of money? -

Beijing has urged provincial capitals and cities with at least 10 million people to set up a test site within 15 minutes' walk of every resident.

Top leaders also expect local governments to foot the bill for testing at a time when many are struggling to balance the books.

Expanding the model to the whole of the country could cost between 0.9 and 2.3 percent of China's gross domestic product, Nomura analysts said last month.

"The economics of that is tricky," said Li of NYU Shanghai. "You don't want to invest in permanent infrastructure to process what is perceived as a short-term surge of medical waste."

Jin Dong-yan, a professor at Hong Kong University's School of Biomedical Sciences, said "very ineffective and costly" routine testing would force governments to back away from other much-needed healthcare investments.

Authorities are also likely to miss positive cases as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly and is harder to detect than other strains, he told AFP.

"This will not work," he said. "It will just wash down millions of dollars into the sea."

S.Weaver--TFWP