Zürcher Nachrichten - China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain

EUR -
AED 4.02547
AFN 78.958383
ALL 99.102869
AMD 431.181955
ANG 1.961978
AOA 1003.890567
ARS 1184.765046
AUD 1.813586
AWG 1.97271
AZN 1.867466
BAM 1.955265
BBD 2.22659
BDT 133.983319
BGN 1.957778
BHD 0.412787
BIF 3277.602688
BMD 1.09595
BND 1.474296
BOB 7.619914
BRL 6.405394
BSD 1.102698
BTN 94.079244
BWP 15.358795
BYN 3.608812
BYR 21480.619234
BZD 2.215094
CAD 1.559263
CDF 3148.664634
CHF 0.944431
CLF 0.02729
CLP 1047.223301
CNY 7.980215
CNH 7.994999
COP 4582.945323
CRC 557.847278
CUC 1.09595
CUP 29.042674
CVE 110.234821
CZK 25.256829
DJF 196.376238
DKK 7.461451
DOP 69.640934
DZD 146.03502
EGP 55.406831
ERN 16.439249
ETB 145.347308
FJD 2.537019
FKP 0.847795
GBP 0.850992
GEL 3.01429
GGP 0.847795
GHS 16.970527
GIP 0.847795
GMD 78.997119
GNF 9480.074229
GTQ 8.45127
GYD 228.536272
HKD 8.520633
HNL 28.038338
HRK 7.531044
HTG 143.530764
HUF 404.54591
IDR 18346.949665
ILS 4.100568
IMP 0.847795
INR 93.650132
IQD 1430.891791
IRR 46360.405806
ISK 144.204462
JEP 0.847795
JMD 172.42419
JOD 0.777072
JPY 161.061946
KES 141.527433
KGS 95.002298
KHR 4365.330633
KMF 489.529208
KPW 986.361205
KRW 1599.015607
KWD 0.337157
KYD 0.910826
KZT 556.162432
LAK 23685.841231
LBP 98372.711411
LKR 324.07413
LRD 218.985421
LSL 20.902803
LTL 3.236056
LVL 0.66293
LYD 5.289988
MAD 10.429326
MDL 19.551233
MGA 5069.578931
MKD 61.05679
MMK 2300.919896
MNT 3846.361639
MOP 8.775473
MRU 43.593447
MUR 49.000806
MVR 16.923331
MWK 1897.317993
MXN 22.386696
MYR 4.861215
MZN 70.003894
NAD 20.902803
NGN 1681.066767
NIO 40.290501
NOK 11.790932
NPR 149.910449
NZD 1.95777
OMR 0.421946
PAB 1.09595
PEN 4.037053
PGK 4.46999
PHP 62.764717
PKR 306.904853
PLN 4.245513
PYG 8757.469729
QAR 3.989667
RON 4.952931
RSD 116.586887
RUB 93.840941
RWF 1555.449869
SAR 4.110221
SBD 9.312612
SCR 15.97682
SDG 658.021292
SEK 10.947921
SGD 1.470849
SHP 0.861245
SLE 24.933268
SLL 22981.523891
SOS 624.324825
SRD 40.248477
STD 22683.951476
SVC 9.589967
SYP 14249.994157
SZL 20.902803
THB 37.792726
TJS 11.899889
TMT 3.833642
TND 3.357047
TOP 2.638671
TRY 41.641737
TTD 7.422798
TWD 36.332658
TZS 2923.758392
UAH 45.158896
UGX 4009.400205
USD 1.09595
UYU 46.167964
UZS 14171.813622
VES 77.086835
VND 28252.54745
VUV 134.896075
WST 3.078778
XAF 652.705611
XAG 0.037037
XAU 0.000361
XCD 2.966325
XDR 0.817067
XOF 652.705611
XPF 119.331742
YER 269.409315
ZAR 20.929909
ZMK 9864.868719
ZMW 30.636217
ZWL 352.89544
  • SCS

    -0.0600

    10.68

    -0.56%

  • NGG

    -3.4600

    65.93

    -5.25%

  • BCC

    0.8100

    95.44

    +0.85%

  • GSK

    -2.4800

    36.53

    -6.79%

  • AZN

    -5.4600

    68.46

    -7.98%

  • RBGPF

    69.0200

    69.02

    +100%

  • BTI

    -2.0600

    39.86

    -5.17%

  • CMSD

    0.1600

    22.83

    +0.7%

  • CMSC

    0.0300

    22.29

    +0.13%

  • RIO

    -3.7600

    54.67

    -6.88%

  • BCE

    0.0500

    22.71

    +0.22%

  • JRI

    -0.8600

    11.96

    -7.19%

  • BP

    -2.9600

    28.38

    -10.43%

  • RYCEF

    -1.5500

    8.25

    -18.79%

  • RELX

    -3.2800

    48.16

    -6.81%

  • VOD

    -0.8700

    8.5

    -10.24%

China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain
China's mass testing mantra is building a waste mountain / Photo: Jade GAO - 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."

A.Ferraro--NZN