More than five million people in China’s coastal city of Xiamen have been told to get tested for COVID-19 this week after an increased number of cases were reported. However, humans are not the only species that are being tested for the virus as the authorities will also be testing certain kinds of sea life, as per the official notice.
Xiamen’s Jimei Maritime Pandemic Control district committee issued the notice recently, stating that “both fishermen and their seafood must be tested” as soon as the fishermen return to their ports.
The South China Morning Post (SMCP) posted a video on Twitter on Thursday, that has since gone viral, prompting various reactions online.
Videos of pandemic medical workers giving live seafood PCR tests have gone viral on Chinese social media. pic.twitter.com/C7IJYE7Ses
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) August 18, 2022
Its caption reads: “Videos of pandemic medical workers giving live seafood PCR tests have gone viral on Chinese social media”.
Health workers can be seen in the video, wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits and giving live fish and crabs PCR tests for the coronavirus by inserting swabs in their mouths.
The video has received over three hundred thousand views so far.
A tweep commented, “Seems weird but oh well, there’s no other way of knowing without testing. Everybody already knows the animal-human human-human transmission – don’t think it would make the jump to marine life but weirder things have happened. So yeah, test away”.
Another one wrote, “Thought it was a joke. But in fact, it’s consistent with the ideological trap that’s led to cascading and insane misdirection of resources! Quite scary!”.
“Definition of insanity,” yet another remarked.
