Ever since China started opening up its economy to some degree, going into an overdrive exporting faulty testing kits, useless masks and defective PPEs, several countries across the world have complained of substandard Chinese products.
The latest victim of China’s faulty testing kits is the United Kingdom. Two Chinese companies offered a huge deal to the United Kingdom- 2 million home test kits that purportedly detect antibodies for the novel COVID-19 at a staggering cost of US $20 million.
Britain’s Friday death toll stands at 888 with the total number of deaths at 15,464. At a time when time is precious, the deliveries from China that were being anticipated to be ‘game-changers’ actually threw Britain’s Coronavirus response back by many weeks.
The deal was expensive and the technology and quality unproven. To make it even more intricate, payment had to be upfront and the buyer was required to pick up the consignment of home test kits from the concerned facility in China.
But the British officers, as desperate as they were to ramp up testing, took the deal. The British administration almost announced that this would be a “game-changer”. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gushed, “As simple as a pregnancy test,” and added, “It has the potential to be a total game-changer.”
However, this blunder has thrown Britain’s fight against the Coronavirus off-course, as the tests were discovered to be insufficiently accurate by a laboratory at the Oxford University. 5 lakh of these home test kits are now gathering dust in storage.
Britain had also bought another 1.5 million such testing kits at similar prices from other sources, and these testing kits too had to be dumped.
The British officials who have been deeply embarrassed by this blunder, are now scrambling to get back at least some of the hefty sums that the United Kingdom paid to the sellers for the rapid antibody tests.
An official from the Department of Health and Social Care revealed that the minimum number of tests allowed by the sellers was ordered and that the British government would try to recover the money. But the officials have no idea of how to recover the money that seems to have gone down the drain.
Britain was clearly deceived by the Chinese companies into buying the testing kits that could further detail the country’s fight against Coronavirus. At root of this fiasco is United Kingdom’s miserable response to COVID-19 and China’s aggressive selling strategies.
The United Kingdom is testing only 20,000 patients a day and has failed to match its own target of testing 25,000 patients a day. Compare this with a country like Germany that began testing 50,000 patients a day and is today testing 1,20,000 on a daily basis in order to effectively trace and isolate the confirmed Coronavirus cases.
The United Kingdom has failed to meet its own target of testing 25,000 patients a day- a number that seems grossly insufficient for a country that is among the worst-hit with more than 1,14,000 confirmed cases and 15,000 deaths, apart from an ailing Prime Minister.
Public pressure was mounting on the United Kingdom officials, which pushed them further to take the gamble of buying China’s anti-body tests, which has now proven costly for the country.
Britain had already fallen behind in ramping up equipments needed for laboratory tests because the government was then banking on the sham of “herd immunity”.
Now, with antibody tests being touted as the next big thing in the fight against Coronavirus, the United Kingdom was eager not to miss out. And this is where the two Chinese companies- AllTest Biotech and Wondfo Biotech exploited the British desperation.
They came up with an aggressive offer- a yes-or-no decision with full upfront payment in as little as 24 hours. The two companies even claimed that they met all health, safety and environmental standards prescribed by the European Union.
Britain hurriedly landed its diplomats in China to verify the authenticity of the two companies and their products. Within days of the deal, British health officials who believed that they had laid their hands on a “game-changer” were boasting about how the rapid antibody tests would put Britain in the top league of international efforts to combat the Wuhan virus.
Today, the British health officials are aghast at the blunder that Chinese kits have turned out to be. But the Chinese companies, as always, have refused to take any responsibility.
Wondfo told CCP mouthpiece, Global Times, that its product was only intended to act as a supplement for patients who had already tested positive for the novel Chines virus.
On the other hand, AllTest now claims that its tests were “only used by professionals” and not patients at home.
China’s faulty testing kits have been rejected across the world, including in European countries such as Spain and Czech Republic. The United Kingdom should have thought twice before falling for “Made in China” home test kits.
United Kingdom had to pay a massive price, US $20 million and perhaps many lives, for trusting China. In United Kingdom’s fiasco, there is an important lesson for the rest of the world- don’t expose your vulnerabilities to the mighty Dragon and take the “Made in China” brand with a pinch of salt.