Traces of coronavirus found in semen, study shows

Chinese researchers shared with the world on Thursday, May 7, that the deadly coronavirus can possibly be sexually transmitted. The doctors have discovered that a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 can be found in men’s semen even after they have started the recovery process.

The study was conducted by Shangqiu Municipal Hospital in China. They tested 38 male patients who were infected by COVID-19 during the outbreak in January and February.

According to the journal JAMA Network Open, almost 16% of the subjects of these tests had “evidence of the coronavirus in their semen.”

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Diangeng Li of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital in Beijing and colleagues wrote, “We found that SARS-CoV-2 can be present in the semen of patients with COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-2 may still be detected in the semen of recovering patients.” 

“Even if the virus cannot replicate in the male reproductive system, it may persist, possibly resulting from the privileged immunity of testes,” the team added. 

Some conspiracy theorists and right-leaning reopen advocates have compared the 2020 coronavirus pandemic to that of the dystopian republic of Oceania in George Orwell’s book “1984.”

Inside the book, people are prohibited from touching (as per the rule of the propaganda-driven administration of the Party of Big Brother) and lived in a world where technology was used to watch their every move. With this new information abound, there is sure to be a connection between the mandated “no sex rule” in the Orwell masterpiece and what might be a precaution should research present more infected men who are carriers via semen. 

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Even a California lawmaker made the connection between the politics of COVID-19 and the best-selling novel.  In a letter to the governor, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, the Democratic chair of the State Senate Judiciary Committee, expressed concern for more transparency with all of the personal information that the government is collecting from constituents in the name of fighting the coronavirus.

“Although these efforts are critical to getting us back up and running, they also raise serious privacy concerns that must be addressed,” she wrote. “We must not lurch toward the dystopian world of Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ or George Orwell’s ‘1984’ as the price of protecting our health and safety — nor do we have to.”