There was a disturbing trend that popped up on ABC’s World News Tonight and CNN’s latest coronavirus town hall Thursday night (the latter hosted by Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Thursday). Both ABC and Cooper marveled in amazement at the mobilization communist China’s mass surveillance state to track their citizens and monitor for their coronavirus. Cooper seemed to go slack-jawed after hearing about a required tracking app and called it “incredible.”

Cooper and Gupta were speaking with correspondent David Culver, who was in Shanghai and explained to them how he didn’t realize that Chinese officials were forcing him to get the app. Before Culver explained how the app was needed to go anywhere, Cooper briefly noted it was “incredibly detailed and personal and invasive.”

Some might argue that the coronavirus test, which requires a long cotton swab inserted into the nose to swab the top of the throat, is invasive. The term seemed inadequate in terms of China’s spying. “Disturbing” was a more suitable descriptor.

“Incredibly invasive. I don't know if it can happen in other parts of the world,” Culver told them. Cooper’s response was to call it “Incredible” and ask Culver if he was tested and if the app considered that. Culver explained that it’s used to track people who may have come into contact with someone who was infected:

The idea here is that they can determine whether or not you've been around somebody who’s a confirmed case. And that's using some of the geo-locations, tracking on the cell phone. And they can specify if you're on a train, for example, and you’re on one end of the carriage or a separate car from a confirmed case. Depending on how far you were or how close you are to that confirmed case, they can then change your bar code, your QR to a yellow or red and you can then go into self-isolation or governor quarantine.

Cooper could barely contain his excitement and was tripping over his words. “That – I mean – Sanjay – that’s incredible that they can – I mean, that's a level of surveillance which obviously does not exist here,” he touted and lamented at the same time. Luckily, Gupta reminded his co-host that that kind of surveillance “could not exist” in America.

Meanwhile, over on ABC, anchor David Muir touted the reopening of Wuhan and the “experimental technology allowing police to scan the crowd for body temperatures, looking for fevers.” And foreign correspondent Ian Pannell didn’t bat an eye when he talked the “new normal” in Wuhan, “one that keeps watch everywhere.”

“Local police boasting of new technology deployed. Helmets with a video thermometer they claim allows officers to scan the temperatures of more than 100 airport passengers in just two minutes. It's not clear if this experimental tech is a practical tool,” he said.

Yes, because the biggest concern with China’s mass surveillance state was the practicality of the tools…not.

Pannell also briefly touched on the app discussed on CNN. “And now new signs requiring patients to scan a health code which will allow some to travel on the subway,” he said.

The transcripts are below, click "expand" to read:

ABC’s World News Tonight

April 9, 2020

6:44:36 p.m. Eastern DAVID MUIR: Overseas, members of our team traveling to Wuhan, China, tonight. That city now open, but with new rules and experimental technology allowing police to scan the crowd for body temperatures, looking for fevers. Here's our foreign correspondent Ian Pannell tonight. [Cuts to video] IAN PANNELL: Tonight, a city on the mend, surging back to life. This time-lapse showing just how quickly morning traffic has returned to Wuhan's streets. But this is a new normal, one that keeps watch everywhere. Local police boasting of new technology deployed. Helmets with a video thermometer they claim allows officers to scan the temperatures of more than 100 airport passengers in just two minutes. It's not clear if this experimental tech is a practical tool. Our team traveling from Beijing to Wuhan, seeing life first-hand after the 76-day lockdown was lifted. Nervous residents still wearing protective gear. Travelers even being scolded for not wearing masks properly. And now new signs requiring patients scan a health code which will allow some to travel on the subway. Even on the Yangtze River security checkpoints scan the crowds' temperature, checking phone health codes, before allowing them in to view their city's light show. (…)