There are experts in Wuhan, where the virus first appeared, to bring together what happened in the first place.
A team of experts from the World Health Organization unveiled the long-awaited study into the origins of the pandemic of coronavirus on Friday, meeting with a group of Chinese scientists in Wuhan ahead of a series of field trips to hospitals, laboratories and the now-closed Huanan. market, which was linked to the first cases of the disease in downtown China.
“All opinions are on the table as the team follows the science in their work to understand where the COVID-19 virus came from,” the WHO said in a tweet, confirming that the experts should “get the support, access and data they need.”
The group came out of two weeks of hotel quarantine Thursday, when they held meaningful daily meetings with Chinese scientists to share information about coronavirus studies completed in China. They also made requests for “more detailed baseline data”, the health agency said.
The first cases of new “secret” pneumonia were reported in Wuhan in late December 2019.
While life in the city has almost returned to normal after a complete shutdown of the virus, the growing number of deaths and economic damage in the rest of the world are contributing the pressure to find out where COVID-19 came from and how it gave the jump to humans.
“First face-to-face meeting with our colleagues. Correction: face-to-face mask due to medical limitations. Speaking about our visits program, ”Marion Koopmans, a psychiatrist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, tweeted on Friday.
“China teamleader prof Wannian jokes about some technical wisdom. It’s great to see our colleagues after long zoom meetings, ”she said.
Koopmans earlier told Al Jazeera that the plan was to get “the best possible picture of the first results in Wuhan” and warned that there would be no quick or easy answers.
Pandemic politics
The team is working against a background of concern about accessibility and transparency. The United States has accused China of covering the stage of the first revolution and has criticized the terms of the expedition, under which Chinese scientists conducted the first phase of the investigation.
A security member is patrolling at a section of a hotel in Wuhan where there are members of a WHO team tasked with investigating the source of the coronavirus infection (COVID-19). [Thomas Peter/Reuters]“It ‘s important to remember that the success of this mission and finding a 100 per cent source depends on access to the relevant sources,” Thea Fischer, a member of the Danish team, told Reuters news agency on Thursday.
“No matter how capable we are, how hard we work and how many stones we try to turn, that can only be done with the support of China,” she said.
The group is expected to spend two more weeks in the country. In addition to visiting Huanan it is also planned to visit Wuhan Institute of Virology. One theory, rejected by China, is that the revolution was caused by a leak in a government laboratory.
Since the revolution hit world headlines a year ago, China has tried to take control of the reporting, defying doctors and citizen journalists in Wuhan and taking warned the families of the dead not to speak to the media.
He has also tried to raise the notion that the virus came from elsewhere, with regular reports in state media of virus traces being found on the packaging of frozen foods imported from abroad. It has also tried to highlight the small number of scientific papers that have suggested that COVID-19 was circulating in Europe in 2019.
The Huanan market linked to the earliest cases of COVID-19 was shut down and then cleared out early last year [File: cnsphoto via Reuters]
The foreign ministry has also said that the sudden closure of the U.S. military laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland in July 2019 was linked to the pandemic.
“At an early stage in China, it was a particular burden for the people of Wuhan when everyone declared it was a Wuhan virus, which was humiliating,” said Yang You, a 30- year in the city to Reuters. “If it could be traced to the source clearly, in my opinion, it could clear the name of China or Wuhan.”