Beijing:
A World Health Organization-led group of authorities investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic started meeting with Chinese scientists on Friday, and the WHO mentioned the group plans to pay a visit to labs, markets and hospitals in Wuhan.
On Thursday, the group completed two weeks of quarantine following its arrival in China, moving to a lakeside hotel in the central Chinese city exactly where the deadly virus emerged in late 2019.
“First face to face meeting with our colleagues. Correction: facemask to facemask given the medical restrictions. Discussing our visiting program,” Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, tweeted on Friday.
“China team leader prof Wannian joking about some technical glitches. Nice to see our colleagues after lengthy zoom meetings,” she mentioned.
The group is anticipated to invest two more weeks in China, and will pay a visit to the seafood market place at the centre of the early outbreak. It will also pay a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One hypothesis, rejected by China, is that the outbreak was brought on by a leak at the government lab.
The WHO has sought to handle expectations. “There are no guarantees of answers,” its emergency chief, Mike Ryan, mentioned earlier this month.
The mission has been plagued by delays, concern more than access and bickering among China and the United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of the initial outbreak and criticised the terms of the pay a visit to, beneath which Chinese authorities performed the 1st phase of analysis.
“It is important to remember that the success of this mission and origin-tracing is 100% depending on access to the relevant sources,” Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the group, told Reuters on Thursday.
“No matter how competent we are, how hard we work and how many stones we try to turn, this can only be possible with the support from China,” she mentioned.
The origin of COVID-19 has been very politicised.
The investigating group had been set to arrive in Wuhan earlier in January, and China’s delay of their pay a visit to drew uncommon public criticism from the head of the WHO, which former U.S. President Donald Trump accused of getting “China-centric”.
China has pushed the concept that the virus existed abroad prior to it was found in Wuhan, with state media citing the presence of the virus on imported frozen meals packaging and scientific papers saying it had been circulating in Europe in 2019.
China’s foreign ministry has also hinted that the sudden closure of a U.S. army laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland in July 2019 was linked to the pandemic.
“At the early stage in China, it was a burden particularly for Wuhan people when everyone was calling it a Wuhan virus, which was humiliating,” mentioned Yang You, a 30-year-old Wuhan resident. “If it could be traced to the source clearly, in my opinion, it could clear either China’s or Wuhan’s name.”
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