WUHAN, China (AP) – A team from the World Health Organization emerged from the quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday to begin fieldwork in a fact-finding mission on the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
The researchers, who had to isolate for 14 days after their arrival in China, left their quarantine hotel with their luggage – including at least four yoga mats – in the late afternoon and left for another hotel.
The mission has been politically charged, as China wants to avoid blaming alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak. An important question is where the Chinese party will allow the researchers to go and with whom they can talk.
Yellow barriers blocked the entrance of the hotel and kept the media at a distance. Before the researchers boarded their bus, workers with protective gear and face shields could be seen loading their luggage, including two musical instruments and a dumbbell.
Hotel staff waved goodbye to the researchers, who were wearing face masks. The bus driver wore a white protective suit all over his body. They drive about 30 minutes to a Hilton-style hotel on the shore.
Former WHO official Keiji Fukuda, who is not part of the Wuhan team, warned against expecting any breakthroughs, saying it could take years before any firm conclusions can be drawn about the origin of the virus.
“It’s now more than a year since it all started,” he said earlier this month. ‘So much of the physical evidence is going to disappear. The memories of people are inaccurate and probably the physical layout of many places will be different than it was. ”
The Huanan seafood market has been linked to many of the first cases, as well as research institutes and hospitals that treated patients during the outbreak.
WHO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, said on Twitter late Thursday that its team plans to visit hospitals, markets such as the Huanan seafood market linked to many of the first cases, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and laboratories at facilities such as the Wuhan. Center for Disease Control.
“All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows science in their work to understand the origin of the COVID19 virus,” WHO tweeted. The team is said to have already requested ‘detailed underlying data’ and plans to talk to early responders and some of the first COVID-19 patients.
“As members begin their field visits on Friday, they should receive the support, access and data they need,” the WHO tweeted. The first meetings with Chinese scientists will take place on Friday before the team begins field visits in and around Wuhan.
One possible source of the virus is bats in caves in the rural province of Yunnan, about 1,600 kilometers southwest of Wuhan.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the experts would hold talks, visits and inspections in China to detect exchanges and cooperation with viruses. He did not provide any details.
The mission only took place after a considerable scuffle between the two parties that led to a rare complaint from the WHO that China was taking too long to make the final arrangements.
China, which opposed an independent investigation that it could not fully control, said the matter was “complicated” and that Chinese medical staff were working on new virus groups in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities.
While the WHO was criticized early on, especially by the US for not being critical enough of the Chinese response, it recently accused China and other countries of moving too slowly at the outset of the outbreak, which is a rare recognition from the Chinese side made it could have done better.
In general, however, China has strongly defended its response, possibly out of concern for the reputation or even financial cost if it were found.
Chinese officials and state media have also tried to doubt whether the virus even originated in China. Most experts believe it comes from bats, possibly in southwestern China or neighboring areas of Southeast Asia, before being transmitted to another animal and then to humans.
The original search will try to determine where and exactly how it happened.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday expressed concern about what she called “misinformation” from China, adding that the US supported a strong international investigation.
“It is vital that we get to the end of the earlier days of the pandemic in China,” she said.
Zhao replied that any negative speculation and politicized interpretation of the mission is inappropriate.
“We hope that the US can work responsibly with the Chinese side, respect facts and science and respect the hard work of international experts to trace the origin of the virus,” he said. they can work scientifically. research on the detection of viruses without any political interference. ”
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Associated Press photographer Ng Han Guan and AP writer Jamie Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.