BEIJING – Chinese authorities have refused to provide World Health Organization investigators with raw, personalized data on early Covid-19 cases that could help them determine how and when the coronavirus first began spreading in China, according to investigators of the WHO describing heated debate over the lack of detail.
The Chinese authorities have denied requests for such information on 174 cases of Covid-19 that they have identified, from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. The investigators are part of a WHO team that this week completed a month-long mission in China aimed at determining the origin of the pandemic.
Chinese officials and scientists have provided their own extensive summaries and analysis of data on the cases, WTO team members said. They also provided composite data and analyzes on retrospective searches through medical records in the months before the outbreak in Wuhan was identified, saying they found no evidence of the virus.
However, the team members did not allow the WTO team to see the basic data on the retrospective studies, which enables them to do their own analysis on how early and how widespread the virus began to spread in China. Member countries usually provide such data – anonymised but set out so that investigators can see all other relevant details on each case – as part of WHO investigations, the team members said.
“They have shown us some examples, but it is not the same as doing all of them, which are standard epidemiological investigations,” said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist in the WHO team. “So you know, the interpretation of the data is more limited from our point of view, although the other side might consider it good.”