WHO Covid team did not allow China to study the origin of coronavirus

WHO Covid team did not allow China to study the origin of coronavirus

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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said two scientists in the United Nations team had already left their homelands for Wuhan when they were told that Chinese officials were not entering the necessary permits for the country.

The arrangements were agreed in advance with China.

“I am very disappointed with this news,” Tedros said at a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. “I was in touch with senior Chinese officials and once again made it clear that the mission is a priority for the WHO and the international team.”

Tedros said WHO was “eager to get the mission started as soon as possible” and that he was assured that Beijing would speed up the internal procedure for “the earliest possible deployment”.

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO program for health emergencies, said there was a problem with visas and one team member had already returned home. The other one is waiting in transit in a third country.

WHO officials have long negotiated with Beijing to give a team of global scientists access to key sites to investigate the origin of the virus – first detected in Wuhan in December 2019 – and the possible leap of an unidentified host species to people.

In May, WHO agreed to investigate the global response to the pandemic after more than 100 countries signed a resolution calling for an independent inquiry.
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Ryan said the team hopes it’s just a logistical and bureaucratic issue ‘that can be resolved in good faith in the coming hours and that the deployment of the team can start again as soon as possible. ‘

The United States and Australia have led the charge in criticizing China’s handling of the initial phases of the pandemic, accusing Beijing of underestimating the country’s seriousness and preventing an effective response.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed China for the global pandemic, announcing that the US would end its relationship with the WHO, saying that China has not properly reported coronavirus information and is pushing for WHO to take over the world. mislead.
The US has demanded transparency in WHO operations in China. In November, Garrett Grigsby told the US Department of Health and Human Services at the WTO meeting that the terms of the investigation into China “were not negotiated in a transparent manner” and “the investigation itself appears to be inconsistent” with his mandate.
A number of confidential documents obtained by CNN last year from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Hubei Province – where the virus was first detected in 2019 – have shown how Chinese officials give the world more optimistic data than they had internal access to, by initially reporting the case numbers in the early stages of the outbreak too little.
The Chinese government has repeatedly denied allegations by the US and other Western governments that they deliberately withheld information regarding the virus, claiming that it had been in advance since the outbreak began.
Hua Chunying, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Monday that the country would welcome the WTO team, according to Reuters.

CNN reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry for comment on Tedros’ remarks.

As countries around the world struggle with new infections and outbreaks, China seems to be recovering. Last month, the country achieved positive economic growth for the second consecutive quarter.
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Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised China’s anti-pandemic efforts at home and abroad, saying the country had ‘launched a vital global humanitarian campaign’ and ‘helped build consensus on a global response to Covid-19 ‘.

While the WHO team was ready to launch, Chinese officials and state media questioned the origin of the virus, saying: “more and more research suggests that the pandemic was probably caused by separate outbreaks in various parts of the world,” according to Cheek. .
On Monday, reports spread on Chinese social media that the virus had been detected on car packaging in various cities, including from foreign brands.

China has been testing and disinfecting frozen products imported from abroad for months, fearing the virus could re-enter the country, even though experts remain skeptical about it as a possible source of infection.

The WHO says it is “highly unlikely that humans can get Covid-19 from food or food packaging”, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the risk is ‘very low’. Both maintain that there is no evidence of such a transfer, and countries have even threatened to sue China at the World Trade Organization over import restrictions.

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