WUHAN, China – A team from the World Health Organization quarantined in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday to do fieldwork in a fact-finding mission on the origins of the Covid-19 virus.
The researchers, who had to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in China, left their hotel and boarded a bus in the middle of the afternoon.
The mission has become politically charged because 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, workers in full protective gear could be seen loading their luggage into the bus. The driver wore a white protective suit all over his body and the researchers wore masks.
Earlier this month, former WHO official Keiji Fukuda, who is not part of the team in Wuhan, warned not to expect any breakthroughs, saying it could take years before any firm conclusions can be drawn about the origin of the virus.
“It’s now over a year ago when it all started,” he said.
“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.”
Among the places the WHO team can visit are the Huanan Seafood Market, which was linked to many of the first cases, as well as research institutes and hospitals that treated patients during the outbreak.
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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 has strongly opposed an independent investigation that it has not been able to fully control.
While the WHO has been criticized early on by the United States in particular for not being critical enough of the Chinese response, it has recently accused China and other countries of moving too slowly at the outset of the outbreak – a rare recognition from the Chinese side. that it could have done better.
In general, however, China has strongly defended its pandemic response.
“The WHO and global experts have given their full confirmation of the success of epidemic prevention in China and the tracing work of the past,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday. “Both sides have a basic consensus on collaboration on origin-related research, and related work is progressing smoothly.”
Chinese officials and state media have tried to doubt whether the virus originated in China. Most experts believe it comes from bats, possibly in southwestern China or neighboring areas of Southeast Asia, before being transmitted to other animals and then to humans.