Completed the two weeks of quarantine that the expedition of the World Health Organization (WHO) had to comply with upon arrival in Wuhan, the team gets to work on its investigation to learn more about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. Since their arrival on January 14, a total of 13 experts from the organization have been confined in a hotel in the Chinese city, as required by protocol. Now, free, they will work to know how and where the first cases of this virus originated that has already exceeded 100 million infections in the world.
However, this study is complicated. And it is that the WHO expedition has been slow to reach the epicenter of the pandemic, consequence of many delays or confrontation between China and the United States. Despite everything, they can no longer stop the start of the investigation into the first case of coronavirus in Wuhan at the end of 2019, in what all point to the Huanan market with the commercialization of wild animals.
The team will visit several key areas of the city
In fact, the same market has been closed for more than a year, since the appearance of the first case of the coronavirus. The team will visit the area, along with other key research locations, such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its maximum security P4 laboratory, accompanied by Chinese scientists. In fact, this laboratory is the one that Donald Trump referenced on several occasions, accusing it of being the place where COVID-19 was ‘created’ and claiming to have “new evidence” that confirmed it, although he never presented it.
In your reply, China accused the US country of “lies and conspiracy theories.” In fact, the Chinese country insists that the coronavirus appeared far from the Asian continent at the end of 2019 and warns of the possibility of the virus reaching the country through frozen products imported from other countries. The WHO will also investigate this possibility, although they almost assume that the coronavirus comes from a bat, since these animals are its main reservoir. “There is no evidence so far that indicates that someone was working with the virus in the past”, indicated the leader of the expedition.
WHO members and prestigious experts form the team
The organization’s team, led by the Danish Peter Ben Embarek, the Geneva-based organization’s leading expert on animal transmitted diseases, arrives with the intention of investigating any of the hypotheses that are considered around the origin of the coronavirus. To do this, Peter has traveled with 12 more experts with members of the WHO and even other international scientists.
Other highly prestigious experts stand out such as the Dutch virologist Mariom Koopmans, the German microbiologist and veterinarian Fabian Leendertz or the british zoologist Peter Daszak, who had already studied the Chinese bat coronavirus. The intention of this expedition to “investigate the origins of the virus, not an effort to assign blame.” At this time they explain that “All the hypotheses are on the table” and that it is too early “to reach a conclusion” to know the origin of the virus, either “inside or outside China”.
Relatives of the victims, threatened by the Government
And, among all the controversy that has already arisen around the trip of the WHO expedition, families also demand your attention in this study that has already begun. And it is that many They have denounced the intention of the Beijing Government to the media for silencing them, especially to families who have suffered the death of a relative in the last year. It is the case of Zhang Hai, a young man who lost his father to the coronavirus on February 1, 2020. In an interview with AFP, asks WHO experts “not to become a tool to spread lies.”
“We have been searching tirelessly for the truth. This It was a criminal act, and I do not want the WHO to come to China to cover up these crimes, ”says Zhang Hai, admitting threats or questioning of many families by the Government. They even indicate that if they spoke to foreign media, they could be fired. “Don’t pretend that we don’t exist, that we’re not looking for responsibilities. We continue to want the whole world to know through the media that we have not given up ”, adds the young Chinese. For this reason, many families of fatalities have already asked to speak to WHO experts.