The World health Organization’s International Panel of Experts on the Tracing of New Coronaviruses has been on a four-day field trip to Wuhan, where they visited Hubei Province and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday (Feb. 1).
The Associated Press reported that panel member Peter Daszak told reporters after visiting the Hubei Provincial CDC that it was a “very good meeting and very important”. But he did not give any details.
The team ended a two-week intensive quarantine last Thursday and began a retrospective investigation of the new crown on Friday. The team is expected to stay in Wuhan for about two more weeks. The outbreak in Wuhan, which began in late 2019, is believed to be the earliest outbreak in the world.
Before visiting the two CDCs, the experts also visited the Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrative Medicine, Jinyintan Hospital, the South China Seafood Market and Baishazhou Market, among other sites linked to the new crown virus.
The experts’ next itinerary has not yet been announced, but WHO has said that in Wuhan the group is preparing to visit several hospitals, the South China Seafood Market, and several laboratories affiliated with the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research and the Wuhan CDC, among other places.
The WHO expert team’s activities appear to be restricted by the Chinese side, as they are not allowed to have much contact with the media or to talk freely to people in the community. WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said at a press conference last week that they will only have access to a few people who have been organized in connection with the study.
Earlier, a relative of a Chinese man named Zhang Hai, who died of New Crown pneumonia, asked to meet with a WHO team of experts who visited Wuhan. He also said the group should talk to the families of New Crown patients who have been suppressed by the Chinese government. But so far, Zhang has not met with the group, and a WeChat account used by the families of New Crown patients has been blocked by authorities. It is also unknown whether the group will be able to visit the highly suspect Wuhan Institute of Virus Research.
Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council On Foreign Relations, a think tank, said a two-week field trip was not much Time for experts.
I don’t think they had time to come up with any conclusive results,” he told Reuters. It’s more like communication and information exchange. It depends on how diligently they dig for new information and how cooperative and accommodating the Chinese side will be.”
Mike Ryan, WHO’s head of emergency affairs, has also said the organization doesn’t want outsiders to have high expectations for this investigation. “There is no guarantee that (the investigation will yield) answers,” he said.
The New coronavirus outbreak is still raging around the world, with more than 100 million cumulative infections and more than 2.2 million deaths worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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