A year before the outbreak of the new coronavirus in Wuhan, China, international experts have finally been able to travel to the city to investigate the origin of the virus, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General James Tamsay said positively on Friday. At almost the same time, official Chinese public opinion is building that the outbreak is in China and the source of the virus may be abroad.
Two WHO experts arrived in China in July, but only spent three weeks in Beijing and were prevented from going to Wuhan by Chinese authorities from investigating the origin of the virus, following demands from Australia, the United States and other countries. The New York Times recently learned from internal documents and interviews obtained by WHO and more than 50 diplomats that WHO’s requests to travel to Wuhan to investigate the origin of the virus were met with varying degrees of interference and rejection by China, and that WHO finally had to submit to Beijing’s demands.
On November 27, WHO held an online press conference at which journalists asked Mr. Tan Desai directly whether WHO international experts would travel to Wuhan to investigate the origin of the virus. Tan Desai confirmed that international experts will enter Wuhan to investigate the origin of the virus. This is nearly a year since the outbreak of the Xinguan outbreak, and international experts have confirmed their access to Wuhan, the source of the outbreak.
Tandesse did not specify a date for the international experts to travel to Wuhan to investigate the source of the virus, and there is concern that Beijing will not allow international experts into Wuhan to investigate the source of the virus for as long as a year, “eliminating any possibility of finding any evidence of the virus.
Since March, Beijing authorities have repeatedly changed their story, blaming Italy, the United States and other countries for the source of the virus; Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused U.S. forces of bringing the virus to Wuhan in March, resulting in strong resentment from the United States; President Trump warned Beijing that it was responsible for the global pandemic; Australia and other Western countries demanded that independent experts go to China to investigate the source of the virus; and international calls for accountability have been strong, but the Chinese side has refused.
Recently, local cases have been reported in Shanghai and Tianjin, and officials have begun pointing to cold-chain food and packaging imported from other countries as the source of the epidemic. Experts at Italy’s National Cancer Institute (Istituto Nazionale della Cancer) have recently published suspicions that the new coronavirus spread in Italy earlier than the Wuhan outbreak, and this has been picked up by the Chinese media.
Reuters reported that the People’s Daily said in an English-language Facebook posting on Nov. 25 that experts believe the neo-coronavirus did not originate in Wuhan in central China, but may have entered the country through imported cold-chain food and packaging.
The French newspaper Le Humanité reported on November 27 that the Chinese government has once again changed its story about the origin of the new coronavirus, “Now Communist Party authorities have locked up imports of foreign frozen food, while WHO scientists have no access to Wuhan to carry out an extensive investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus. The newspaper’s Dorian Malovic writes that Chinese officials have repeatedly emphasized that the neo-crown virus entered from abroad, even though Wuhan was the first outbreak. The newspaper notes that it is important for the Chinese government to tell the Chinese public that the new coronavirus came from abroad.
However, according to the World Health Organization, there is no evidence to date that people can be infected with the new coronavirus through contact with frozen foods or their packaging. Countries such as Germany and New Zealand have also rejected Beijing’s claim that their frozen meat and packaging could be the source of the spread.
The People’s Daily’s Global Times also played up the foreign origin of the new coronavirus, quoting Zeng Guang, former chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as saying on November 24 that the virus had likely coexisted in several places before it was discovered in Wuhan.
According to Reuters, both Zeng Guang and the Chinese official media supported their claims by citing the paper published by Italy’s National Cancer Institute, which said antibodies to neo-coronavirus were found in samples of cancer patients taken last October at the National Cancer Institute.
But these studies have drawn criticism in the West, with Voice of America quoting Francois Barroux, a geneticist at University College London, as saying, “In the case of the new coronary antibodies, they were found in samples taken from cancer patients at the Italian National Cancer Institute last October. François Barroux, a geneticist at University College London, was quoted by the Voice of America as saying that “claims supported by some untenable evidence have been widely reported without the necessary review and consideration of the broader available evidence,” and that even if the virus had appeared in Italy in September, it does not necessarily mean that it originated there.
The expert also told Reuters: “One strong piece of evidence is that the closest virus to SARS-CoV-2 that we know of so far is transmitted in bats in China. Over time, it is still possible that the source will be in East Asia, most likely China, and then spread to other parts of the world.”
In any case, international observers point out that China should no longer block international experts from traveling to Wuhan to conduct on-site investigations, only then can doubt be dispelled and the truth be revealed. Investigating the source of the disease, and most importantly, helping to prevent future pandemics, is vital to human health.
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