BEIJING (AP) – After a two-week quarantine, the real work can begin. Could be.
A team of World Health Organization researchers emerged from their hotel on Thursday for the first time since arriving in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to search for clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The visit is shrouded in secrecy: details of their itinerary have not been released, and it is unknown how much access China will give researchers to the sites they want to visit and the people they want to talk to.
WHY IS THE TEAM IN CHINA?
Scientists hope that information on the earliest known cases of the novel coronavirus – which was first identified in Wuhan – will help them better understand where it came from and prevent similar pandemics in the future.
Researchers around the world are eager to access samples taken from the Huanan Seafood Market, which had an early outbreak, and Wuhan’s hospital records.
The team can visit the market itself, as well as the locations of other early cases.
It could also go to a Wuhan Institute of Virology lab built after the 2003 SARS pandemic that maintains an extensive archive of bat coronavirus genetic sequences. US officials in the previous Trump administration suggested without providing evidence that the virus could have escaped from the institute.
Experts say it is unlikely that the novel coronavirus emerged from the laboratory in Wuhan and that analysis of the novel coronavirus’s genome rules out the possibility. that it was designed by humans.
The researchers could also visit the hospitals overwhelmed at the height of the pandemic in China and the local branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The fish market and other places where early cases emerged remain important as the virus is constantly changing, as evidenced by the new species found in the UK.
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WHAT DO RESEARCHERS HOPE TO LEARN?
Wuhan is where COVID-19 cases were first discovered, but it is very possible that the virus made its way to the industrial city of 11 million people from elsewhere.
Genetic sequencing shows that the coronavirus started in bats and likely jumped to another animal before infecting humans. The virus, the most famously related to the one that causes COVID-19, has been found in bats in a mine shaft nearly 1,000 miles southwest of Wuhan, near the Chinese border with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The Associated Press was not allowed to visit the mine.
In December 2019, people fell ill in Wuhan and many had links with the fish market. Scientists initially suspected that the virus came from wild animals sold in the market, prompting China to fight the wildlife trade.
But the subsequent discovery of earlier cases challenged that theory. China’s CDC said samples withdrawn from the market indicate that it was likely a place where the virus spread, not where it started. The WHO team’s ability to increase our understanding of the virus – and its credibility – could depend in part on gaining access to those samples.
Studying the genes of the earliest known cases in Wuhan could provide clues as to how it got from bats to humans and whether it was through a mammal such as a bamboo rat or a civet.
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WHAT OBSTACLES DOES THE TEAM FACE?
The big question is what China will show and do to the researchers. The ruling Communist Party is concerned that the investigation could shed light on the way the virus has been treated, leading to international criticism – and even financial compensation if it is found to have been negligent.
China has suppressed independent reports of the outbreak at home and published little information about its research into the origin of the virus. An AP investigation found that the government has strictly controlled all COVID-19-related research and forbids investigators from speaking to the media.
Found another AP investigation WHO officials personally complained that China had dragged its feet in sharing critical information about the outbreak, including the genetic sequence of the new virus, even as the UN health agency publicly praised China for what it called a quick response.
China, stung by complaints that it has spread the disease, has suggested the virus could come from abroad. A government spokesman has said that the hunt for the origin will have to work beyond China’s borders, including in bat habitats in neighboring Southeast Asia. An expert from the WHO team has suggested the same, and this is a possibility that researchers are investigating.
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WHEN WILL WE KNOW THE ANSWERS?
The search for the origin of COVID-19 will likely take years. The origins of SARS took more than a decade, and the origins of Ebola, first identified in the 1970s, remain elusive. But knowing where the virus comes from can help prevent future virus outbreaks by wild animals.