On Sunday, a team of experts led by the World Health Organization investigating the source of COVID-19 visited Huanan market, the now-shuttered wholesale seafood center in the Chinese city of Wuhan where Covid-19 was first identified. The team arrived in Huanan in the midst of heavy security, with additional blockades set up outside a high blue fence surrounding the market, and left after an hour in a convoy.
The experts did not take journalists’ questions.
The team has visited hospitals and markets since being released from a two-week quarantine on Thursday, as well as an exhibition commemorating Wuhan’s battle with the virus, which included a 76-day lockdown of 11 million.
“Very important site visits today – a wholesale market first & Huanan Seafood Market just now. Very informative & critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it started to spread at the end of 2019,” team member Peter Daszak said on Twitter.
On Friday, the WHO, which tried to control the expectations for the task, said that team members would be restricted to visits arranged by their Chinese hosts and, because of health constraints, would not have any interaction with community members.
No complete itinerary has been released for the team’s two weeks of field work, and despite packing the area, journalists maintained a distance from team members.
After four cases of mystery pneumonia were related to the market on Dec. 31, 2019, it was shut down overnight. Wuhan had gone into a 76-day lockout by the end of January.
Experts claim that, since the first cluster of cases were found there, the Huanan market still plays a role in tracing the origins of the virus.
Delays, concern about access and quarreling between China and the United States hindered the WHO-led probe in Wuhan, which accused China of concealing the magnitude of the initial outbreak and criticized the terms of the visit under which Chinese experts conducted the first phase of study.
Source: Reuters