WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic visited a provincial disease control center that had an early role in managing the outbreak.
WHO investigators arrived in the provincial capital of Hubei, Wuhan, last month to look for clues and visited hospitals that treated many of the first patients and a seafood market where cases of infection with the then-unknown virus emerged in December 2019.
The team’s visit to the Hubei Provincial Disease Control Center on Monday came amid tight Chinese controls over access to information about the virus. China has sought to avoid blame for alleged errors in its initial response to the outbreak, while promoting alternative theories that the virus originated elsewhere and may even have been brought to Wuhan from outside the country.
After the visit, a team member, Peter Daszak, told reporters that it was a “very good, very important meeting”. No other details were given.
The evidence the team will gather will add to what is expected to be a years-long search for answers. Determining the animal reservoir for an outbreak requires a great deal of research, including animal samples, genetic analysis and epidemiological studies.
China has largely restricted domestic transmission through rigorous testing and contact tracking. The use of masks in public is observed almost universally and blockages are routinely imposed on communities and even entire cities where cases are detected. The latest outbreaks have occurred mainly in the icy northeast, with 33 new cases reported nationally on Monday in three provinces.
Despite this, China registered more than 2,000 new domestic cases of COVID-19 in January, the highest monthly total since the final phase of the initial outbreak in Wuhan last March. Two people died of the disease in January, the first reported COVID deaths in China in several months.
Schools went online and travel was drastically reduced during this month’s Lunar New Year holiday, with the government offering incentives for people to stay during the most important period for family reunions across the vast country.