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The World Health Agency has sent two experts to China, but it is not known how much access they have. They’ll have to complete about 40 weeks first.
By Javier C. Hernandez and Amy Qin
Chinese officials are hailing a visit by a team of experts sent to Beijing by the World Health Organization to investigate the source of the coronavirus as evidence that the country is a responsible and transparent global power. But the investigation by the W.H.O. is likely to take many months and could face delays.
For starters, there are logistical headaches. China has put the complex team of experts preparing the base paintings for a broader investigation under a 14-day quarantine, forcing them to make some of their detective paintings remotely.
“Obviously the arrival and quarantine of individuals and working remotely is not the ideal way to work, but we fully respect the risk-management procedures put in place,” Mike Ryan, the W.H.O.’s chief of emergency response, said at a news conference on Friday. He said it would take weeks before a full team would be able to visit China.
WHO. The investigation comes at a time when China is facing a global backlash, adding from the United States, first, to downplay and not involve the virus, which emerged in December in the central city of Wuhan.
For weeks, China had fiercely resisted requests from other countries to allow independent researchers on its territory to investigate the origin of the pathogen. Beijing has also tried to deflect the blame by suggesting, without evidence, that the virus may have reached elsewhere.
Now they proclaim Beijing’s reaction to the epidemic as a style for the global and attack the United States for “evading its responsibilities” in the global combat opposed to Covid-19.
The Trump administration, which has tried to divert attention from its futile reaction to the pandemic, has criticized the W.H.O. investigation. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said he hoped it would be a “completely covert investigation.”
With relations between China and Western countries deteriorating due to military, technological, industrial and human rights concerns, experts fear that Beijing is seeking to restrict the scope of studies so as not to embarrass the government.
“The total political landscape is not conducive to independent clinical research,” said Wang Linfa, a virologist from Singapore who participated in a W.H.O. China’s SARS outbreak in 2002 and 2003. “I’m sorry for the team members.”
The Chinese government first covered the SARS outbreak, but Wang said he was then willing to cooperate with foreign experts. This time, he said, the W.H.O. The research is probably largely symbolic, as the broader geopolitical climate can make Chinese experts reluctant to the percentage of valuable research.
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