WUHAN (CHINA) – The team investigating the origins of the pandemic, visited the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China’s central region of Hubei on Monday, where the outbreak emerged in late 2019.
The group of independent experts from WHO spent about four and a half hours at CDC, which is considered its longest site visit since completing two weeks of quarantine on Thursday. The experts visited the Huanan seafood market linked to initial infections, and the Baishazhou wholesale food market, where a loudspeaker repeatedly announced that the sale of imported cold chain products was banned at the market.
The group has so far also visited hospitals where early cases were detected, markets, and an exhibition about the battle with the outbreak in the provincial capital of Wuhan.
The WHO has said its members would be limited to visits organised by China and will have no contact with community members, because of health curbs.
Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, said two weeks in the field was not much time for the experts. “I don’t think they have the time to get any conclusive results. It is more like communication and information exchange,” Huang told.
“It depends how diligent they are in digging new information but also about how cooperative and accommodating the Chinese side will be.”
