WUHAN, China (AP) – A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has visited a provincial disease control center that has had a first task in managing the outbreak.
WHO researchers arrived in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, last month to look for clues and visited hospitals that treated many of the first patients and a seafood market where cases of infection arose. by the then unknown virus in December 2019.
The team’s visit to Hubei Provincial Disease Control Center on Monday came amid rigorous Chinese controls on access to information about the virus. China has tried to avoid blaming the alleged mistakes in its first response to the outbreak, while promoting alternative theories that the virus originated elsewhere and could even have been brought to Wuhan from outside the country.
After the visit, a team member, Peter Daszak, told reporters it had been a “very good, very important meeting”. No other details were given.
The evidence the team collects will add to what is expected to be a long-term search for answers. Determining the deposition of animals from an outbreak requires a wealth of research, including animal sampling, genetic analysis, and epidemiological studies.
China has largely slowed down national transmission through strict testing and contact tracking. The wearing 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 Northeast refrigerator, with 33 new cases reported Monday nationwide 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 reporting deaths from COVID in China in several months.
Schools have gone online and travel has dropped dramatically during this month’s Lunar New Year holidays, with the government offering incentives for people to stay in the most important time for family reunions. vast nation.