23 January 2021 | New Scientist | 7THE World Health Organization’s
scientific mission to explore the
origins of the coronavirus has
only been under way for a few
days, but has already been the
subject of clashes between the US
and China over the investigation’s
access to people and evidence.
The first of the 13 scientists
arrived in Wuhan on 14 January,
after visa issues delayed an
original 5 January start date.
Led by Peter Ben Embarek at
the WHO, the team is currently in
quarantine for 14 days in a hotel
and talking with Chinese officials,
including those at the Chinese
Centre for Disease Control.
Members of the mission
have said they are having daily
covid-19 tests and are being
“treated very well”.The polite language contrasts
with the verbal sparring between
the US and Chinese governments
in recent days.
The US state department
claimed last weekend that it had
reason to believe several staff at
the Wuhan Institute of Virology,
which has been the subject of
debunked claims it was the source
of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, had covid-
19-like symptoms in autumn 2019.
The US government later called
on China to give the WHO team
access to samples from the
Huanan wildlife market that
might have had a role in the
outbreak of the virus, as wellas to allow interviews with
caregivers, former patients
and lab workers in Wuhan.
China issued a rebuke on
Monday, with Reuters reporting
that Sun Yang of the China
National Health Commission
told the board of the WHO:
“The virus origin studies are
of a scientific nature. It needs
coordination, cooperation. We
must stop any political pressure.”
Such interventions from
the US won’t assist the scientific
mission, says David Heymann at
the London School of Hygiene &
Tropical Medicine. “I don’t think
that’s helpful at all. They [the WHOThe World Health Organization has begun its mission to try to
determine the source of the coronavirus, reports Adam VaughanOrigins of covid-
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team] are the ones that should be
making the decisions, and China
is a sovereign country.”
Although the WHO team is
currently quarantined, on its
release Heymann says one of
the most important things it can
achieve is to form good face-to
face relationships with Chinese
scientists and officials, to lay out
a research agenda for the future.That is the first step to stopping
future pandemics, he says.
The mission will probably
struggle to pinpoint the origins
of the coronavirus, a goal that may
never be achieved, says Heymann.
“I think it’s very difficult to find an
animal source of an outbreak like
this. It just takes one [spillover]
event. Looking for that single
event is like looking for a needle
in a haystack,” he adds.
The WHO has also
acknowledged the scale of
the challenge. Michael Ryan
at the WHO, speaking at a press
conference on 15 January, said: “It
is a difficult task to fully establish
the origins. Sometimes it can take
two or three or four attempts.”
The investigation into the
genesis of the pandemic comes
as China battles with a renewed
outbreak of covid-19 cases, with
clusters in the province of Hebei.
The country has recorded more
than 200 daily cases in recent days.
The spike, while minor
compared with some of the
increases seen in Europe, comes
ahead of the start of the Chinese
new year on 12 February, when
millions of people usually travel
across the country to take part
in celebrations, raising the risk
of transmission.
Heymann says the WHO team
is likely to want to complete its
research before then, to avoid
any unnecessary risk. ❚A street scene near
a market in Wuhan,
China, this week“The polite language of
the WHO team contrasts
with the verbal sparring
between the US and China”Daily coronavirus news round-up
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