China Approves WHO Investigators Examing Covid Origins, But Expectations Are Low

China finally relented a year after the virus was first identified and admitted a World Health Organization team to study Covid's origins. 

But this was done only as Chinese infections have started to rise again, suggesting that self interest in help quelling the latest outbreak is the real motive for the change. Expectations are low that Chinese personnel will be permitted to share any useful insights. JL

Peter Beaumont reports in The Guardian:

China authorised the visit on Monday, after almost a year of negotiations with the WHO. (But) expectations should be set very low that a World Health Organization team of experts investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic will reach any definitive conclusion from their first trip. The announcement of the visit came as more than half a million people were placed under lockdown in Beijing, where the government has imposed strict measures to stamp out a handful of cases. China recorded 103 cases on Monday, its biggest daily increase in more than five months

Expectations should be set very low that a World Health Organization team of experts investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic will reach any definitive conclusion from their first trip to China, a health expert affiliated with the WHO has said.

China authorised the visit on Monday, after almost a year of negotiations with the WHO, and opinion is divided over how much access the mission will be allowed.

“I would be inclined to set the expectations of a conclusion very low for this visit,” said Dr Dale Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which is coordinated by the WHO. “I think it’s an important meeting but it shouldn’t be overrated in terms of an outcome this time,” said Fisher, who took part in a WHO mission to Wuhan last year.

The visit has been the subject of intense diplomatic negotiations and pressure, which are likely to continue while it happens. The scientists on the team believe it is crucial to meet their Chinese counterparts, who have also been studying the virus. The WHO experts will arrive in China on Thursday, Chinese authorities said on Monday. The National Health Commission, which announced the arrival date, delayed from its early January schedule, did not give details of the itinerary.

Investigators are, however, expected to travel quickly to Wuhan, where the outbreak began in 2019, once they are out of quarantine.

The announcement of the visit came as more than half a million people were placed under lockdown in Beijing, where the government has imposed strict measures to stamp out a handful of cases. China recorded 103 cases on Monday, its biggest daily increase in more than five months, as new infections in Hebei province surrounding Beijing continued to rise.

Authorities are particularly keen to stem any outbreak in the capital – home to more than 20 million people – ahead of a weeklong national holiday next month.

All rural villages in Shunyi district on the outskirts of Beijing are locked down until a fresh round of mass testing has been completed, meaning about 518,000 residents will not be permitted to leave their villages until they have undergone testing.

A county in north-eastern Heilongjiang province also moved into lockdown after reporting new coronavirus infections.

Though the recent case tallies remain a small fraction of what the country saw at the height of the outbreak in early 2020, authorities are moving aggressively to curb its spread to avoid another national wave of infections.

China has been accused by some of a cover-up that delayed its initial response, allowing the virus to spread since it first emerged in Wuhan late in 2019.

Speaking to the Chinese CGTN news channel, Marion Koopmans, a team member and Dutch virus expert, explained the point of the WHO mission.

“It starts with a mapping exercise of all the work that’s been done. That’s important because that may already help us direct in a certain direction for follow-up questions. We’ve been asked to discuss with our colleagues in China to work through as an actual scientific tracking expedition.

“What was the origin of the pandemic? … I don’t believe it is about blaming [China],” Koopmans added. “It’s about understanding and learning for the future of our global preparedness.”

The Chinese interviewer tried to suggest to Koopmans that there had been an outbreak in Italy before China – a narrative pushed by the Chinese government. But Koopmans insisted that “it is important to start in Wuhan … where we first learned about the situation” and where a “big outbreak occurred”.

Chinese attempts to suggest other sources for the outbreak have fuelled scepticism in some quarters over how forthcoming China will be to the mission.

The WHO has had to balance China’s extreme sensitivity over the expert visit with the need to keep on good terms with the country, which is likely to the source of two cost effective vaccines that many expect to be used widely in the developing world.

The United States has called for a “transparent” WHO-led investigation and criticised its terms, which allowed Chinese scientists to do the first phase of preliminary research.

The experts will meet their Chinese counterparts and exchange notes on what data they have and what studies they will further have to do, said Fisher, who is also a professor of medicine at the National University of Singapore.

Though he doesn’t expect all the answers from this trip, Fisher believes the chances of finding the origin of the pandemic are much better than they were year ago, because experts now know a lot more about what data they will need to collect based on information they already have: for example, antibody studies from residual serums in other countries.