A team of experts is traveling to China for politically sensitive investigations in order to search for the origins of the coronavirus on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO). After a long tug-of-war over the trip, China’s health commission announced on Monday the arrival for this Thursday. Together with Chinese scientists, the experts should research whether the virus can be traced back to its source, it was announced.

Delays first , then quarantine There was wrangling over the experts’ journey until the end. Just a week ago, the WHO announced that China had blocked entry. As a result, Beijing announced that the necessary preparations had to be made beforehand. After arrival, the experts will have to go into quarantine for two weeks anyway before their work on site can really start.

The team should also go to the travel to the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, where Sars-CoV-2 was first discovered a good year ago. Members downplayed expectations of the trip in advance. It is not so much a matter of doing your own research, but rather of exchanging ideas with your Chinese colleagues to see which traces could still be followed.

The search for the origin of the virus is considered politically explosive . China fears being denounced as the culprit for the pandemic, in which tens of millions of people have been infected worldwide and, according to official statistics, more than 1.9 million people have died. For months, Chinese authorities have therefore been spreading doubts as to whether the virus even originated in China. Reference is made to unconfirmed reports that possible infections may have existed in other countries before.

“Open and transparent” Foreign Office spokesman Zhao Lijian also addressed this thesis in front of the press on Monday. “While the timeline of the first cases is moving backwards, the search for the origins could include more and more countries and regions,” said the spokesman. The WHO would have to start similar studies in other countries. Against the background of criticism of the initial handling of information about the virus, the spokesman defended China’s cooperation with the WHO as “open and transparent”.

China Propaganda spreads the thesis that the virus may not even have started in China. Reference is also made to today’s virus traces on imported frozen goods – which are taken as an indication that the pathogen could have been introduced from abroad. Researchers like the German epidemiologist Fabian Leendertz from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), who belongs to the WHO team, suspect bats from southern China as the origin.

The time comes with the date of entry and the subsequent quarantine scarce for the WHO mission because on 12. February the Chinese New Year is celebrated. At the most important family festival for the Chinese, many institutes and companies shut down long before the festival, as the employees usually travel to their home villages for one to two weeks or longer. The country practically comes to a standstill over the New Year celebrations.

(mho)