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WUHAN: A relative of a coronavirus victim in China demands to meet with a visiting team of experts from the World Health Organization and says they should speak to affected families who claim the Chinese government is silencing them.
China approved the visit of researchers under the auspices of the UN agency only after months of negotiations. He has not indicated whether they will be allowed to gather evidence or speak to families, saying only that the team can exchange views with Chinese scientists.
“I hope the WHO experts do not become a tool to spread lies,” said Zhang Hai, whose father died of COVID-19 on February 1, 2020, after traveling to the Chinese city of Wuhan and becoming infected.
“We have been searching for the truth tirelessly. This was a criminal act, and I don’t want the WHO to come to China to cover up these crimes. “
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The WHO team, which arrived in Wuhan on January 14 to investigate the origins of the virus, is expected to begin fieldwork later this week after a 14-day quarantine.
Zhang, a native of Wuhan who now lives in the southern city of Shenzhen, has been organizing relatives of coronavirus victims in China to hold officials accountable.
Many are angry that the state downplayed the virus at the beginning of the outbreak and have tried to file lawsuits against the Wuhan government.
Family members have faced immense pressure from the authorities not to speak out. Officials dismissed the lawsuits, questioned Zhang and others repeatedly, and threatened to fire family members of those who speak to foreign media, according to interviews with Zhang and other family members.
Zhang said the family members’ chat groups were closed shortly after the WHO team’s arrival in Wuhan, and accused the city government of trying to silence them.
“Don’t pretend that we don’t exist, that we don’t seek responsibility,” Zhang said. “You deleted all our platforms, but we still want everyone to know through the media that we have not given up.”
Zhang Hai holds one of the last images of his father taken at a hospital during an interview in Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong province, on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020 (Photo: AP / Ng Han Guan).
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The WHO says its visit to China is a scientific mission to investigate the origins of the virus, not an effort to assign blame, and that “in-depth interviews and reviews” of early cases are needed. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China initially rejected demands for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the virus, but gave in to global pressure in May to investigate the origins.
On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease official, told the World Economic Forum that the origins of the virus that has brought the world to its knees is still unknown, “a big black box, which is horrible . “
The mission was repeatedly delayed by negotiations and setbacks, one of which sparked an unusual public complaint from the WHO chief.
The arrival of the WHO mission has reignited controversy over whether China allowed the virus to spread globally by reacting too slowly in the early days.
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From the beginning, WHO officials have sought greater cooperation from China, with limited success.
Audio recordings of internal WHO meetings obtained by The Associated Press and broadcast for the first time on Tuesday show that even as the WHO praised China in public, officials privately complained about not getting enough information.
The UN agency has no enforcement powers, so it must rely on the goodwill of member countries.
Keiji Fukuda, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong, has called the visit an “image-building mission,” with China eager to appear transparent and WHO eager to show that it is taking action.
“Both China and the WHO hope to get some points,” said Fukuda, a former WHO official. “But it all comes down to what the team will have access to. Will they really be able to ask the questions they want to ask? “
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