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WUHAN: A team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) investigating the origins of COVID-19 visited a market in Wuhan on Sunday (January 31) where one of the first clusters of infections reported more than a year ago emerged. year.
Members of the group arrived at the Huanan seafood market, which has been sealed off since January last year, entering its premises with barricades while guards quickly blocked the entry of others, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
The mission, delayed by China and overwhelmed by political baggage, is tasked with exploring how the virus went from animal to human.
Members of a World Health Organization team investigating the origins of COVID-19 arrived at Huanan Seafood’s closed wholesale market in Wuhan on January 31, 2021 (Photo: AFP / Hector Retamal).
But with the fieldwork element of a trip in its early stages, WHO officials have already downplayed expectations of finding the source of a virus that has killed more than 2 million people and devastated the global economy. .
On Sunday, the WHO team arrived at the Huanan market as part of a long-planned trip that is now closely followed by Chinese authorities.
READ: White House demands ‘robust’ international investigation into COVID-19 origins
The experts did not answer any questions and the expanding market remains closed.
Members of the security staff told reporters outside to leave and shook a tall ladder on which a photographer was sitting to get a better view.
Plainclothes security personnel use their umbrellas to prevent journalists from filming after the World Health Organization team arrives at the Baishazhou wholesale market on January 31, 2021 (Photo: AP / Ng Han Guan) .
Earlier this week, the state media outlet Global Times published a report downplaying Huanan’s importance as an early epicenter for the virus, stating that “subsequent investigations” have suggested that the market was not the source of the outbreak.
Chinese authorities have relentlessly pushed for a positive narrative of heroism and decisive and swift action in their fight against the coronavirus that has spurred an economic recovery and kept deaths at 4,636.
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