Chinese officials are hailing a visit by a team of experts sent to Beijing by the World Health Organization to investigate the source of the coronavirus as evidence that the country is a responsible and transparent global power. But the investigation by the W.H.O. is likely to take many months and could face delays.
For starters, there are logistical headaches. China has placed the advance team of experts who are laying the groundwork for a broader investigation under a standard 14-day quarantine, forcing them to do some of their detective work from a distance.
“Obviously the arrival and quarantine of individuals and working remotely is not the ideal way to work, but we fully respect the risk-management procedures put in place,” Mike Ryan, the W.H.O.’s chief of emergency response, said at a news conference on Friday. He said it would take weeks before a full team would be able to visit China.
The W.H.O.’s investigation comes as China faces intense global backlash, including from the United States, for initially downplaying and failing to contain the virus, which emerged in December in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
For weeks, China had fiercely resisted demands from other nations that it allow independent investigators onto its soil to study the origin of the pathogen. Beijing has also tried to deflect blame by suggesting, without evidence, that the virus could have originated elsewhere.
Now, officials are trumpeting Beijing’s response to the outbreak as a model for the world and attacking the United States for “shirking its responsibilities” in the global fight against Covid-19.
The Trump administration, which has repeatedly attempted to distract from its own response to the pandemic, has criticized the W.H.O.’s inquiry. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said that he expected it to be a “completely whitewashed investigation.”
FEATURED IMAGE: Workers in March outside the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, where many of the first reported infections were traced. Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The New York Times
