China resisted for months allowing World Health Organization experts to trace the origins of the global pandemic, fearing that such an investigation could draw attention to the government’s early failures in dealing with the outbreak.
After a global turmoil, the Chinese government finally gave in, allowing a team of 14 scientists to visit laboratories, disease control centers and live animal markets in Wuhan City for the past 12 days.
But instead of despising, the W.H.O. Experts on Tuesday praised Chinese officials and endorsed critical parts of their narrative, including some that have been controversial.
The WHO. The team opened the door to a theory advocated by Chinese officials, saying it was possible the virus could have spread to humans through shipments of frozen food, an idea that has had little resonance with scientists outside of China. And the experts vowed to investigate reports that the virus may have been present outside of China months before the Wuhan outbreak in late 2019, a long-standing request by Chinese officials.
“We should really be looking for evidence of previous spread wherever that is,” said Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist at W.H.O. Team said at a three-hour press conference in Wuhan, where the experts presented their preliminary results along with Chinese scientists.
Some scholars fear that shifting attention to other countries could cause the investigation to lose focus. Establishing what happened in China in the early days of the outbreak is seen as critical to avoiding another pandemic.
The team also downplayed the idea that the virus might have accidentally leaked from a China-run laboratory, an idea that even some skeptical scientists consider worth investigating. This theory differs from a widely discredited one advocated by some Republicans in the United States who claimed that a laboratory in China manufactured the virus for use as a bioweapon.
The W.H.O. is naturally indebted to its member countries and has long found a diplomatic tone in dealing with the Chinese government that is notoriously resistant to external scrutiny. The investigation is still in its earliest stages – it could take years – and W.H.O. Officials have promised strict and transparent scrutiny of the data and research results by China and other countries.
However, the results announced on Tuesday gave Beijing a public relations gain as it was attacked by officials in the United States and elsewhere for initially trying to hide the outbreak.
“This is the most authoritative support China has received in terms of its official account,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow on global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Huang said the W.H.O. China should keep pushing for data and access.
“A visit is not enough time to conduct a thorough investigation,” he said. “They do all of the work within the parameters set by the Chinese government.”
The team did not report any major breakthroughs, but said they found important clues. The virus circulated a few weeks before it appeared in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where some of the earliest clusters were originally reported, the experts said. It most likely occurred in bats and spread to humans through another small mammal, although experts said they couldn’t identify the species.
“All the work that has been done on the virus and attempted to identify its origin continues to point to a natural reservoir,” said Peter K. Ben Embarek, food safety scientist at W.H.O. Who heads the team of experts said at the press conference.
Dr. Ben Embarek said it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus emerged from a bat coronavirus laboratory in Wuhan.
The team met with heads of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which houses a state-of-the-art laboratory, last week and Dr. Ben Embarek said, citing security, “It is very unlikely that anything can escape from such a place.” Logs there.
The WHO. Experts tried on Tuesday to focus their remarks on the scientific aspects of the mission. But the investigation has often been overshadowed by politics.
Some officials in the United States and other Western countries have doubts about the independence of the W.H.O. Investigation on the grounds that China is trying to control the outcome. The government approved the visit of W.H.O. Experts, trying to limit the scope of their mission. And authorities are firmly in control of research related to the virus in China, and are raising concerns that they may try to prevent embarrassing information from being published.
The Chinese government has tried to shift the focus to other areas and has continued to warn that the virus may have come from overseas. Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, recently suggested that the United States give the W.H.O. to send investigators there as part of his investigation.
Chinese officials at Tuesday’s press conference strongly endorsed the idea that the virus came from abroad, arguing that the search for the virus’s origin should focus on locations outside of China.
The investigation will “not be limited to one location,” said Liang Wannian, who led the team of Chinese scientists working at the W.H.O. Mission. He said Chinese researchers had found no evidence that the virus was circulating on a large scale in China before December 2019.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a news conference that the United States would wait to hear the W.H.O. before drawing conclusions about its findings and how transparent Beijing has been to investigators.
During their visit to Wuhan, the W.H.O. Team members said they were trying to stay out of politics and promised to ask tough questions. During their stay in Wuhan, where they were quarantined for two weeks before starting field work, they granted interviews to the news media and were photographed to be tested for the coronavirus. They turned to social media for more transparency about the visit and posted photos and comments on their conversations with Chinese scholars.
The experts repeatedly praised their Chinese counterparts, saying the government had worked in good faith to provide access to key sites, including laboratories and markets. At the press conference on Tuesday, the experts were warm and did not question the statements of their Chinese hosts.
The team will come under pressure in the coming months not only to solve tricky scientific questions, but also to show that they are conducting a fair and tough investigation.
“China’s strategic narrative now goes, ‘This was the Chinese part of the investigation, and we did it and we’re moving on,” said Daniel R. Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University.
Dr. Lucey said the experts had to make a breakthrough in order to demonstrate credibility.
“If the team can’t come up with a substance,” he added, “there’s a risk that people will say this is all just a show.”
Albee Zhang contributed to research.