China refused to give raw data on initial COVID-19 cases in Wuhan: Report

Chinese authorities refused to provide the World Health Organisation (WHO) investigators with raw, personalised data of the preliminary days of COVID-19 pandemic last year that could have contributed to determining how and when the novel coronavirus first began to spread in China, Wall Street Journal reported citing WHO investigators who described the dramatic exchanges over the lack of crucial detail on SARS-CoV-2. As per the report, Chinese authorities dismissed the calls by the UN health agency to provide data including 174 cases of COVID-19 that they have identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. 

Thee investigators are part of WHO team that this weak completed the monthlong, highly-political visit to Wuhan where the novel coronavirus had first emerged late 2019, to investigate the origin of the disease. Both Chinese officials and scientists provided their own extensive summaries and analysis of data on the initial cases, reportedly claims the WHO team members. As per the report, the investigators were provided info about the analysis carried out by Chinese experts along with aggregated data and retrospective analysis based on medical records made in the months before the outbreak.

However, when the WHO experts asked about a raw, personalised data, the request was denied even though it might have helped the investigators in determining the origin. Other information regarding the disease in the country was also not readily forthcoming. However, China maintained its narrative of denying that coronavirus had an origin in the country despite being the first nation to have a massive outbreak. 

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WHO's Wuhan Probe 'uncovered New Information'

The head of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) team of international experts on Tuesday said that its investigation in Wuhan to find the origins of novel coronavirus had uncovered new information but had not changed the picture of the outbreak. Peter Ben Embarek, a Swiss food safety scientist who leads the WHO team of international experts visiting Wuhan, said in a press briefing that the coronavirus is 'unlikely' to have leaked from a Chinese lab. He further added that it is more likely to have jumped to humans from an animal. 

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After the crucial investigatory visit to China's city, Wuhan, where the coronavirus case was first reported in December 2019, Embarek assessed the 'most likely' pathway through an intermediary host species. In the press briefing, he also said that work to identify the origins of the virus "points to a natural reservoir in bats", but it is "unlikely that they were in Wuhan". 

Since the Wuhan Insitute of Virology has collected extensive virus samples, it budded a conspiracy theory that it might have caused the original outbreak by leaking the virus into the community nearby. China has repeatedly denied the all theories of virus emerging from elsewhere but the WHO team is still probing how the disease first ended up among humans.  

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