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world news Diahuebs 31 December 2020

China clamps down in hidden hunt for coronavirus origins

(AP) — Deep in the lush in many parts of the world”
valleys of southern Chi- and research should be car-
na lies the entrance to a ried out “on a global scale.”
mine shaft that once har-
bored bats with the clos- China’s leaders aren’t alone
est known relative to CO- in politicizing research into
VID-19. how the pandemic started.
In April, President Donald
The area is of intense interest Trump shelved a U.S. funded
because it may hold clues to project to identify dangerous
the origins of the coronavirus animal diseases across Asia.
that has killed more than 1.7 Research into COVID-19’s
million people worldwide, origins is critical to prevent-
but has become a black hole ing future epidemics, and the
of no information because move severed ties between
of political sensitivity. A bat Chinese and U.S. scientists.
research team that visited Although the World Health
recently had their samples Organization says it will send
confiscated, two people fa- a team to China in January to
miliar with the matter said. investigate, its members and
And a team of Associated agenda had to be approved by
Press journalists was tailed by China.
plainclothes police in mul-
tiple cars who blocked access The probe into how the coro-
to sites in late November. navirus first emerged started
More than a year since the in the Huanan Seafood Mar-
first known person was in- ket in Wuhan, a sprawling
fected with the coronavirus, complex where many of the
an AP investigation shows first human cases were de-
the Chinese government is tected.
strictly controlling all re- tralized all COVID-19 pub- genetic code is strikingly flu samples.
search into its origins while In mid-December last year, lication under a special task similar to bat coronaviruses,
promoting fringe theories Huanan vendor Jiang Dafa force. The notice, obtained and scientists suspect CO- Hundreds of Chinese hos-
that the pandemic originated noticed people were falling by the AP and marked “not to VID-19 jumped into humans pitals collect samples from
elsewhere. ill, including a worker who be made public,” was sweep- from a bat or an intermediary patients with flu-like symp-
helped clean carcasses at a ing in scope, applying to all animal. toms, storing them for years.
The government is monitor- stall who later died. universities, companies and The samples could easily be
ing scientists’ findings and At first, the China CDC medical and research institu- Chinese scientists quickly tested again for COVID-19,
mandating that the publica- moved swiftly. tions. It said communication started testing animals sus- although politics could deter-
tion of any research first be and publication of research pected of carrying the coro- mine whether the results are
approved by a new task force On Jan. 1, the market was had to be orchestrated like navirus. Records show sci- made public, said Ray Yip,
managed by China’s cabi- ordered shut, barring ven- “a game of chess” under in- entist Xia Xueshan received a the founding director of the
net under direct orders from dors from fetching their be- structions from Xi and guid- 1.4 million RMB ($214,000) China CDC.
President Xi Jinping, accord- longings, Jiang said. Internal ed by propaganda and public grant to screen animals in
ing to internal documents China CDC data shows that opinion teams. Yunnan for COVID-19. In Researchers in the U.S., Italy,
obtained by The AP. A rare by Jan. 10, researchers were February, his team took sam- France and elsewhere have al-
leak from within the govern- sequencing environmental The order went on to warn ples from animals including ready combed through some
ment, the dozens of pages of samples. that those who publish with- bats, snakes, bamboo rats and of their archived samples to
unpublished documents con- out permission, “causing se- porcupines. identify the earliest cases of
firm what many have long In late January and early rious adverse social impact, COVID-19 in late 2019. But
suspected: The clampdown February, as the virus spread shall be held accountable.” But the government restric- in China, scientists have only
comes from the top. rapidly, Chinese scientists tions soon kicked in; data on published retrospective data
published a burst of research After the secret orders, the samples has not been re- from two Wuhan flu sur-
The AP’s investigation was papers on COVID-19. Then the tide of research papers leased. veillance hospitals, out of at
based on interviews with one paper proposed without slowed to a trickle. Though least 18 in Hubei province
Chinese and foreign scien- concrete evidence that the the China CDC returned to Today, the caves in Yunnan and more than 500 across the
tists and officials, along with virus could have leaked from collect some 2,000 samples home to the closest viral rela- country.
public notices, leaked emails a Wuhan laboratory near the from the market over the fol- tive of the coronavirus are
and the unpublished docu- market. It was later retracted, lowing months, nothing was under close watch. Security The little information that
ments from China’s State but it raised the need for im- published. agents tailed the AP team in has trickled out suggests
Council and the Chinese age control. three locations and stopped COVID-19 was circulating
Center for Disease Control On May 25, China CDC journalists from visiting the beyond Wuhan in 2019, a
and Prevention. It reveals a An internal notice from a chief George Gao said no an- cave where researchers iden- finding that could raise awk-
pattern of government secre- China CDC lab issued on imal samples from the mar- tified the bats responsible for ward questions for Chinese
cy and top-down control that February 24 put in new ap- ket had tested positive, ruling SARS. officials about their early
has been evident throughout proval processes to standard- it out as the source. handling of the outbreak.
the pandemic. ize publication under “im- Chinese state media has in-
portant instructions” from With the market proving a stead aggressively promoted Peter Daszak of the Eco-
“They only select people they Chinese President Xi Jinping. dead end, scientist turned theories suggesting the virus Health Alliance said identi-
can trust, those that they can Other notices ordered CDC their attention to hunting for originated elsewhere, such as fying the pandemic’s source
control,” said an expert who staff not to share any data, the virus at its likely source: via frozen seafood, a hypoth- should not be used to assign
works with the China CDC, specimens or other informa- bats. esis WHO and others have guilt.
declining to be identified out tion related to the coronavi- dismissed. “We’re all part of this togeth-
of a fear of retribution. rus with outside institutions Nearly a thousand miles er,” he said. “Until we realize
or individuals. away from Wuhan, bats in- The government is also lim- that, we’re never going to get
China’s foreign ministry said habit a maze of underground iting and controlling the rid of this problem.”
in a fax that “the novel coro- In early March, China’s cabi- limestone caves in Yunnan search for the first human
navirus has been discovered net, the State Council, cen- province. The coronavirus’ cases through the retesting of