Chinese authorities refused to provide World Health Organization investigators with raw, personalized data on early Covid-19 cases that could help them determine how and when the coronavirus first began to spread in China. It was reported by Wall Street Journal.
The authorities turned down requests to provide such data on 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.
"Member states typically provide such data so investigators can see all other relevant details on each case," one of WHO team members said.
"They showed us a couple of examples, but that’s not the same as doing all of them, which is standard epidemiological investigation,” Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist said.
As we reported earlier, a group of WHO experts arrived in the city of Wuhan in Central China to determine the causes of the emergence of the coronavirus. The trip was developed jointly with Beijing. The aim of the study is to find out when the virus began circulating and whether it originated in Wuhan.