(Natalie Brown’s article from the NEWS.COM Australia on 06 January 2021.)
World Health Organisation (WHO) investigators have
been denied access to Wuhan – the province largely thought to be where the
coronavirus originated in late 2019 – by Chinese authorities, as another
province goes into “wartime” mode over a new outbreak.
According to reports, Beijing is avoiding the independent WHO probe – expected to take between four and five weeks – in a bid to evade being held accountable for the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 1.8 million people worldwide.
Despite a member
of the 10-person team telling the BBC the inquiry isn’t about finding a “guilty
country” but to understand how similar pandemics could be avoided, Chinese
officials are yet to finalise permission for their arrivals.
“Today, we
learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalised the necessary permissions
for the team’s arrival in China,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus told reporters yesterday at a press conference in Geneva.
“I’m very
disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their
journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute. I have been in
contact with senior Chinese officials and I have once again made it clear the
mission is a priority for WHO and the international team.”
The investigation comes as the Chinese province of
Hebei plunged into “wartime” mode to combat an outbreak of 59 cases in the last
three days, thought to be linked to gatherings. Officials have launched mass
testing for the city’s 11 million residents and schools have shuttered, with
the infections thought to be traced to social events like funerals and weddings
in the village of Xiaguozhuang.
The village has
now been sealed off, with any gatherings or visits between relatives now
banned. Police have also reportedly set up roadblocks on routes out of the
county. Respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, Wang Guangfu,
told the Global Times that the possibility of an asymptomatic spreader “could
not be ruled out”. Feng Zijian, an expert from the China CDC, told the
publication the source of the infection is likely from Europe.
WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he’d been “assured that China
is speeding up the internal procedures for the earliest possible deployment”,
the WHO’s Dr Michael Ryan said the officials had still not been given visa
clearances. One official was sent back home and the other is staying in a third
country until they are granted entry.
“We trust and we
hope that this is just a logistic and bureaucratic issue (and) will be resolved
quickly,” Dr Ryan said. “This is frustrating and as the Director-General has
said this is disappointing. We trust in good faith we can solve these issues in
coming hours and recommence the deployment of the team as urgently as
possible.”
China has repeatedly
pushed aside rhetoric from leaders like US President Donald Trump -who has
referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus” or “Kung Flu” on multiple occasions –
that they’re to blame for the pandemic.
Wuhan plans to host “more gatherings, celebrations” in2021
Wuhan plans to
host “more gatherings, celebrations” in 2021, warning Westerners to “get used
to it”. Just days ago, the Global Timespublished a story about Wuhan hosting
“more gatherings, celebrations” in the new year and telling the “West” to “get
used to it”.
“More big
gatherings like the New Year celebrations, sports events and live concerts will
be staged in Wuhan, which was the hardest-hit city in China by COVID-19, during
2021, and the world had better get used to it, Wuhan residents said, calling on
some Westerners to save their fellow countrymen following Chinese experiences
rather than attacking Wuhan’s gatherings with prejudice and hostility,” the
article read.
“When large
crowds of Wuhan residents took to streets and launched balloons to celebrate
the arrival of 2021 on New Year’s Eve, in sharp contrast with what Western
media called a ghost town like Times Square with roads closed but no live
audience, some Westerners with jealous eyes were sarcastic about Wuhan.”
Telegraph
columnist Allison Pearson asked, "How has Wuhan achieved this without a
vaccine?" while posting the news about Wuhan residents' celebrations of
the New Year in her tweet. She even questioned whether the footage of the
celebrations was staged.
Her sarcasm
apparently achieved the opposite effect, with some netizens listing Wuhan's
effective epidemic prevention and control measures taken so far and blaming the
British government for failing to be responsible.
A Twitter user
posted, "They have a functioning Test, Trace and Isolate system and they
wear masks. They stayed home when they were told to and they acted swiftly. We
have an incompetent government whose main aim of dealing with the virus is to
make their friends rich."
Some netizens
also criticized Pearson for writing false epidemic prevention stories. She
wrote in a story published in July that she refused to wear a mask, and then in
November called on Britain to cancel lockdowns.
"So what
did they do in China? Lockdowns, school closures, travel bans, mass testing,
contact tracing, and masks. The sort of thing you opposed every step of the way
this year (2020). Thanks a lot," a netizen named Sam Bowman posted. He
made nine posts to refute what Pearson said in these stories.
Some Wuhan
residents reached by the Global Times called the sarcastic comments "sour
grapes," and said that their lives had returned to normal months ago, and
more gatherings like the New Year celebration would be held in the city.
For many Wuhan
residents who emerged from the shadow of the epidemic last April, when the
76-day-lockdown was lifted, it's quite normal to have such celebrations, Yang
Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan
University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
A massive
swimming pool party attended by thousands of people in Wuhan in August 2020
shocked many people in Western countries who could not believe that Wuhan could
recover so soon after being ravaged by the virus for months.
Wuhan was
declared free of COVID-19 as last domestic patient left hospital in April.
Although winter has set in, Wuhan is still safe, Yang said. According to Wuhan
media, about 30,000 customers visited 30 shopping malls in Hankou district in
Wuhan on January 1, and residents all wear masks when attending public events.
Yang said that as a journalist, Pearson should better relate China's experience in controlling the epidemic to her countrymen and government to help the UK control the spread of the virus, instead of being jealous and hostile about Wuhan's celebration.
