WUHAN, China (AP) – A relative of a Chinese coronavirus victim asks to meet with a visiting team of World Health Organization experts, saying he should talk to affected families who claim they are being suppressed by the Chinese government .
China approved the visit of researchers under the auspices of the UN agency only after months of negotiations. He did not say whether they would be allowed to gather evidence or talk to families, saying only that the team could exchange views with Chinese scientists.
“I hope that WHO experts will not become a tool to spread lies,” said Zhang Hai, whose father died of COVID-19 on February 1, 2020, after traveling to the Chinese city of Wuhan and becoming infected. “I was constantly searching for the truth. It was a criminal act and I do not want the WHO to come to China to cover up these crimes. ”
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The WHO team, which arrived in Wuhan on January 14 to investigate the virus’s origins, is expected to begin fieldwork later this week after a 14-day quarantine.
Zhang, originally from Wuhan and now living in southern Shenzhen, has organized relatives of China’s coronavirus victims to hold officials accountable.
Many are upset that the state has downplayed the virus at the beginning of the outbreakand tried to sue the Wuhan government.
Relatives faced immense pressure from the authorities not to comment. Officials rejected the trials, repeatedly questioned Zhang and others, and threatened to fire relatives of foreign media spokesmen, according to interviews with Zhang and other relatives.
Zhang said relatives’ chat groups were closed shortly after the WHO team arrived in Wuhan and accused the city government of trying to silence them.
“Don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, that we’re not looking for responsibility,” Zhang said. “You have deleted all our platforms, but we still want to let everyone know through the media that we have not given up.”
The WHO says its visit to China is a scientific mission to investigate the origin of the virus, not an effort to blame and that “in-depth interviews and reviews” of early cases are needed. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China initially rejected requests for an international investigation after the Trump administration blamed Beijing for the virus, but bowed to global pressure in May for an investigation into the origins.
On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief infectious disease official in the United States, told the World Economic Forum that the origins of the virus that brought the world to its knees are still unknown, “a big black box that is awful.”
The mission was repeatedly delayed by negotiations and countermeasures, one of which led to an unusual public complaint by the WHO chief.
The arrival of the WHO mission has rekindled controversy over whether China has allowed the virus to spread globally, reacting too slowly in the early days.
From the beginning, WHO officials have tried to get more cooperation from China, with limited success.
Audio recordings of WHO internal meetings obtained by The Associated Press and broadcast for the first time on Tuesday shows that, even if the WHO praised China in public, officials complained in private that they do not receive enough information.
The UN agency has no implementing powers, so it must rely on the goodwill of member countries.
Keiji Fukuda, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong, called the visit an “image-building mission”, with China eager to be transparent and WHO eager to show action.
“Both China and the WHO hope to get some brownie points,” said Fukuda, a former WHO official. “But it all comes down to what the team will have access to. Will they really be able to ask the questions they want to ask? ”
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Kang reported from Beijing.