Years of research are needed to determine the origin of the coronavirus, according to a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, trying to discover the source of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Team member Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist and infectious disease expert, said he was surprised by the difficulties in tracing the global virus outbreak’s origins. The experts are trying to understand the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, which was first identified in Wuhan.
The virus is known to have “exploded” from a market in Wuhan, but the key to the answer is what happened around that time, and before, Dwyer said.
The origin of the coronavirus has also turned into a political joust after allegations that China was not transparent at the start of the outbreak. The communist regime in Beijing even claimed that the virus could come from elsewhere.
Dwyer admits that it is naive to think that the very first infection will be successful. The early cases were identified in November, “but it’s just the bit beforehand that is the very interesting, the tricky and the difficult part.” But that also plays a role in Ebola, SARS or AIDS, for example, he emphasizes. There too, scientists are still in the dark about the exact conditions.
The team, which also includes the Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans, has about a week in China before the visas expire.