Two members of WHO delegation to Wuhan held back over health screening

[snoop1130]

Two members of WHO delegation to Wuhan held back over health screening

By Thomas Peter and Stephanie Nebehay

 

A staff member in protective suit stands next to buses before the expected arrival of a World Health Organisation (WHO) team tasked with investigating the origins of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan, Hubei province, China January 14, 2021. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

 

WUHAN, China/GENEVA (Reuters) - Two members of a World Health Organization-led team that arrived on Thursday in China's Wuhan city to investigate the origins of COVID-19 remained behind in Singapore after testing positive for coronavirus antibodies, the global body said.

 

The team of 15 had all tested negative for the disease prior to leaving their home countries, and underwent further testing while in transit in Singapore.

 

The results of nucleic acid tests were negative but showed two of the members had coronavirus antibodies, the Geneva-based agency said in a tweet.

 

"They are being retested for both IgM and IgG antibodies," the WHO said.

 

It is the latest setback for a mission beset by delay as well as concern over how much access the team will get.

 

The rest of the team arrived in Wuhan from Singapore late on Thursday morning on a budget airline and they were expected to head into two weeks of quarantine.

 

"Relevant epidemic prevention and control requirements and regulations will be strictly enforced," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular briefing on Thursday in response to a question about the two team members.

 

The team tasked with investigating the origins of the novel coronavirus that sparked the global pandemic had been set to arrive earlier this month. China's delay of their visit drew rare public criticism from the head of the WHO.

 

The group left the airport terminal in Wuhan through a plastic quarantine tunnel marked "epidemic prevention passage" for international arrivals and boarded a cordoned-off bus that was guarded by half a dozen security staff in full protective gear. The coronavirus was initially linked to a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan.

 

Team members did not speak to reporters, although some waved and took pictures of the media from the bus as it departed.

 

The United States, which has accused China of hiding the extent of its initial outbreak a year ago, has called for a "transparent" WHO-led investigation and criticised the terms of the visit, under which Chinese experts have done the first phase of research.

 

LOCAL OUTBREAKS

 

The team arrived in China as the country battles a resurgence of coronavirus cases in its northeast after managing to nearly stamp out domestic infections in recent months.

 

Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO's top expert on animal diseases that cross to other species, who went to China on a preliminary mission last July, was leading the team going to Wuhan, a WHO spokesman said previously.

 

Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese biologist who was part of the team, told Reuters during a stopover in Singapore on Wednesday that he did not expect any restrictions on the group's work in China, but cautioned the team might not find clear answers.

 

After completing quarantine, the team will spend two weeks interviewing people from research institutes, hospitals and the seafood market in Wuhan where the new pathogen is believed to have emerged, Hung added.

 

The group would mainly stay in Wuhan, he said.

 

Last week, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "very disappointed" that China had still not authorised the team's entry for the long-awaited mission, but on Monday, he welcomed its announcement of their planned arrival.

 

"What we would like to do with the international team and counterparts in China is to go back in the Wuhan environment, re-interview in-depth the initial cases, try to find other cases that were not detected at that time and try to see if we can push back the history of the first cases," Ben Embarek said in November.

 

China has been pushing a narrative via state media that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in Wuhan, citing the presence of the virus on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers claiming it had been circulating in Europe in 2019.

 

"We are looking for the answers here that may save us in future - not culprits and not people to blame," the WHO's top emergency expert, Mike Ryan, told reporters this week, adding that the WHO was willing to go "anywhere and everywhere" to find out how the virus emerged.

 

Other team member Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, said last month it was too soon to say whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus had jumped directly from bats to humans or had an intermediate animal host.

 

"At this stage what I think we need is a very open mind when trying to step back into the events that led eventually to this pandemic," she told reporters.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-14

 

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[Mavideol]

Nobody should be surprised by the Chinese lack of cooperation, I am not

https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-desperate-control-narrative-origins-105645148.html

China is desperate to control the narrative of Covid-19's origin - whatever the cost

International experts from the World Health Organisation trying to investigate the origins of the coronavirus in China, a year after it first emerged in the central city of Wuhan, continue to run into roadblocks. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-plays-down-concern-delay-094427487.html

China plays down WHO concern about delay in coronavirus team's trip

China played down on Wednesday World Health Organization (WHO) concern about a delay in authorisation for a visit by team of experts looking into the origins of the novel coronavirus, saying arrangements were being worked out.

[RichardColeman]

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

[spiekerjozef]

43 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

It is the latest setback for a mission beset by delay as well as concern over how much access the team will get.

The virology center in Wuhan will be burnt down by now including all the paperwork.

[shy coconut]

30 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

Would you believe a single word of his smoking gun evidence, or any of the other nonsense 

that the awful man has spouted?

[stevenl]

1 hour ago, RichardColeman said:

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

Non existent.

[Tropicalevo]

This is all a big con by China.

Guys in Hazmat suits waiting by buses, but China was quick to show lots of people celebrating in Wuhan on New Years Eve. Very few wearing masks if I remember.

They must be pooing in their pants with what is happening near Beijing.

[Selatan]

3 hours ago, Tropicalevo said:

This is all a big con by China.

Guys in Hazmat suits waiting by buses, but China was quick to show lots of people celebrating in Wuhan on New Years Eve. Very few wearing masks if I remember.

They must be pooing in their pants with what is happening near Beijing.

These newly arrived foreigners going into quarantine might be infected, so wearing PPE is wrong?

[Meat Pie 47]

6 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

 

[richard_smith237]

7 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The results of nucleic acid tests were negative but showed two of the members had coronavirus antibodies, the Geneva-based agency said in a tweet.

 

So... an antibody test has shown that at some point in recent history these two WHO members have had Covid-19.

 

This does not suggest they currently have Covid-19 which an RT PCR test would pickup.

 

Thus, blocking the WHO members is nothing more than a sanctimonious stupid publicity stunt played by the Chinese, one which is wholly transparent.

Edited January 14, 2021 by richard_smith237

[Selatan]

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

So... an antibody test has shown that at some point in recent history these two WHO members have had Covid-19.

 

This does not suggest they currently have Covid-19 which an RT PCR test would pickup.

 

Thus, blocking the WHO members is nothing more than a sanctimonious stupid publicity stunt played by the Chinese, one which is wholly transparent.

Read properly, please. These 2 were tested antibody positive in Singapore, not on arrival in China. They were prohibited from flying to China by the Singapore authorities. Also, they were tested negative on leaving their home countries, which meant that they may have been infected on the way to Singapore or the antibody test was inaccurate.

[richard_smith237]

5 minutes ago, Selatan said:

Read properly, please. These 2 were tested antibody positive in Singapore, not on arrival in China. They were prohibited from flying to China by the Singapore authorities. Also, they were tested negative on leaving their home countries, which meant that they may have been infected on the way to Singapore or the antibody test was inaccurate.

 

I was too quick to jump at China.. Fair enough. 

 

BUT.. and antibody test is not the same as a RT PCR test. 

 

Antibody tests show a person has antibodies due to recent exposure to Covid-19, not that they have currently got it. 

 

Thus: Its not clear why they were kept behind - There is no report the two WHO delegates failed the RT PCR test. 

 

 

[Jeffr2]

13 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

You really fell for this?  Stunning...

[PETERTHEEATER]

21 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Two members of WHO delegation to Wuhan held back over health screening

These pop groups think the law does not apply to them. Prosecute!

[2530Ubon]

Is there any point going to Wuhan to look for clues? Call me a scepticist, but I don't think there are any answers to be found. The Chinese Communist party would have made sure of that, or  laid some 'clues' of their own for the team to find that points the finger elsewhere.

 

Time and time again, the Chinese government has shown it's distain for the rule of law, human rights and democratic principles. Uncovering the truth pretty much hits all three of those nails on the head with a very big hammer. And we all know that it's the CCP that likes to hold the hammer...

[Proboscis]

21 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

Trump has no smoking gun evidence on anything. And even if it were the case that the Chinese had released (accidentally or otherwise) the virus from a lab, the real fact remains that humanity lives in a petrie dish called planet earth and insists on creating conditions in that petrie dish that make an outbreak inevidable. In the case of covid-19, we are lucky that it is not as lethal as it could have been. It could have been another Spanish Flu or much worse.

 

Instead of wishing or hoping that something that a narcissist liar said just might be true (and if there were even a scintilla of truth about it, why did he not just spit it out?), why not get to work to get back to normal by reducing this virus to a cold through vaccines and set up the conditions so as to avoid further outbreaks of other viruses and bacteria pandemics in the future.

[tifino]

it'll be like a guided tour thru Nth Korea - totally manicured, with well versed (under great threat from stage fright) actors etc etc

[RichardColeman]

1 hour ago, Proboscis said:

Trump has no smoking gun evidence on anything. And even if it were the case that the Chinese had released (accidentally or otherwise) the virus from a lab, the real fact remains that humanity lives in a petrie dish called planet earth and insists on creating conditions in that petrie dish that make an outbreak inevidable. In the case of covid-19, we are lucky that it is not as lethal as it could have been. It could have been another Spanish Flu or much worse.

 

Think you may find that 'if' it does exist, then any prosecution against him may disappear for fear of world chaos and not releasing it will be a 'get out of jail free' card. Watch this space.

[ChouDoufu]

22 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Like him or hate him, sure hope Trump releases his 'smoking gun evidence'  on China and covid before he leaves or gets evicted.

 

23 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

it was too soon to say whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus had jumped directly from bats to humans or had an intermediate animal host.

 

ooh, lemme guess........it was the kraken!

 

 

he's got nothing.  if he had some real actionable intel, he'd have released it by now.  what he does have is falun gong disinformation that's been picked up and copy-pasted on various bloggy websites.  seems obvious, given the only remarks he's made are on the order of "i've heard" and "people are sayin'."

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by ChouDoufu

[ChouDoufu]

20 hours ago, Tropicalevo said:

This is all a big con by China.

Guys in Hazmat suits waiting by buses, but China was quick to show lots of people celebrating in Wuhan on New Years Eve. Very few wearing masks if I remember.

They must be pooing in their pants with what is happening near Beijing.

 

there were something like 150 new cases in hebei and heilongjiang, with the first death in about six months.

 

here in hainan, the locals went from 5% mask wearing to about 85% overnight, 100% in the malls and supermarkets.  i've heard they've re instituted quarantine for all travelers from the mainland, not just high-risk areas.

 

so much for tourism bubbles with thailand for spring festival.  schools will be closing this week or next, mass migration about to get underway.

[Selatan]

15 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

I was too quick to jump at China.. Fair enough. 

 

BUT.. and antibody test is not the same as a RT PCR test. 

 

Antibody tests show a person has antibodies due to recent exposure to Covid-19, not that they have currently got it. 

 

Thus: Its not clear why they were kept behind - There is no report the two WHO delegates failed the RT PCR test. 

 

 

The two have taken a second test, and one of them, a British citizen was tested negative and so he was allowed to fly to China. The other, a Sudanese expert based in Qatar, was tested positive again, so he has to stay put in Singapore.