WHO’s going to Wuhan

China OKs COV probe e

China finally agreed Monday to let a team of World Health Organization scientists visit the country to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic — after more than a year and almost 2 million deaths worldwide.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week said he was “very disappointed” when China blocked the scientists’ planned entry, breaking the news after some had already started their travels.

But both China and the WHO confirmed Monday that they had agreed to allow in the team of 10 experts who will arrive Thursday.

“We are pleased that an international team of scientists — distinguished experts from 10 institutions and countries — are commencing their travel to China to engage in and review scientific research with their Chinese counterparts on the origins of the COVID-19 virus,” Tedros said.

Beijing sought to downplay the earlier delay, which foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying blamed on a “misunderstanding,” according to Agence France-Presse.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China had approved the visit following consultations between the sides and called it an opportunity to “exchange views with Chinese scientists and medical experts on scientific coopera-ration on the tracing of the origingin of the new coronavirus.”

“Along with continuousus changes in the epidemic situ-uation, our knowledge of thehe virus deepens, and morere early cases are discovered,”d,” Zhao told reporters at a dailyily briefing, adding that thehe search for the origin will likely involve “multiple coun-ntries and localities.”

The WHO experts will haveve to quarantine for two weeksks on arrival and will start theireir research in Wuhan, the cityty where the deadly virus wasas first detected in late 2019,9, Tedros said.

It was not clear whetherr they would visit the Wuhann Institute of Virology, thee controversial lab that USS officials have suggestedd could be the source for the contagion.

The institute’s deputy director, Shi Zhengli, recently told the BBC she had been inn communication with thee WHO’s scientists and “personally and clearly expressed that I would welcome them”” to visit the institute.

However, the lab’s press office later insisted Zhengli was only speaking in a per-sonal capacity and that herer statements hadn’t been ap-pproved.

One member of the WHO team, British zoologist Peter Daszak, has called thee lab origin hypothesis a “conspiracy theory.”