"Where is all this going?" 

"The schools are closed, and air sirens are ringing multiple times a day, and distant booms keeps more people at home farther from public places."

"But my company is booming -- cashing in on the crisis -- as more and more people opt to leave, with land routes now the only way out."

Egyptian taxi driver in Kuwait

 

"Weeks into the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, alarm is mounting after a series of strikes targeting sensitive nuclear facilities, including reported damage last week metres from the reactor of Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant -- located just across the Gulf from Kuwait."

Mohamed Fahmy, journalist, Kuwait City 

An Iranian flag outside the building housing the reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iranian port town of Bushehr, 1200 km south of Tehran, Iran. (AFP Photo)

 

Just 275 kilometres' distant across the Gulf from Kuwait, the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant's proximity is a threat to Kuwait; its geographic placement threatening that prevailing northwesterly wind has the potential to carry nuclear radiation contamination toward Kuwait in the event of a radioactive release should the plant be hit by a missile. According to nuclear authorities, should a severe incident occur at Bushehr, the result would be comparable to the breakdown of the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. 

 

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, calls for maximum restraint while warning continued strikes in the area risk a nuclear accident being triggered while conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran goes into its fourth week. "An accident at an operating nuclear power plant would be something very, very serious. This is the reddest line of all in nuclear safety", he warned grimly.

 

In its tit-for-tat responses, hours following the Natanz enrichment complex in Iran being struck on Saturday, Iran launched retaliatory ballistic missile strikes on the towns of Dimona and Arad in southern Israel, where 180 people were injured. This strike, as inaccurate as it was, served as a warning that the Islamic Republic's reach is as far as has been feared possible. A mere 13 kilometres from Israel's strategically sensitive Negev Nuclear Research Center.

 

Hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones have been launched by Iran across Kuwait and neighbouring Gulf states that include the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Oman. Oil refineries, gas installations and major ports and airports have been targeted across the Gulf by Iran. This is the face of Iran that its Gulf partners have always feared. Their cautious opposition and awareness of the Islamic Republic's drive to spread its volatile Islamist fundamentalism linked to its striving for uranium enrichment and resulting warheads for its ballistic missiles has created an atmosphere of fear and apprehension among its neighbours.

 

The scene where a missile fired from Iran impacted in the southern Israeli city of Dimona, March 22, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

 

Not the least of which is the State of Israel, which is itself a discreet nuclear power, knowing that its survival is in Tehran's Shiite-jihad crosshairs should they ever succeed in their nuclear mission. The Middle East Arab Sunni states, while relaxing their historic hostility to Israel's presence, have been content to watch on the sidelines as Israel and the Iranian regime confront one another, in the hope that Israel would prevail and solve their Iran-problem for them. 

 

Now, in the ongoing conflict where U.S. and Israeli aerial bombardment is bludgeoning Iran's government and military infrastructure along with its weapons caches, Iran, now in the complete control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, warns that the region's infrastructure would be hit should the U.S. president's threats come to fruition. The most recent retaliatory barrage was a taste of what could be intensified. Air defence forces in Kuwait managed to intercept and destroy dozens of missiles and drones, though some slip through.

 

A number of major international and national organizations have been actively preparing for the possibility of a nuclear 'incident'. The World Health Organization is preparing for a "worst-case scenario" involving nuclear risks. It has taken to a repeat of staff training on emergency response protocols and reinforcing radiation-related health risk guidance. Contingency plans are  being updated across 13 countries in preparation for possible strikes on nuclear facilities ... even use of a nuclear weapon.

 

Facilities equipped with specialized ventilation systems, food supplies, bunk beds, prayer areas, medical clinics and decontamination and clothing disposal units are being prepared through the establishment of 195 public shelters in Kuwait for the protection of their civilians, using schools and university sites. More Gulf nations are being drawn into the kind of conflict they had long thought of and hoped to be able to avoid. The spectre of a direct hit on a nuclear site could result in a humanitarian crisis in more than one country in the Middle East, as Iran implodes while striking out to punish its enemies. 

 

Iranian flag flies at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, accessed on Feb. 1, 2026. (AFP Photo)

 

Another Dread Zoonotic Surfacing in Africa

"Marburg is a highly infectious viral hemorrhagic fever in the same family as the more well-known Ebola virus disease."

"In 2008, two independent cases were reported in travellers who visited a cave inhabited by Rousettus bat colonies in Uganda."

World Health Organization

"WHO is on the ground supporting health authorities [in Ghana where the latest outbreak has occurred] and now that the outbreak is declared, we are marshalling more resources for the response."

Dr.Matshidiso Moeti, Regional Director for Africa, World Health Organization

Rousettus aegyptiacus or Egyptian fruit bats. Prolonged exposure to mines or caves where they live can result in human infection of the deadly Marburg virus disease. Photo by Peace River Refuge and Ranch

In 1967 two cases of the disease occurred, one in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, the other in Belgrade, Serbia. This is the origin of the naming of the virus; Marburg. The cases were traced back to a laboratory working with African green monkeys that had been imported from Uganda. The WHO reports that prolonged exposure to mines or caves where colonies of bats live can result in human infection.

The Ghana Health Service's Disease Surveillance Department recommends certain steps in avoidance of contracting the virus; abstaining from consuming bush meat; washing hands frequently with soap and water, and taking care not to handle dead bodies of those who may have had the Marburg virus. Timely and sterling recommendations for Africa, should outbreaks continue to be confined to that continent.

The suspected causes and such exposure leading to a virus leaping the species barrier from wild animals to humans has a familiar ring to it for most people; it was at the live animal market in Wuhan, China, that transmission from animal [bats infecting commonly consumed mammals] to human took place; bush animals sold for human consumption, infected with SARS-CoV-2 transmitted it to people at large through contact in the Huanan market. 

 

Police in Wuhan, China, shut down the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market on 1 January, 2020. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP via Getty

Marburg virus is more vindictively fatal than COVID-19; an estimated 88 percent of those infected may never recover. It has an incubation period between two to 14 days. Infection can spread from person to person through direct contact with bodily fluids. Clothing which has been worn by someone infected with Marburg can also become a source of infection. No cure exists for the virus, though treatment for its symptoms is available.

Symptoms of infection include high fever and severe headaches, muscle aches and pains. Severe diarrhea, stomach pain, nausea and vomiting may begin on the infection's third day. Those infected become extremely lethargic. In cases that become fatal, a patient generally bleeds from the nose and gums.

Marburg virus cases and outbreaks have been reported in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda with links to Zimbabwe. In 2021 an outbreak was declared in Guinea, lasting for five weeks following a single case of the virus.

Out of the 590 people who contracted the disease since 1957, 478 died of it, according to the World Health Organization's data on major outbreaks. Two deaths occurred in June in Ghana when two unrelated people died in hospital following their hospitalization because they were suffering from diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting.

Doctor Mark Katz, a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO), taking an oral sample from patient Feliciana suspected of having Marburg haemorrhagic fever in Kinguangua, near Uige. Feliciana’s grandmother, sister and ex-husband died of Marburg haemorrhagic fever. The young woman tested negative after being transported to the Uige Provincial Hospital for observation. Photo by CHRISTOPHER BLACK/AFP/Getty Images

To Salt Or Not To Salt: That is The Question

"We thought, 'That's peculiar'. Then we sat on that data for two years. We did everything we could to make it go away and we couldn't make it go away no matter how you analyze the data."

"The bottom line is, if low sodium is not helpful and may even increase the risk, it's better to focus on the overall quality of the diet."

"Reduce processed foods and focus on eating more fruits and vegetables and more potassium-containing foods -- an all-around wellness diet."

Professor Andrew Mente, epidemiology professor, McMaster University, Hamilton

Crystals of table, kosher, and pickling salt   (AP / Nati Harnik)

 

In reflection of conventional wisdom respecting the place of salt in a diet therapy meant for people with high blood pressure, the World Health Organization recommends consumption of less than two grams of sodium (five grams of salt) daily. The Mayo Clinic and Health Canada along with other health bodies suggest no more than 2.3 grams (about a teaspoon of salt) daily. In Canada, a report issued in 2017 by Health Canada assessed the average intake per person of salt in the country to be 2.8 grams.

Studies like the Harvard University-led TOHP trial in the United States in late 1980s and early 1990s underpin such recommendations from within the international health community. In that study some 4,500 people were divided into groups receiving either general healthy lifestyle advice or alternately weekly group and individual counselling in reducing sodium intake. Leading to the conclusion that those who received salt-reduction assistance were 25 percent less likely to suffer strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular events in years to follow.

Other controlled studies reached like conclusions; that as people absorb less sodium, a reduction in hypertension resulted, according to a recent paper. And then in 2009 Dr.Salim Yusuf of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences published research and commentaries that suggested heart health did not improve with sharp salt reduction intake. To state that consternation, condemnation and confusion and controversy resulted is to understate the impact of this reversal of popular medical wisdom.

Dr.Yusuf and his team of researchers made the decision to study the issue relating to two studies they ran focused on testing blood pressure drugs. A sidebar sodium study enrolled about 28,000 people from 40 countries. The participants, all at risk of cardiovascular disease, had their intake of sodium measured through interpreting secretions of the mineral in urine samples. What this study revealed shocked the scientists when they found that as sodium levels fell the rate of heart-and-stroke-related illness did initially fall, then rose again, with sodium intake amounts lower than three grams daily.

 

High blood pressure leads to heart attacks, strokes and death. Hypertension is considered the world's leading cause of mortality, and sodium considered the culprit in up to 30 percent of cases. The greater the sodium intake, the greater the retention of water in the body, to wash it away. This increases the pressure of blood being pushed through arteries and veins. Not only did cutting sodium below a certain point not lead to improved cardiovascular health, lower levels it turned out, might in fact increase risk of disease.

After the results were published in some of the world's foremost medical journals, and the McMaster University research team led by Dr.Yusuf, a highly respected researcher, were castigated for their unacceptable findings, they followed up with a parallel study of 102,000 subjects from 17 countries in another McMaster-led international research project called PURE. Published in the high profile New England Journal of Medicine, the results for the second study were similar to the earlier ones.

Their conclusion led them to argue the earlier evidence, like the TOHP trials, did not indicate that the standard sodium diet-reduction to the recommended level had any effect on improving health outcomes. Their critics focused on what they found to be a flaw in the methodology of the study where the gold-standard method is to collect all urine someone produces in a 24-hour period to test for secreted sodium and repeat it on non-consecutive days, whereas the McMaster-led trial performed a single fasting (spot sample) of urine early morning.

"It's tough and it's tedious so people try to cut a lot of corners (24-hour sampling). With a single-spot sample] stuies are much easier to do, much less complex -- and give you the wrong answers", pointed out Dr.Norman Campbell of University of Calgary. "They're making inaccurate and false statements and misleading statements and misinterpretations and they're not correcting things that are obviously flawed. this is a global aggravation for people who are trying to improve the health of their populations."

 

Dr.Mente, on the other hand, speaks of the advice to maintain sodium intake no higher than four or five grams daily, and not to be concerned about cutting it much below three grams. He also pointed out that their sodium studies were subjected to intense peer review pre-publication, where prominent journals assign vetting to half a dozen scientist-reviewers and two statisticians to vouch for accuracy. 

 

Dr.Yusuf comments that the science is in flux and the research he and his team conducted has aided in altering the sodium-hypertension paradigm; that their critics are unwilling to consider that health and research understandings have undergone an alteration. He and his colleagues' study results have come under scrutiny with charges of bias resulting from study funders such as health charities and drug companies.

"[Campbell's] enthusiasm for this as a crusader, you have to admire it."

"But at the same time, all scientific debate has to be based on respect, it has to be based on openness."

"It has to be based on entertaining different viewpoints."

Dr.Martin O'Donnell, professor of medicine, National University of Ireland, Galway, McMaster group collaborator

Relying on the conventional scientific wisdom, the World Health Organization recommends consuming less than two grams of sodium — five grams of salt — a day. Health Canada, the Mayo Clinic and other health bodies suggest no more each day than 2.3 grams, about a teaspoon of salt. Photo by Getty

 

"A new controversial study claims that in most cases, consuming salt will not increase health risks. The study published on August 9 in The Lancet, a scientific journal, followed 94 000 people between the ages of 35 and 70 across 18 countries to determine whether salt intake truly does increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke (1), an accepted belief. Monitoring subjects over an average span of eight years,  interestingly, it was found that the risk only increases if the average sodium intake is greater than 5 g per day ― the equivalents of 2.5 teaspoons of salt."

"The research was led by Prof Salim Yusuf of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in collaboration with colleagues from 21 different countries, including Canada, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, India, Iran, Malaysia, occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe."

"Salt-reduction enthusiasts argue that campaigns in the UK, Japan, and elsewhere over the past several years have led to a reduction in salt intake and consequently, a reduction in overall average blood pressure of the population. However, our bodies require essential nutrients like sodium to function, therefore, completely removing salt from our diets may be just as damaging as too much. But the question remains, how much is too much?"

European Scientist

Offending Beijing -- Searching for COVID Answers

"[A Phase Two probe would require] audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019."

"Finding the origins of this virus is a scientific exercise that must be kept free from politics. For that to happen, we expect China to support this next phase of the scientific process by sharing all relevant data in a spirit of transparency."

"We ask China to be transparent and open and to co-operate."

"We owe it to the millions who suffered and the millions who died, to know what happened."

"[It was] premature to discount the lab theory [As the first WHO probe concluded it to be unlikely.] As you know, I was a lab technician myself, an immunologist, and have worked in the lab. And lab accidents happen. It’s common."

"[A new WHO International Scientific Advisory Group for Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO)]will play a vital role in the next phase of studies into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, as well as the origins of future new pathogens."

"[There is a need for more] studies of animal markets in and around Wuhan, including continuing studies on animals sold at the Huanan wholesale market."

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wants China to allow a biosecurity audit of some of its virology labs. Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone vía AP

"It’s a sign that the WHO might be able to do [a] more credible or balanced investigation."

"Right now, the lack of clarity is in China’s interest."

Alina Chan, a gene therapy researcher at the Broad Institute

 

"I’m worried about delays and of course it’s a bit strange. We’re losing valuable time."

"[While it's] logical [to push for lab audits the demand right now could backfire.] It’s not going to be popular with China, so I’m a little bit worried that that will shut the doors to the rest of the studies that we feel are needed."

Marion Koopmans, virologist, veterinarian, Erasmus University Medical Center

Customers select seafood at a wet market in Dandong, Liaoning province, China 

Philip Wen/Reuters

In the early stages of the pandemic WHO Director-General Adhonom Ghebreyesus faced scathing criticism over a number of judgemental lapses; the decision to take Beijing's word for its claim that it took awhile to recognize the appearance of a new virus and its harsh impact, the acceptance of Beijing's assurance it was not communicable, and the lapse of time before the 'Wuhan virus' was declared a pandemic, thus failing to alert the world community in a timely enough manner to a fast-moving viral juggernaut that was soon to upend normalcy everywhere.

Since then, the WHO head appears to have made a reversal. He is not viewed more latterly as being quite as comfortable with China and its assurances as he was back then. And he is under great pressure from some countries -- Australia certainly comes to mind, in its strenuous insistence from the beginning that an investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was badly needed, if for no other very good reason that would inform scientists of its origins, trajectory and how better the world might respond in future to new such viruses as they appear.

The real pressure, however, comes from the WHO's greatest financial supporter, the United States. Former President Donald Trump had little use for the institution and threatened to halt its funding, and his successor Joe Biden has continued to apply pressure on the World Health Organization for a far more in-depth investigation into the origins of COVID-19, which has taken such a dreadful world toll on the lives of millions of people who succumbed to its lethal complications, much less those living with a wide spectrum of COVID-induced symptoms.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone -- much less Beijing -- that another proposal for a second phase of studies into the origins of the coronavirus would be recommended by the World Health Organization. Suggesting audits of laboratories and markets in Wuhan, requiring greater cooperation and transparency in the process from China. The plan was presented to member states hard on the heels of a declaration that investigations were being held up by the lack of raw data reflecting the initial period of COVID-19's spread in China.

A commitment to Phase Two would encompass studies of humans, wildlife and animal markets in the city of Wuhan and certainly inclusive of the Huanan wholesale animal market where the virus was first thought to have emanated. China which has always been resistant to any deep scrutiny of the virus linked to Wuhan, has no obvious wish to be cooperative in a new study which promises to delve deeper than the previous one did, where researchers submitted to official Chinese scrutiny and oversight and the resulting paucity of requested data and documentation, much less exposure to critical sites for review.

In view of the fact that some scientists have raised their doubts over China's explanations, including its suggestion that the virus emanated from outside China; one theory that U.S. military brought it with them, another that it was imported into China with frozen food; and that the United States is adamantly pushing for a deeper investigation, the WHO has little option but to proceed. The U.S. along with many scientists demand a further investigation, and with particular attention into the Wuhan Institute of Virology which at the time of the virus emergence had been conducting research into virus vectors, bats.

Beijing maintains that the theory the virus could be connected to the Wuhan laboratory is beyond remote -- "absurd", repeatedly claiming that "politicizing" the issue would only serve to hamper any investigation. Any decision on continuing the probe "should be reached by all members through consultation", responded Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. As in, perhaps, China, as a member of the UN Security Council having the capability of scuppering international investigations of any kind by veto. 

A Chinese produce market.

Felix Wong/South China Morning Post/Getty

"[I wish Tedros had owned up to past WHO] missteps. I don’t think he can simply just take the next step and not worry about what’s happened so far."

"I’m very suspicious about dismissing the initial task force and now allowing individuals and governments to nominate themselves, which will result in a partisan, selective process and not lead to the best composition." 

"They’re not a truly independent body [World Health Organization]. They are the product of a very political world, and what makes their problem 100 times worse is that they don’t have the resources to operate independently."

David Relman, microbiome researcher, Stanford University

 

"The Chinese side noted the draft plan made by Tedros and the secretariat and the Chinese side is looking into it."

"Origin-tracing is a scientific matter. All parties should respect the opinion of the scientists and should refrain from politicizing origin-tracing."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has carried out research on coronaviruses for years because these pathogens are endemic to the region where it's located.  Credit: Kyodo News via Getty

COVID's Elusive Origins : WHO Report

 Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

"Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy."

"[The international expert team had] expressed the difficulties they encountered in accessing raw data [while in China]."

"[The report also] raises further questions that will need to be addressed by further studies."

"I expect future collaborative studies to include more timely and comprehensive data sharing."

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization

 

Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the novel coronavirus arrive by car at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on February 3, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP)

"I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory escape."

"Other people don't believe that, that's fine, science will eventually figure it out."

Robert Redfield, virologist, former head, Centres for Disease Control

"[The Institute saw] no disruptions or incidents."

"[A formal audit of the laboratory was] far beyond what our team is mandated to do or has the tools and capabilities to do."

"The fact that we assessed this hypothesis [that the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab] as extremely unlikely doesn't mean it's ruled out."

Peter Ben Embarek, WHO investigative team

"We were allowed to ask whatever questions we wanted, and we got answers. The only evidence that people have for a lab leak is that there is a lab in Wuhan."

"A thousand samples [of animals sold at the Huanan market when the WHO investigative team took samples from 188 animals of 18 species at the market, all of which tested negative] is a great start, but there’s more to do."

WHO team member Peter Daszak

Animal markets like this one in China could be a source of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the WHO report.   Credit: Eric Lafforgue/Art In All Of Us/Corbis via Getty

The World Health Organization's investigative team of ten travelled to Wuhan, China for the express purpose of conducting an unbiased, scientific survey of any available evidence in an attempt to determine the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that swept the world when it first surfaced as a strange new pneumonia-like pathogen deadlier and more infectious than most viruses that erupt from time to time in the East and spread eventually worldwide. The WHO team had plenty of local assistance in their diligent search for answers during their two-week stay.

There were quite a few interviews and on-site examinations, bearing in mind that the team had to first isolate on arriving in China before they could proceed. With them throughout their investigative exercise was a matching team of Chinese scientists to give them aid and direction, some 17 in number. The People's Republic of China was deeply and sincerely invested in the search for the origins of the novel coornavirus, making certain that at all times the WHO researchers were escorted by Chinese officialdom.

WHO microbiologists and medical researchers fully intended to do a thorough and creditable job of searching for answers while conducting interviews under constant supervision in the presence of government officials. Needless to say every individual who was questioned to gain a wider and more full understanding of what had occurred would have been under a certain level of constraint, testifying under the fixed scrutiny of government agents. In their minds no doubt, the fate of Li Wenliang accused of 'spreading harmful rumours' when he first alerted his colleagues to the presence of a threatening new virus. Before he himself died of COVID.

"It's essentially a highly-chaperoned, highly-curated study tour ... this group of experts only saw what the Chinese government wanted them to see", explained Jamie Metzl, former senior adviser to then-U.S.President Bill Clinton. What is known is simply that a novel coronavirus erupted from some source within walking distance of the high-security laboratory under the aegis of the Wuhan Institute of Virology specializing in the study of coronaviruses. It is also known that the laboratory is located not far from the wild animal 'wet' market where both domestic animals and exotic animals were sold, dead and alive.

And it was the market that Chinese authorities pointed to as the unfortunate source of cross-species, animal-to-human viral vector. These wet markets exist throughout Asia where an insatiable appetite for exotic animals like bats, snakes, pangolins and many other creatures can be satisfied. Crossing the species barrier for pathogens is rare, but it does happen. It did with AIDS and we know what agony that led to throughout the world.

"We could show the virus was circulating in the market as early as December 2019."

"A lot of good leads were suggested in this report, and we anticipate that many, if not all of them, will be followed through because we owe it to the world to understand what happened, why and how to prevent it from happening again."

Peter Ben Embarek,  co-leader, WHO investigative team

Long before the novel coronavirus was identified, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had come in for lax safety regulation criticism when a U.S. team of scientists had visited the premises and felt alarm at the situation prevailing there. That very same laboratory is involved in a security breach that took place in Canada's own National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg when a high-profile Chinese scientist and her husband, both employed there, were escorted from the lab never to return. Involved in an unauthorized transfer of highly sensitive biological samples from there to the Wuhan lab.

The team of WHO investigators appear to have reached the conclusion through a joint report that a lab escape of the coronavirus was to be regarded as "extremely unlikely" following a brief examination of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Four hours were spent at the facility by the WHO team, the investigation limited to interviews with laboratory staffers where the investigators were informed that no disruptions or incidents occurred, and nor did the WHO investigators request collaborative documentation.

The Beijing government appears to have withheld case data from outside investigators, the WHO team no exception. China, it would appear, deigned not to honour a request to turn over 174 health records from the first patients in Wuhan to contract COVID-19: "They showed us a couple of examples, but that's not the same as doing all of them, which is standard epidemiological investigation", explained Dominic Dwyer of the WHO team.

What the WHO team reported was that 92 cases of Wuhan patients exhibiting COVID-like symptoms were documented in October of 2019, quite a few weeks before the officially recognized first cases were reported by the Chinese government. The investigators were given Chinese assurances that serological tests indicated no link to COVID-19.

 

 

Beijing, Vindicatng Itself

Mr Zhang's father (Supplied: Zhang Hai)

"Very important site visits today -- a wholesale market first & Huanan Seafood Market just now."  "Very informative & critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it started to spread at the end of 2019."

Peter Daszak, zoologist with U.S. group EcoHealth Alliance, member of WHO team

 

"The government's first priority is to protect the people's health and safety, but it failed to inform the public as soon as the coronavirus outbreak happened."

"My father, a very patriotic soldier, had devoted his youth to the nation … but he was killed by COVID-19 in his later life."

"The epidemic would never happen if the government had truly put the people's interest [as their] first priority."

"[He wouldn't trust visits organized and limited by the Chinese government, and thought the information patients gave could be] highly suspicious."

"They could have been trained many months ago, and been ordered to stage and repeat the government's narrative."

"I am highly concerned that the WHO experts in Wuhan are not a match for these counterfeiters."

 Zhang Hai, 51, Wuhan resident

 

The WHO team visits an exhibition about the Government's successful response to contain the coronavirus in Wuhan on Saturday.   (AP: Ng Han Guan)

"[I had] police interviews, cameras pointing at home, and dismissal from work. They pressured my families, stalked my activities, which is completely unscrupulous."

"[I am told] don't contact the foreign media, because it will be used by anti-China forces, which is detrimental to our country."

"I just want everyone to know that the government is a murderer for hiding the epidemic."

 Parent who lost an only child

Government propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party officially denies it was in any way irresponsible over its handling of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, over charges that it waited too long to warn the international community and the World Health Organization of its discovery of a strange new pneumonia-like illness that was plaguing people in Wuhan City. Its assurance when it did alert the WHO that person-to-person transmission was unlikely was inaccurate and harmful to the world's understanding of what was unfolding.

Not only does Beijing deny that it acted in anything but a responsible manner, but it also denies that the virus itself first emerged in Hubei Province, northern China. Rather, the propaganda slyly insists it emerged elsewhere, abroad, and was imported to China. That happened in one of two ways, they claim; either through infected frozen meat exported by a European country into China, or it was deliberately brought to China by U.S. agents. 

Beijing's inexcusable attempts to hide the presence of a new, highly contagious and lethal-to-the-elderly virus, its silencing of physicians in Wuhan hospitals who raised the alarm, threatening them and accusing them of spreading 'false news', also did not happen, but represents a malicious attempt on the part of the West to smear China. Casually speaking of the virus as the 'Wuhan virus', or the 'Chinese virus' sends Beijing into paroxysms of fury, but not a word is murmured by the WHO about racism when the media speak of the new 'U.K.' mutation', or the 'South African' variant.

Beijing screamed bloody murder and called it racism when other countries began to close their borders to China, and the World Health Organization chastised those that did, wagging a finger of racism at them as well. Yet once China succeeded during the first wave of the coronavirus to achieve a measure of control, it closed its borders to entry from abroad, where Italy and Spain in particular were experiencing a crisis in runaway COVID infection rates overwhelming their health care systems.

A security person moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a World Health Organization team arrived for a field visit in Wuhan in China's Hubei province on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021. The WHO team is investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has visited two disease control centers in the province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

American authorities and some U.S. bioscientists raised the possibility that the virus was an escapee of a biohazard laboratory located not far from the Wuhan live meat market which sold pangolin, wolf cubs, bats, snakes and other live animals for slaughter for the human palate and where the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was first said to have emerged. To this day there is no consensus of opinion over that hypothesis; eminent scientists declare it to be hugely unlikely while others retain suspicion.

China delayed the entry of the WHO team of investigators to Wuhan City although it had initially agreed that it would cooperate with their mission to study the breakout of the virus that had crossed the species barrier from wild animals to human victims, not an entirely rare occurrence and invariably difficult to control. But after delays and controversy, the team, having undergone a 14-day mandatory isolation period on arrival in China, is now into its third day of a two-week investigation.

"The team plans to visit hospitals, laboratories and markets. Field visits will include the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Huanan market, Wuhan CDC [Center for Disease Control and Prevention] laboratory."

"All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows the science in their work. They should receive the support, access and the data they need."

World Health Organization statement

 

"It is now that the actual field work can begin, and it is my expectation that for this part of the mission we will have unhindered access to the requested destinations and individuals."

"But it is important to remember that the success of this mission and origin-tracing is 100 percent depending on access to the relevant sources."

"No matter how competent we are, how hard we work and how many stones we try to turn, this can only be possible with the support from China."

Thea Fischer, Danish team member

China's foreign ministry for its part said the WHO team is scheduled to participate in seminars, visits and field trips, and it is no doubt hoping that it can de-politicize the assumptions some of the WHO members come equipped with, while carrying on its own politicization of a topic so overwhelmingly pervasive throughout the world and so deadly that millions of lives globally have been lost to the viral predator. Beijing, by setting its own program for the visit before the investigators, likely seeks to diminish the time allotted for the WHO members' own agenda while consuming that time in 'meetings'.

 

Beijing has also made it abundantly clear that it has complete control over where the WHO team will be escorted, always in the presence of handlers. And the many Chinese who are intent on being interviewed by the WHO team while Chinese authorities harass and threaten their outspokenness, is simply yet another facet of a lost cause; try as they sincerely will, with the obstacles placed in their path to fulfilling their mission, it is highly unlikely the WHO will come away with anything but Beijing's approved narrative.

 

A worker in protective overall passes by a warehouse at the Baishazhou wholesale market during a visit by the World Health Organization on the third day of field visit in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2021. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)