WHO team reaches Wuhan's wet market for investigations

A World Health Organization team researching into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday hit the seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan that was linked to several early infections.The team members attended the Huanan Seafood Market for about an hour in the afternoon, and one of them shot a thumbs-up sign when journalists asked how the trip was going.The market was the main site of a December 2019 outbreak of the virus. Scientists initially believed the virus came from wild animals that were traded in the market. The market has since been mostly managed out, but it explains how the virus was reported so widely.“A very important site for the visits today — a wholesale market first & Huanan Seafood Market just now," Peter Daszak, a zoologist with the U.S. group EcoHealth Alliance and a part of the WHO team, announced in a tweet. “Very educational & critical for our joint teams to know the epidemiology of COVID as it started to spread at the end of 2019.”Earlier in the day, the team members were also seen walking through sections of the Baishazhou market — one of the largest wet markets in Wuhan — enclosed by a large entourage of Chinese officials and representatives. The market was the food order center for Wuhan during the city's 76-day lockdown last year.With expertise in veterinary surgeons, virology, food safety, and epidemiology, the brothers have also become so far visited two hospitals at the center of the early outbreak — Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and the Hubei Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital.