FOLLOW US

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been allowed entry into China after a long delay in order to investigate the origins of COVID-19, the Associated Press reports.

A team of experts will arrive in the country on Thursday where they will collaborate with Chinese counterparts, said China's National Health Commission.  It is unknown at this time if WHO officials will be investigating in Wuhan.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus criticized the Chinese government last week, saying "I’m very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute but had been in contact with senior Chinese officials."

An opportunity to "exchange ideas"

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said that China had approved the trip following another round of negotiations between Chinese and WHO officials.

Lijian characterized the trip optimistically, saying it was a chance to “exchange views with Chinese scientists and medical experts on scientific cooperation on the tracing of the origin of the new coronavirus.”

Nobody knows if the WHO investigation will yield concrete conclusions. The origins of the coronavirus are a matter of speculation at this point; China being the point of origin has become the predominant theory as of late.

A hallmark of the Chinese approach to the pandemic has been to clamp down on researchers and scientists looking into the coronavirus' origins and shrouding them in secrecy.

That's not to say that China has zero interest in investigating within their own borders. AP previously reported that the CCP has granted hundreds of thousands of dollars to scientists researching COVID-19 in Southern China.

Many have argued the Chinese government's insistence on secrecy has had devastating consequences; the world was warned when it was already too late. Chinese state media has tried to downplay this claim with fringe theories that the virus could have originated somewhere else.

China-U.S. relations at an all-time low

The outbreak of the coronavirus has only exacerbated tensions between the West and the CCP. President Trump practically renamed COVID-19, calling it the 'China virus,' when U.S.-Sino relations were already beginning to show cracks - the ballroom dance between the Trump admin., ByteDance and other major U.S. companies come to mind.

But the U.S. is not alone. Australia too has called for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, naturally provoking the ire of Beijing. This understandably leaves many skeptical about the WHO's investigation.

The possibility of the investigation being a flop or a Eureka moment is totally equal.

Have a story you want USA Herald to cover? Submit a tip here and if we think it’s newsworthy, we’ll follow up on it.

Want to contribute a story? We also accept article submissions – check out our writer’s guidelines here.