a team of experts from the world health
organization
have now left quarantine in wuhan to
begin their research into the origins of
kovit 19.
it is not yet clear when and where their
investigation will
start nor what authorities will allow
them to see
the who says the focus of the visit will
be on how the virus jumped from animals
to humans
in the central chinese city where the
first cluster of virus cases
emerged
our china correspondent matthias billing
is covering their story for us matias
can the who officials now investigate
freely
in wuhan well that's of course the big
question so far china has not uh
shown a lot of willingness to open to to
accept an
open investigation the this mission has
been uh there have been a long
diplomatic battle behind the scenes
in order to allow this mission and
foreign governments who have demanded
such an
investigation at an earlier stage most
notably the australian government
have drawn the ire of beijing uh
and uh uh demand from the australian
government for an open investigation
into the origins
has been met with an import ban on
australian
products um the
wh o experts they had to quarantine for
two weeks and they're now
out of quarantine they plan to meet with
people who have been working at the
market
where the outbreak has been registered
first
or when the first cluster emerged and
with doctors medical personnel
whom they would be able to see and how
much these people will be allowed to
tell them
is not clear yet so what exactly is it
that the who hopes to achieve with
this research
the idea is that if you go back to the
first cases and if you find out
maybe cases that have not been reported
as covet cases yet
cases that have emerged before the
the the end of december last year maybe
when
covet was identified when the virus was
i identified or when it was identified
that there is a coronavirus
that is causing these infections if you
talk to these people where they have
been
you might get a clue how the virus
jumped from
animals most likely bats that's at least
the most common hypothesis
hypothesis um to humans
and but there is very little um
hope that this will can be done quickly
the wh
o itself has dampened expectations that
they will come up
with a solution or with a uh
of to this inquiry knowing how the virus
exactly emerged by the end of this
mission this might take years it might
never come out
matthias the chinese new year is upon us
upon us and there's a lot of travel
activity around
uh this occasion of course how will
china prevent
uh the spread of the virus there
there's going to be a lot less travel
than in other years there's no
country-wide travel ban but there are a
lot of restrictions
in several places some villages some
regions have said that
everybody who will arrive from from from
outside of the region
will have to quarantine companies have
warned their employees not to travel
home
and the all the flight tickets and trade
tickets
can be refunded if people cancel their
trips
so the expectations at the moment is
that there will be
up to two-thirds less trips than in
usual years
but here's berliner they're reporting
from beijing thank you matthias