WHO advance team ends visit to China to probe COVID origin
Geneva: The World Health Organisation said on Monday that an advance team looking into the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak has concluded its mission in China, and the UN health agency is preparing the deployment of a larger group of experts to the suspected outbreak zone.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the international team will deploy to Wuhan, the city where the pandemic is believed to have erupted late last year. Tedros said terms of reference have been drawn up by the WHO and China, but he did not specify.
The WHO advance team that traveled to China has now concluded their mission to lay the groundwork for further joint efforts to identify the virus' origins, he told a news conference.
Epidemiological studies will begin in Wuhan to identify the potential source of infection of the early cases.He said evidence and hypothesis generated from the work would lay the ground for further, longer-term studies.
The comments came amid an increasingly heavy toll from the pandemic in the United States, Brazil and India, as investigators seek to clarify the origins of the virus and how it may have jumped from animals to humans late last year.
Dr Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief, noted gaps in the epidemiological landscape and said it would be assessed what studies to conduct and what data to collect. He said the two-person advance team had not returned from China, and had not been debriefed yet.
The real trick is to go to the human clusters that occurred first and then to work your way back systematically looking for that first signal at which the animal human species barrier was crossed, Ryan said.
Once you understand where that the barrier was breached, then you move into the studies in a more systematic way on the animal side, The WHO press office, contacted by The Associated Press after the news conference, did not provide details of the terms of reference, say whether they would be made public, or indicate how big the international team would be or when it could be sent to China.
It said team members had extensive discussions with their Chinese counterparts during the three-week visit, and had discussions by video with virologists and other scientists in Wuhan including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.US President Donald Trump in April claimed to have seen evidence to support the theory that the lab was the origin of the virus.
On Sunday, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House top coronavirus adviser, said the virus was extraordinarily widespread in the US and infections in urban and rural America marked a new phase for the pandemic in the country.
Ryan, asked to comment about such remarks, said he didn't believe the intention was to create a sense of a new phase ... but to really remind all states that the disease never went away.
It's not our job to tell the US what it should be doing at sub-national level: The state-based planning and implementation guided by the national scientists seems to be (on) the right path, Ryan added. The difficulty for us all is: sometimes we know the right path. The difficulty is choosing to walk it.
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
