WHO’s Team Arrives in Wuhan to Investigate Origin of CCP Virus as Chinese Citizen Criticizes Visit

The WHO team arrives in Wuhan city to investigate pandemic origins, in Hubei Province, China, on Jan. 14, 2021. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

A team of experts led by the World Health Organization (WHO) arrived in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Jan. 14 to investigate the origin of the CCP virus. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) called the WHO’s visit a “scientific research cooperation.”

The family member of a COVID-19 victim who died in Wuhan told The Epoch Times that he believed the WHO won’t find anything and is just being used by the Chinese regime as a scapegoat for the pandemic.

Two members of the WHO team stayed behind in Singapore after testing positive for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes the disease COVID-19. On Jan. 14, the remaining 13 experts arrived in Wuhan, where the outbreak first emerged in China in late 2019.

CCP authorities required that the WHO team quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. The experts will stay in Wuhan for about one month, during which authorities arranged for them to visit the Huanan food market, local scientific research institutes, and hospitals.

Wuhan resident Zhang Hai, whose father died of COVID-19 last year, said in an interview with The Epoch Times, “WHO is just a figurehead in my eyes—a tool, to put it bluntly. It is now looking for the source of the virus, and the first anniversary of the outbreak has passed, and all (evidence) is gone.”

Zhang Hai’s father, Zhang Lifa, was a military veteran. Last year, he went to Wuhan to seek medical treatment for a fractured femur. On Jan. 17, 2020, he was infected with the CCP virus while he was staying at a local hospital, and died within two weeks.

Zhang Hai filed a lawsuit at the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court on June 10, seeking compensation of 2 million yuan (about $286,730) from Chinese authorities, alleging that the government’s decision to cover up information about the outbreak caused his father’s death.

He named three government entities as defendants: the Wuhan city government, Hubei provincial government, and General Hospital of Central Theater Command in Wuhan. When the Wuhan municipal court rejected Zhang’s case, he filed a second lawsuit in August and sent his complaint documents via postal service to the Higher People’s Court in Hubei Province.

However, the Hubei Higher Court rejected his case. Then in October, Zhang filed a civil complaint to the Supreme Court in Beijing and he is still waiting for a response.

Zhang is the second known person to sue Chinese government entities over their botched handling of the virus.

Zhang Hai shows his statement regarding suing Chinese governments for concealing the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, which he alleges caused his father’s death. Aug. 20, 2020. (Provided to The Epoch Times)

Zhang pointed out, “The local governments have never admitted to concealing information about the outbreak. The WHO definitely won’t be able to find out anything, so that the officials will have more reasons and excuses not to admit that they concealed information [about the virus], which killed many.”

As to the CCP’s official description of the WHO-led investigation as a “scientific research cooperation,” Zhang said that the people are not fools and they all know what’s going on. The CCP officials can say what they want because the propaganda tools are in their hands and they monopolize the public discourse as they silence dissenters and give them no platform to speak, he added.

Zhang asked, “If you [CCP] didn’t conceal the outbreak in Wuhan, would it cause such serious consequences now?!”

He also revealed that he’s been silenced by Chinese authorities. “I am in China, and my voice has been blocked on all the platforms.”

Zhang is convinced that the WHO’s visit to Wuhan at this time is just a show and the United Nations agency is unlikely to conduct an independent investigation. “If you are independent, it is impossible for you to enter China or Wuhan. It is as simple as that. The WHO-led investigation, I regard it as a joke,” he said.

During the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan, China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the Huanan food market was the source of the CCP virus.

The Epoch Times previously reported that in early March last year, all market vendor stalls in Huanan food market were demolished, leaving only the framework of the main building.

Zhang said that all of the market’s sign boards have since been removed, and the building is boarded up. “You can’t see the Huanan food market at all, and you can’t even see its name.”

Huanan food market in Wuhan, China in January 2021. Provided by interviewee

He questioned, “A year later, what is left for you (WHO) to investigate? Are you here to dig out the past?”

On Jan. 2, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi tried to shift the blame and suggested that the source of the pandemic was not in China. He said, “More and more studies have shown that the pandemic is likely to be caused by separate outbreaks in multiple places around the world.”

Zhang hopes Chinese authorities can put more focus in showing respect to the people who died from COVID-19. “So many people died in Wuhan. I hope that these people [CCP officials] who are telling tall tales can have a little respect for human life.”

The WHO-led investigative team is due to visit local scientific research institutes.

But before the team arrived in Wuhan, Scotland-based Sunday Post reported on Jan. 9 that more than 300 research articles published by the Wuhan Institute of Virology were removed from the website of the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The data that was deleted included critical research on virus transmission such as animal-to-human disease studies, the report said.

Some experts and officials outside of China have raised the possibility that the CCP virus leaked out of a virology lab in Wuhan. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader in the UK and member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance for China, told Sunday Post the Chinese regime was covering up evidence when the critical research was removed.

“It is vital that there is a thorough investigation into what happened, but China seems to be doing everything it can to prevent it,” Smith said.

Luo Ya contributed to the report.