Wuhan market at epicenter of virus outbreak remains barricaded

For over six years, 38-year-old Wuhan restaurant owner Lai Yun started most days the same way - with a trip to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, just ten minutes walk from his house."I'd send the kids to school, have breakfast and then walk over to the market. It was very convenient," he said.

That changed on Dec. 31, 2019, after four cases of a mystery pneumonia were linked to the market and it was shuttered overnight. By the end of the month, the city had begun a gruelling 76-day lockdown that came with just hours notice and barred people from leaving their homes.

Almost a year since the outbreak began, COVID-19 has claimed more than 1.5 million lives, and the Wuhan wet market where it was initially detected stands empty even as the city around it has come back to life.It's become a symbol of the fierce political and scientific battle raging around the origin of the virus with Beijing continuing to spar with the United States and other countries, accusing them of bias.

A team of World Health Organization experts has yet to visit Wuhan, let alone the market. Health authorities in China and abroad have warned that origin tracing efforts could take years and yield inconclusive results.In Wuhan, where the stigma of being the first coronavirus epicentre hangs heavy, over a dozen residents and business owners told Reuters they don't believe the virus began in the city.

"It certainly couldn't have been Wuhan... surely another person brought it in. Or surely it came from some other product brought from outside. There were just certain conditions for it to appear here," said a wet market vendor in the city's centre who gave his name as Chen. In recent months, Chinese diplomats and state media have said they believe the market is not the origin but the victim of the disease, and have thrown support behind theories that the virus potentially originated in another country.

---Reuters, China