Members of the WHO team have expressed similar feelings. Daszak said in early February that during the visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the experts were met with a level of openness even he had not anticipated.

"I can't stress enough how rewarding a process the trip has been. It went beyond all expectations in many ways," said Thea Kolsen Fischer, also a WHO team member, in February. "When we have had discussions in the expert team, it has only been based on data and documentation."

During a briefing on Tuesday, Liang Wannian, a member of the WHO-China joint team, said the novel coronavirus origin tracing research in China is part of the global study of origins of the virus, and it is the first step.

All the conclusions and recommendations in the report are based on a global perspective, and future research will not be limited to a certain area, Liang said.

Novel coronavirus origin tracing is about science, and it should be jointly carried out by scientists worldwide, said Chen Xu, head of the Chinese Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

This joint research will play a positive role in promoting origin-tracing in many countries and regions around the world, and provide a scientific guide for the human race to better understand the virus, Chen added.

FUTURE STEPS

The size of the report and the amount of material and results, analysis and data in the report speak for themselves in terms of how the collaboration with the Chinese colleagues went, said Dr. Peter Ben Embarek, team leader for international experts, during the Tuesday briefing.