BEIJING: The first scientist to publish a sequence of the Covid-19 virus in China said he was allowed back into his lab after he spent days locked outside, sitting in protest. Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post early on Wednesday that authorities had “tentatively agreed” to allow him and his team to return to his laboratory and continue their research for the time being.
Zhang and his team were abruptly told they had to abandon their test over the weekend, a sign that Beijing is still pressing scientists to do the same with research on the coronavirus, and they had been staging a sit-in protest outside his lab for a while.
Zhang’s laboratory was recently reported by the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center as being being renovated and shut down for health factors. Zhang claimed that his team was n’t given an alternative until after the eviction, and that the new lab did n’t adhere to safety standards for conducting their research.
Zhang’s most recent problems is a reflection of how China has attempted to control access to information about the disease. According to an Associated Press investigation, the government had made domestic and international efforts to track it down from the outbreak’s beginnings. That structure continues to this day, with laboratories shut down, partnerships shattered, international scientists forced to leave, and Chinese researchers denied the right to leave the nation.
