A professor of infectious diseases in Hong Kong and an expert on the SARS epidemic has hit out at authorities in China’s Wuhan for acting too slowly and blocking his efforts to investigate the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Guan Yi, who helped identify the virus behind the 2002 SARS outbreak, said his team visited Wuhan on Tuesday hoping to track the animal that was the source of the coronavirus. However, they found that residents were not taking proper precautions, and no special measures were in place at the airport to disinfect surfaces. The doctor also said authorities had tampered with the market where many infections have been traced to, making it hard for researchers to determine where the virus came from. “I consider myself a veteran in battles,” he said. “But with this Wuhan pneumonia, I feel extremely powerless.” At least 17 people have died and more than 570 have been sickened by the mysterious illness. On Thursday, authorities introduced strict travel bans for the Chinese cities of Huanggang, Ezhou, and Wuhan, which together are home to nearly 20 million people.
