Kai KupferschmidtScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.On Monday evening, Peter Daszak drove to John F.
Kennedy airport in New York City for the second time this year, hoping to fly to Wuhan, China. Daszak, a disease ecologist at the EcoHealth Alliance, is part of an international team charged by the World Health Organization (WHO) with investigating the origins of SARS-CoV-2, which was first discovered in Wuhan.The previous week he got as far as Doha, Qatar before the trip began to unravel.
With new variants of the coronavirus spreading across the world, China was imposing additional safety requirements for incoming passengers—with no exceptions for invited scientists.