China hoarded crucial information that would have enabled World Health Organization (WHO) team to make a conclusion on the origin of coronavirus.

Reuters reported that an Australian researcher who was part of the WHO’s team that travelled to China on fact-finding mission alleged that Beijing failed to provide all the details they needed.

Dominic Dwyer—an Australian infectious diseases expert—said they have requested all the details on the 174 first cases noted in the Asian country, but upon request, they only received summary instead of raw data.

As quoted by Reuters, Mr Dwyer said a raw data would have helped the team to dissect more and arrive at proper conclusion given that the 174 cases had not been in touch with the market, from which COVID-19 is suspected to have originated.

He said, “that’s why we’ve persisted to ask for that…why that doesn’t happen, I couldn’t comment. Whether it’s political or time or it’s difficult . But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn’t available, I don’t know. One would only speculate.”

With political bickering between Washington and Beijing hitting top notch, delay has affected the output of the team.

According to Dwyer, at times differences emerge between the WHO researchers and the Chinese counterparts who are hell-bent on changing the narrative.

“We might be having a talk about cold chain and they might be more firm about what the data shows than what we might have been, but that’s natural. Whether there’s political pressure to have different opinions, I don’t know. There may well be, but it’s hard to know.”