Late last month, the World Health Organization began offering to send an international team of experts to China to observe and help with the outbreak of a novel coronavirus.
On Monday, that team of experts was finally allowed to start its investigations. The Chinese government, however, will not let them visit epidemic-stricken Hubei province or the city of Wuhan, the likely source of the virus now called Covid-19 and the site of the largest quarantine in history.
According to one prominent Communist Party-controlled news outlet, Hubei is simply too busy and "cannot spare the time and people to receive the experts."