“It has been tentatively agreed to resume normal research in our laboratory, and team members are free to come and go for the time being,” Zhang said in a post on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo early Wednesday. Posted on.
However, it added that future lab relocation, student research, and collaboration between the team and the health center are “concerns that will be further communicated and resolved.”
In January 2020, Zhang published the genome sequence of Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus behind the then-emerging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. His data was based on patients in Wuhan, China's central city where the outbreak was first detected.
His data disclosure is believed to have helped accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine and indirectly saved many lives.
But this was done without government approval, and the scientist, who was named by Nature magazine in 2020 as one of the 10 most influential people in the world this year, has since said his career has taken a turn for the worse. I realized that.
Laboratory that first shared coronavirus sequence closes for 'fixes'
Laboratory that first shared coronavirus sequence closes for 'fixes'
In a post on Weibo on Sunday, a user claiming to be a student of Zhang's said that the team's research, including research tracing the origins of COVID-19, has been published by the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center over the past few years. He said he had been repeatedly obstructed. virus. The post has since been deleted.
The South China Morning Post has not been able to independently verify this claim. When contacted by phone Thursday, the center said administrative staff were on vacation. China began a five-day Labor Day holiday on Wednesday.
On Monday, Zhang said on Weibo that the research team was suddenly told that the lab needed to be “upgraded” and was barred from entering the facility starting Sunday morning. That post was also later deleted.
Zhang's students said on social media that he had been sitting outside his lab from Sunday night until he was allowed back in late Tuesday.
Photos published by mainland media showed security guards stationed outside Zhang's lab at one point, preventing anyone from entering.
These photos immediately sparked widespread discussion and sympathy on social media, and topped Weibo's hot search list for a while.
“Is this how researchers in Shanghai are treated?” reads one comment that has racked up thousands of likes.
There were also many comments saying that it was “immoral” to let “someone who has done nothing wrong” sleep outside.
Some mainland media articles based on interviews with Zhang have been read more than 100,000 times.
The Shanghai Municipal Public Health Clinical Center said in a statement on Monday that some laboratories needed renovation and were “closed for construction work for safety reasons.”
Zhang's team was provided with “alternative office and laboratory space,” he said.
However, in a Weibo post by Zhang and his students, the team's laboratory, which was conducting many virus research projects, was exposed to potential biosafety risks if relocated in a hurry. He doubted that it would not occur.
Fan Xiaohong, party secretary of the state-funded Shanghai Center, told Chinese media on Tuesday that Zhang's contract had expired but “he refused to retire.”
Zhang refuted that claim, saying in a social media post on the same day that although the center's contract officially ended last year, the team members' contracts had been renewed and they still received “research funding” for the publication. He said he would have to pay a “paper bonus.” academic paper.
Mr. Zhang was a researcher affiliated with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2001 to 2020. He resigned after publishing the sequence of the new coronavirus and joined the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center as a full-time staff member. 2018.
The center is an affiliated hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai. According to Fudan's official website, Zhang is still a researcher at the university's Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Zhang's ordeal prompted similar reactions on social media from both nationalists and liberals.
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times and one of the most prominent defenders of Beijing's policies, said on Monday that Zhang's conflict with the Shanghai Health Center was “very strange.” Ta.
Although neither Zhang nor the Shanghai center's statement made any mention of Zhang's disclosure of the coronavirus genome sequence four years ago, some web users critical of Chinese government policy have said that Zhang He suggested that he was being punished for “telling an official lie.”