Chinese scientist who first published COVID sequence stages protest after being locked out of lab

The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China staged a sit-in protest outside his lab after authorities locked him out of the facility-a sign of the Beijing's continuing pressure on scientists conducting research on the coronavirus. Zhang Yongzhen wrote in an online post Monday that he and his team had been suddenly notified they were being evicted from their lab, the latest in a series of setbacks, demotions and ousters since the virologist published the sequence in January 2020 without state approval. News of the protest spread widely on Chinese social media and Zhang told a colleague he slept outside the lab-but it was not clear Tuesday if he remained there. In an online statement, the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center said that Zhang's lab was being renovated and was closed for "Safety reasons." It added that it had provided Zhang's team an alternative laboratory space. Zhang's ordeal started when he and his team decoded the virus on Jan. 5, 2020, and wrote an internal notice warning Chinese authorities of its potential to spread-but did not make the sequence public. Foreign scientists soon learned that Zhang and other Chinese scientists had deciphered the virus and called on China to release the sequence. Citation: Chinese scientist who first published COVID sequence stages protest after being locked out of lab retrieved 1 May 2024 from https://phys. org/news/2024-04-chinese-scientist-published-covid-sequence.