After a protest sit-in, the Chinese scientist who released the Covid viral sequence was permitted back into his lab

After spending days locked outdoors, sitting in protest, the first scientist to publish a sequence of the Covid virus in China says he was finally let back into his lab.

Authorities have “tentatively agreed” to let Zhang Yongzhen and his colleagues return to his laboratory and carry out their study in the meantime, he stated in an early Wednesday online post.

As a symbol of Beijing’s ongoing pressure on scientists working on the coronavirus, Zhang and his colleagues were abruptly informed they had to leave their lab, prompting him to stage a sit-in protest outside his facility over the weekend.

Zhang’s lab was originally said to be closed for safety concerns while renovations were being completed by the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre. However, Zhang said that the new facility didn’t match safety requirements for them to do their study and that his team wasn’t given an option until after the eviction.

Zhang’s most recent challenge is indicative of China’s attempts to censor information about the virus. The government halted significant local and international attempts to track it from the early weeks of the epidemic, according to an Associated Press investigation. Even now, there is a persistent pattern of lab closures, broken partnerships, expulsion of foreign scientists, and prohibitions on Chinese researchers leaving the nation.