A World Health Organization team investigating the origins of COVID-19 was due Monday at the Hubei province headquarters of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it said.
Hubei province in China's central region is said to be where the world health crisis emerged in late 2019.
The group of independent experts left two weeks of quarantine Thursday in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, and is conducting two weeks of field work. So far, it has visited hospitals and markets.
The organization said team members would be limited to visits arranged by the China government and would have no contact with citizens as a result of health restrictions. The organization hasn't released an itinerary.
Journalists covering the team's visit have been kept at a distance from members, Reuters reported.
The team visited a seafood market in Wuhan on Sunday. Its convoy carrying 14 scientists and other officials was seen entering the cordoned-off Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market mid-afternoon Sunday.
The international team walked through sections of the Baishazhou seafood market - one of the biggest wet markets in Wuhan. It was escorted by many local and national officials.
The investigators also visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and medical facilities.
Once a busy shopping area with hundreds of stalls, the Huanan wet market has been sealed off since January. Guards blocked others from entering, Agence France-Presse reported. The team left after about an hour without taking questions.
Four cases of pneumonia of unknown origin were reported in the market Dec. 31, 2019. It was later identified as the novel coronavirus. By the end of January, Wuhan had entered a 76-day lockdown.
The wet market traded in live animals and was shut after fears the virus had spread to humans either from pangolins or bats.
Medical investigations have since shown many of the earliest reported infections had no obvious connections to the market. In May, Gao Fu, director of the Center for Disease Control, said it appeared the market wasn't the origin and animal samples in January didn't show signs of the virus.
Meanwhile, China reported its lowest daily rise in fresh cases in more than three weeks, based on official data Monday, reversing a sharp surge from the previous day in the wake of new measures to fight the virus ahead of a major holiday break.
New confirmed reported cases more than halved to 42, the National Health Commission said in a statement, down from 92 a day earlier and marking the lowest one-day increase since 33 reported Jan. 8.
National and local authorities continue to discourage travel even as the number of new cases fell, underscoring their concerns about another flare-up as the country approaches the Lunar New Year holiday period next month when hundreds of millions typically travel.
Official forecasts are for the total number of trips taken during the holiday break to fall 60% from 2019, the last time when Chinese travelers did not face any major restrictions in movement during the period.
The total number of confirmed mainland infections to date now stands at 89,564, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,636.
Worldwide cases have reached 102.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. Deaths are now at 2.2 million.
