WHO team visits Wuhan hospital that took first Covid-19 patients

WUHAN: The team of World Health Organization experts investigating the origins of the coronavirus met staff Saturday at the Wuhan hospital that received the first confirmed Covid-19 cases, before a scheduled tour of a propaganda exhibition celebrating China's recovery from the pandemic.

The group was driven to the Jinyintan Hospital, the first hospital to receive officially diagnosed Covid-19 patients in late 2019, as the horrors of the virus emerged in the central Chinese city.

Details of the trip have been scant so far, with the media kept at arm's length and information on the itinerary dribbling out via tweets from the WHO experts instead of China's communist authorities.

In a tweet, team member Peter Daszak welcomed the hospital visit as an "Important opportunity to talk directly w/ medics who were on the ground at that critical time fighting COVID!"

On Saturday afternoon, the team are scheduled to visit a cavernous exhibition that applauds the emergency response of Wuhan health authorities in the chaotic, terrifying early stages of the virus -- as well as the agility of the Communist leadership to control a crisis without precedent.

The WHO mission comes with heavy political baggage.

It has been beset by delays, with China refusing access until mid-January, while there are question marks over what the experts can hope to find a year after the virus first emerged.

On Friday, the WHO's emergencies director Micheal Ryan sought to manage expectations.

Success "is not measured necessarily in absolutely finding a source on the first mission", he told a news conference in Geneva.

"This is a complicated business, but what we need to do is gather all of the data... and come to an assessment as to how much more we know about the origins of the disease and what further studies may be needed to elucidate that."

Last week, China warned the United States against "political interference" during the trip, after the White House demanded a "robust and clear" investigation.

The WHO insists the probe will stick tightly to the science behind how the virus jumped from animals -- believed to be bats -- to humans.

The team is also expected to visit the Huanan market believed to have been the first major cluster of infections, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other labs, in what the WHO's Ryan described as a "very busy, busy schedule".

Beijing is desperate to defang criticism of its handling of the chaotic early stages of the outbreak.

It has refocused attention at home -- and abroad -- on its handling of and recovery from the outbreak.

Since seeping beyond China's borders, the pandemic has ripped across the world killing more than two million people and wrecking economies.

China, with a relatively low reported death toll of 4,636, has bounced back. It has swiftly locked down areas where any cases are found, tested millions and restricted travel to snuff out the crisis.

The Chinese economy grew by 2.3 percent despite the outbreak last year and its leadership misses few chances to boast of the country's resilience and renewal.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman on Friday flagged the WHO visit as "a part of global research" into the pandemic.

"It is not an investigation," Zhao Lijian told reporters.