Whitewash fears as WHO team visits Chinese show

THE World Health Organisation team investigating the origins of Covid-19 was given a tour yesterday of an exhibition that celebrates China’s response to the pandemic.

The visit to a show that critics say offers little more than propaganda will not reassure those who fear WHO is too close to Beijing and that its probe into the coronavirus outbreak will be a whitewash.

The trip came after WHO experts went to a hospital in Wuhan where some of the earliest coronavirus patients were treated and took place a day after they had their first face-to-face meeting with Chinese scientists.

They also intend to visit the Huanan Seafood Market, which was linked to many of the early cases, and the controversial Wuhan

Institute of Virology. Amid suspicion of a Chinese cover-up, WHO insisted in a tweet: ‘All hypotheses are on the table as the team follows the science in their work to understand the origins of the Covid-19 virus.’

It came as the Government finalised plans to security-vet thousands of academics coming to work or study in the UK to combat intellectual property theft. The restrictions will apply to 44 high-risk areas, including AI, chemistry, physics and maths, and to those carrying out research and development at British firms.

The security services are particularly concerned about Chinese academics. The MoS revealed last month that a leaked database of Chinese Communist Party members included those who had worked at UK universities.