WHO team probing Covid-19 origins in China to brief media on Tuesday

The briefing, at 4:00 pm local time (0800 GMT) at a hotel in the city, will be live-streamed in English on the UN health agency's digital and social media platforms

Members of a World Health Organization-led team looking for clues about the origins of Covid-19 will hold a briefing on Tuesday after nearly a month of meetings and site visits in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the disease was first identified.

The briefing was originally scheduled for 3.30 pm local time (0730 GMT) on Tuesday afternoon, but was then delayed until 5.00 pm (0900 GMT).

Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO's food safety and animal disease specialist and chairman of the investigation team, will speak alongside fellow team member Marion Koopmans, a virus expert.

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Liang Wannian, head of the expert Covid-19 panel at China's National Health Commission, will also attend.

The team arrived in Wuhan on Jan. 14 and after two weeks of quarantine, visited key sites like the Huanan seafood market, the location of the first known cluster of infections, as well as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been involved in coronavirus research.

Members of the team have sought to rein in expectations about the mission, with zoologist Peter Daszak telling Reuters last week that one of their aims was to "identify the next steps to fill in the gaps".

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Another team member, infectious disease expert Dominic Dwyer, said it would probably take years to fully understand the origins of COVID-19.

The United States said China needed to be more open when it comes to sharing data and samples as well as allowing access to patients, medical staff and lab workers. Beijing subsequently accused Washington of politicizing a scientific mission.