World health organization

Wednesday

Ross Clark

What should we make of the WHO Covid report?

Should we believe the conclusions of the World Health Organization (WHO) report into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which, as expected, dismissed the possibility of a laboratory accident while giving credence to the theory that the virus was imported via frozen foods? The first thing to note is that the report does not even claim to be independent — it is billed as a ‘joint WHO-China study’. It deserves to be read as such: as the product of an undemocratic government that has every incentive to deflect any responsibility for a pandemic that has, to date, been blamed for 2.7 million deaths globally. The report puts forward four hypotheses: that the

Friday

Ross Clark

How deadly is Covid-19?

What percentage of people who are infected with Covid-19 will go on to die of the disease? The dramatic response to the pandemic on the part of almost all governments around the world has been based on the idea that Covid-19 is a far more lethal disease than seasonal flu, which is often quoted as having an infection fatality rate (IFR) of 0.1 per cent. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is often quoted as claiming that Covid-19 has an IFR of 3.2 per cent — a claim that goes back to a press conference in early March when it, in fact, said that the case fatality rate (CFR) at that

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Hancock struggles to answer questions on testing and quarantine

Matt Hancock has the air of a student who, having boasted about how great their final dissertation will be, has just realised that they have days to research and write the whole thing. When asked if he is going to meet his target of 100,000 daily tests for coronavirus by the end of the month, the Health Secretary continues to insist that he will, while struggling to explain how.  He gave a statement in the new hybrid Commons this afternoon in which he was repeatedly questioned both by MPs who were in the Chamber and those on video link about what was going wrong with the testing target. He struggled