Divisions over how to fight Covid-19 risk causing an “existential breach in public trust” that will make it impossible to contain the pandemic, World Health Organisation (WHO) expert Dr Mike Ryan has warned. The Irish doctor running the organisation’s health emergencies programme expressed concern around the “negative and destructive narrative” emerging on the public health actions needed to combat the virus. He warned against making governments “the whipping boys and girls” of the public health response aimed at stemming the spread of the virus. “The current risk that we run is of an existential breach in public trust. He said that governments needed to come up with public health plans, as the northern hemisphere heads towards winter, to avoid “lurching back to a very, very blunt instrument of widespread lockdowns”.

Source: The Irish Times September 30, 2020 15:33 UTC