The search for Covid-19’s origins continues to be hindered by fear of offending China
Matt Ridley
The Lancet Commission is the latest to highlight how seeking the truth has come second to other considerations The Lancet Commission into “lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic”, written by 40 scientists and public health experts, and chaired by the economist Jeffrey Sachs, has concluded that “the origin of the virus remains […]
Has the lab leak theory really been disproved?
Matt Ridley
There doesn’t seem to be a smoking gun in the latest ‘evidence’ The BBC carried a story this week with the headline ‘Covid origin studies say evidence points to Wuhan market’. Bizarrely the paper in Sciencethey are referring to, by Michael Worobey and colleagues, says no such thing. It says: ‘the observation that the preponderance of early cases […]
A WHO pandemic pact would leave the world at China’s mercy
Matt Ridley
Lessons have still not been learned, so why should we trust the WHO in a future pandemic? My article for Telegraph: On 22 May, the World Health Organisation meets for the World Health Assembly, an annual summit to which all the world’s countries are invited – except Taiwan, which is excluded at China’s behest. On […]
As Shanghai locks down, China is facing its greatest Covid crisis yet
Matt Ridley
My article for Spectator: The coronavirus is spreading through Hong Kong, Shenzhen and other cities in China like a bush fire; tens of millions of Chinese have been ordered to stay at home yet again. Shanghai, a city of 26 million souls, has been split in two. Those on the eastern side of the Huangpu […]
How respiratory viruses evolve to become milder
Matt Ridley
My article for Spectator: The Queen has suffered ‘mild, cold-like symptoms’ from her Covid-19 infection, according to Buckingham Palace. The wording reminds us that, except in the very vulnerable, the common cold is always and everywhere a mild disease. There are 200 kinds of virus that cause colds and they hardly ever debilitate healthy people, […]
The WHO is complicit in China’s Winter Olympics smokescreen
Matt Ridley
Will Dr Tedros use the Beijing Games to deliver some home truths to China? Probably not My article for the Telegraph: The news that Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation, is to attend the Winter Olympics in Beijing is baffling on a number of levels. Has he not got a day […]
I was duped by the Covid lab leak deniers
Matt Ridley
That senior scientists saw evidence for theories that they trashed in public has shattered trust in science My article for the Telegraph: Inch by painful inch, the truth is being dragged out about how this pandemic started. It is just about understandable, if not forgivable, that Chinese scientists have obfuscated vital information about early cases […]
Why did scientists suppress the lab-leak theory?
Matt Ridley
In private, they said it was plausible. In public, they called it a conspiracy theory. My article for Spiked: In August 2007 there was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth virus on a farm in Surrey. It was a few miles from the world’s leading reference laboratory for identifying outbreaks of foot and mouth. Nobody thought this […]
SARS-Cov-2 Lab Leak in Taiwan Confirmed
Matt Ridley
The infection took place in a Biosafety Level 3 lab According to Taiwan News, and since picked up by Western media, a (recent) SARS-Cov-2 lab leak has been confirmed in (the Republic of) China. SARS-Cov-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) concluded on Saturday (Dec. 11) that an assistant […]
The Government is still fighting the wrong war on Covid-19
Matt Ridley
Their hasty over-reaction to the arrival of a new variant reflects just how little we truly understand this virus My article for the Telegraph: Here we go again, fighting the last war. Because governments are perceived to have moved too slowly to ban flights when the delta variant arose in India, we jumped into action […]
