Dr David Nabarro, one of the special envoys in the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 response, announced the WHO has backtracked on their COVID-19 advice.
Dr Nabarro has called on world leaders to halt lockdowns as a “primary control method” in the fight against the virus, saying they only exacerbate poverty.
“Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer,” he told The Spectator.
“We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus.”
He said the only time lockdowns should be justified, is to “buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”
Explaining the WHO’s new stance, Dr Nabarro said lockdowns have a greater impact on poorer economies.
“Just look at what’s happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren’t taking their holidays,” he said.
“Look what’s happened to smallholder farmers all over the world. … Look what’s happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.”
Instead of lockdowns, Dr Nabarro recommends a new approach. “Stop using lockdown as your primary control method. Develop better systems for doing it. Work together and learn from each other.”
