The world has seen a whole series of very important authorities provide “intentional or unintentional” false and misleading information since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, according to writer at The Spectator David Adler.

“Mid-January at the beginning of the pandemic, we had arguably the most important international body – the World Health Organisation – echo the propaganda from China that there was no human to human transmission,” Mr Adler told Sky News host Chris Kenny. “This is critical, they did it at the beginning and they may well have encouraged certain countries to delay the implementation of measures that could have contained or restricted the spread.”

Mr Adler said whistleblowers and doctors in China have been “pulled aside” and “disciplined”, while others simply disappeared. 

“This is out of 1984, George Orwell would be rolling over saying ‘I warned you about this stuff, now it’s happening’,” he said. “People have seen lots of false promises, lots of false information from organisations that they should be able to trust, and that’s undermined the public confidence.”