by Ramesh Thakur, Daily Sceptic:
Amendments to the decades-old International Health Regulations came into effect on September 19th. A new Pandemic Agreement, adopted in May, will be opened for signature after a pathogens access and benefits sharing deal that is expected to be reached next year. The WHO Pandemic Accords, as the two documents are known, are a good example of the type of global governance initiatives on which there is a consensus among technocratic elites, but against which there is a rising populist revolt. Two other examples that were mentioned by President Donald Trump in his UN address on September 23rd are immigration and climate change. The speech was a wide-ranging defence of national sovereignty against globalism.
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Flawed Assumptions
Yet, pandemics are rare events that, compared to endemic infectious and chronic diseases, impose a low disease burden. The rationale for the accords rests on the false understanding that the risk of pandemics is rapidly growing, predominantly from increasing zoonotic spillover events in which pathogens move from animals to humans. Well-founded suspicion that Covid arose from gain of function research and a lab leak negates the second part of this justification.
The assumption of increasing pandemic risk is also undermined by work from the University of Leeds. It shows that the reports of the WHO, World Bank and G20 that back the pandemic agenda don’t support the agencies’ claims. Data show reducing mortality and outbreaks in the decade prior to 2020. Much of the recorded ‘increase’ in episodes reflects improved diagnostic technologies, not more frequent and more serious outbreaks.
Previous major epidemic diseases like yellow fever, influenza and cholera continue to decline overall. The historical timeline of pandemics shows that improvements in sanitation, hygiene, potable water, antibiotics and other forms of expanding access to good healthcare have massively reduced the morbidity and mortality of pandemics since the Spanish flu (1918-20) in which 50 million people are believed to have died.
