Britain is right to stand up to the WHO’s vaccine power grab

The World Health Organisation (WHO) hardly distinguished itself during the Covid 19 pandemic. It was slow to declare an emergency, then tried to make up for the delay by trying to persuade governments to lock down and introduce all kinds of illiberal measures. Worst of all it heaped praise on China’s handling of the epidemic, failing properly to investigate the possibility that the pandemic had originated from a laboratory leak. When it did finally send a team to investigate this, it allowed itself to be pushed around by the Chinese and laughably ruled out the lab leak theory.

None of this, however, has stopped the WHO from trying to get its member states to sign up to a legally -binding agreement as to what should happen in a future pandemic. One of the clauses – which the UK government refuses to agree to – would see rich countries forced to give up 20 per cent of their vaccine supply.