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BBC ‘misrepresented’ Covid risk to boost lockdown support, inquiry told
Eminent epidemiologist Prof Mark Woolhouse criticised corporation for reporting rare deaths among healthy adults as the norm during pandemic
Simon Johnson,
SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
25 January 2024 • 11:47am
A man wears a mask in front of BBC Broadcasting House in London
The BBC was allowed to “misrepresent” the risk posed by Covid to most people to boost public support for lockdown, the UK Covid Inquiry has heard.
Prof Mark Woolhouse, an eminent epidemiologist and government adviser, lambasted the corporation for having “repeatedly reported rare deaths or illnesses among healthy adults as if they were the norm”.
He said this created the “misleading impression” among BBC News viewers at the start of the pandemic that “we are all at risk” and “the virus does not discriminate”.
In reality, he said it was known at the time that the risk of dying from Covid was 10,000 times higher in the over-75s than the under-15s.
But Prof Woolhouse told the inquiry the BBC did not correct its reporting, saying: “I suspect this misinformation was allowed to stand throughout 2020 because it provided a justification for locking down the entire population..
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