Don’t trust the BBC’s doom-mongering

The BBC “could barely conceal its satisfaction” reporting Britain’s 150,000th Covid death, says Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. We’re the very first country in Europe, health reporters gushed, to notch up so many “coronavirus corpses”. What they fail to mention is the vast divergence in how different countries count Covid deaths. Because, in reality, “two out of every five deaths ‘with Covid’ have little or nothing to do with the virus” – the UK’s measure includes all deaths within 28 days of a positive test. The figures to watch are “excess deaths”, on which we are nowhere near the top of the “fatal league table”.

You would also never know from the “harrowing reporting” that we are coming out of the crisis and learning to live with Omicron faster than the rest of Europe. Or that governments everywhere but here are “at war with angry voters” amid a tidal wave of fresh infections and harsh lockdowns. There was little mention of our vaccine triumph, and no criticism of France and ­Germany for “sabotaging” the AstraZeneca vaccine. Nor was Boris given credit for declaring Freedom Day last summer – against the “shroud-waving advice of Sage” – which gave the UK a “flying head start” in coping with the disease. The BBC seems to want Britain to be the worst affected, least prepared, most dangerous place in the Western world – all so it can bash No 10.