Daniel Hannan has been reminded of a tweet posted in February telling people “coronavirus isn’t going to kill you”.
The former Conservative MEP posted a link to a blog on Conservative Home in which he argues that the virus has been wrapped up in “alarmism, doom-mongering and panic”.
Reacting to a Sunday Times piece warning that the epidemic was set to sweep across Britain, he wrote:
“You’re unlikely to be killed by the coronavirus. Yes, the disease is unpleasant; and, yes, in some circumstances, it can cause complications that lead to fatalities.”
But he argued it is unlikely to be that lethal.
This has aged well. pic.twitter.com/NFE5oTXFCW
— Otto English (@Otto_English) May 21, 2020
44,000 deaths
According to the latest ONS stats the number of deaths involving Covid-19 in the UK passed 44,000 this week.
There have been 39,071 deaths in England and Wales up to May 8, 599 in Northern Ireland and 3,213 in Scotland.
The UK has now far surpassed coronavirus-struck Italy and Spain and has become the worst affected country in Europe and the second highest in the world behind the United States.
A Tory MP was forced to delete a tweet posted in March claiming the UK’s coronavirus strategy “is working”.
Rob Roberts, MP for Delyn, posted a comparison of the Covid-19 death toll between Italy and the UK in mid-March, when government advice was to ‘wash your hands to the tune of happy birthday’.
Brexit
Last month Hannan made a call for the Brexit process to carry on regardless saying that delaying it “would be the worst possible option“.
Writing in the Telegraph he said “changing course now would create more of the very thing that Remainers have spent the past four years warning against: uncertainty”.
Related: Timpson: A lesson in how to do it right
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