Trump’s live television medical test unsurprisingly proved to be a sham.

I was hoping we’d see a prostate examination, which given Trump’s plain insanity would not have surprised.

News that Brazil’s Manaus, a city now 2 million strong in the heart of the Amazon, has the world’s worst coronavirus toll, brought back memories, all bad.

Arriving there half a century ago in the most appalling heat & humidity, the following exchange occurred when checking in to the hotel in those pre-air-conditioning years.

The above, an absurd Stuff website heading today out of Australia.

If it had a scintilla of truth we must assume Bolivians, Bulgarians, Taiwanese; I could go on listing the world’s 200 plus countries, were all comatose with shock. In fact 99.9% of the globe’s population would have been oblivious to the event.

The World Health Organisation has, to its great credit, now reversed its position on lockdowns. “The only things lockdowns achieved was poverty. They make poor people even poorer,” WHO Dr David Nabarro said.

I predicted this conclusion on this blog back in March, easy of course for a by-stander not bearing the responsibility.

Dr Graham Sharpe, former President of the New Zealand Anaesthetics Association, is a long time mate and a man of libertarian views.

He’s forwarded me his recently published contribution to the debate which I’ve reproduced below.