WHO: 'We're still at the beginning of pandemic - and it's getting nastier'

Speaking to British MPs this evening, Dr. David Nabarro, special envoy of the World Health Organization (WHO) on coronavirus, warned that the world is "still at the beginning" of the pandemic.

"It’s much worse than any of the science fiction about pandemics. This is really serious - we’re not even in the middle of it yet. We’re still at the beginning of it," he said.

“And we’re beginning to see what damage it’s going to cause the world. And it’s getting nastier as we go into this particular phase in Europe of watching the thing come back again.”

He added: “None of us find the present situation anything other than horrible, grotesque, really embarrassing.

“It’s a terrible situation, a health issue has got so out of control it’s knocking the world into, not just a recession, but a huge economic contraction which would probably double the number of poor people, double the number of malnourished, lead to hundreds of millions of small businesses going bankrupt.”