Sky News host Alan Jones says COVID-19 is not, and has never been, a pandemic. 20 Oct 2020

“A pandemic is a disease which is prevalent over a whole country. This is not a pandemic. It was never a pandemic,” Mr Jones said.

“So let's look briefly at the facts surrounding mortality.”

Mr Jones said in America, the percentage of the population who had died from COVID was 0.07 per cent, in Italy, 0.06 per cent, in France, 0.05 per cent, yet all of these countries had draconian lockdowns and were filled with "rampant alarmism".

“Sweden, no draconian lockdowns, basic precautions, get on with your life. Population 10 million, deaths, much the same - 0.06 per cent,” he said.

“I have for months cited one international authority after an another who has argued that the strategy is wrong,” Mr Jones said.

Professor Joel Kettner, from Manitoba University in Canada said, "I have seen pandemics, one every year, it is called influenza, and other respiratory illness viruses. I have never seen this reaction and I am trying to understand why."

John Ioannidis, the Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University, said, "If we had not known about a new virus out there and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to "influenza like illness" would not seem unusual this year.

"At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average. The media coverage would have been less than for an NBA game between the two most indifferent teams,” Professor Kettner said.

“So there you have it,” Mr Jones said.

“We are in this economic sewer because we failed to listen to world authorities.”