News Round Up

• “Third COVID-19 wave this winter ‘is more likely to be a ripple” – Professor Tim Spector tells the Times that “Boris Johnson’s warnings of a third wave are designed ‘to keep the population fearful'”. It is, he reckons, “more likely to be a ripple”
• “Rishi Sunak exclusive: ‘Workers could quit if forced to stay at home’”– The Chancellor is urging businesses to bring workers back to the office, the Telegraph reports
• “Return of track and trace creates ‘many more problems’” – Asking customers to sign in when they enter pubs and restaurants is set to resume on April 12th, when the hospitality trade begins to reopen, and all customers will have to sign in, not just the lead booker, and the rule will apply to outdoor customers as well, including beer gardens and pavements
• “40,600 people likely caught Covid while hospital inpatients in England” – One in seven people treated for COVID-19 between August 1st 2020 and March 21st 2021 were infected while in hospital, according to the Guardian
• “Are we ready for Britain’s looming cancer crisis?” – Professor Karol Sikora sounds a warning about the crisis of delayed cancer diagnoses and treatment in the Spectator
• “Blood, Sweat and Beers: Pubs could ask boozers for blood test to prove Covid immunity to get a pint” – The Sun reports on an idea that only a public health expert would consider sound
• “Does the data support renewing Covid emergency powers?” – Kate Andrews takes a look at the key data from the Spectator‘s Data Hub. Infections, hospitalisations and deaths are all down and over half the UK’s adult population have been vaccinated
• “Scottish Covid adviser’s vaccine confusion” – Steerpike recounts how Scottish public health advisor Devi Sridhar went off script, claiming, on limited evidence, that the AstraZeneca vaccine doesn’t work against the South African variant
• “Trial set to start of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine as nasal spray” – Oxford University is starting a trial for a vaccine, developed with AstraZeneca, which is described as a nasal spray, the Financial Times reports
• “Why we must never lockdown [sic] again” – Gary Sidley gives four key reasons why lockdown policies must be consigned to the “skeleton cupboard labelled ‘Cataclysmic Government blunders never to be repeated'”
• “A sketch of the week” – Bournbrook Magazine looks back at the week gone by, with illustrations by their new cartoonist Crid
• “Hong Kong flu and Covid: How ‘no lockdown’ Harold Wilson proved to be a better PM than Boris Johnson” – A historical perspective from Neil Clark in Sputnik News. “Rather than seeking to terrify the public about the threats of the Hong Kong Flu, Wilson’s Government saw its job as trying to reassure people”
• “A dark day for democracy” – Michael Curzon reflects on the extension of the Coronavirus Act for the Conservative Woman, and praises the 76 MPs who voted ‘No’
• “Vaccine passports to visit the pub? Sense, gentlemen, please” – “If this measure is introduced,” writes Michael Fahey in the Conservative Woman, “I hope the pub/restaurant/hospitality trade kick it to the kerb and at the next election, I hope the electorate boots this authoritarian Government into oblivion”
• “Lockdown – the Big Lie that will never end” – “There can no longer be any doubt that the position in Britain and elsewhere has nothing to do with any medical emergency, and probably never did,” writes Daniel Miller at the Conservative Woman
• “Weekly summary of Yellow Card reporting” – As of March 14th 2021, 38,084 Yellow Cards had been reported for the Pfizer jab (10.9 million first doses administered) and 78,223 for the AstraZeneca jab (13.7 million first doses)
• “Is Covid racist?” – Of course a virus can’t be racist, but some ethnic communities have reportedly suffered higher infection rates than others. Calvin Robinson, Kawsar Zaman and Nikita Malik discuss why in this broadcast from Bright Blue TV
• “Matt Hancock grilled by Tory MPs over Vaccine effects data” – In an exchange in Parliament, Hancock was asked if the NHS has data on how many people have died from Covid in NHS hospitals three weeks after receiving their first dose of the Covid vaccine. He struggled to answer
• “Escape from Lockdown” – In the latest episode of Escape from Lockdown, Alex speaks to barrister Francis Hoar about his courtroom battles against lockdown
• “Lockdown forever” – The latest Spiked podcast asks if we have let our freedoms slip away for good
• “Germany’s third wave could be ‘worse’ than last two” – The German Government is starting to panic, Deutsche Welle reports, with the head of the public health body warning of 100,000 cases per day
• “We are witnessing the end of the German Miracle” – Sherelle Jacobs says that Angela Merkel’s final hour has become her lousiest moment in her Telegraph column
• “Sweden: more freedom, less death” – Sweden famously avoided strict lockdowns, Spiked notes, and it also experienced a smaller increase in overall mortality last year than most of its European neighbours
• “Sweden: The head of the Public Health Agency says ‘We have got it right” – Johan Carlson, Director-General of the Swedish Public Health Agency, told a parliamentary hearing that “there were those who thought that you could get the infection out completely by shutting down society”
• “Trump says he ‘didn’t really listen’ to Dr. Fauci on COVID-19, blasts him as ‘self-promoter’” – RT reports that President Trump was not too impressed by Dr. Fauci
• “Nation’s first ‘vaccine passport’ coming to New York” – Vaccine passports are coming to the Big Apple, the New York Post reports. Dubbed the ‘Excelsior Pass’, it was launched yesterday and Madison Square Garden will be using it from next week
• “Homicides are way up in 2020, and Covid Lockdowns are a likely cause” – The US homicide rate in 2020 was the highest in 15 years, according to Ryan McMaken on the Mises Wire. The connection between lockdown and violent behaviour is, he says, “openly admitted”
• “Why is everyone in Texas not dying?” – Writing for AIER, Jeffrey A. Tucker takes a look back at the fear-mongering predictions that were made when Texas ended its lockdown. He is he says “sitting at a bar in Texas, surrounded by mask-less people, looking at folks on the streets walking around like life is normal”
• “Weeks After Texas Reopened, Health Experts Look for Impact” – The Wall St Journal makes the same point, noting that the state hasn’t seen rise in cases two weeks after businesses fully reopened
• “Ivor Cummins Answers Forbidden Covid Questions” – The sceptical number cruncher appears on the Tom Woods Show
• “Children Under 12 Begin Getting Vaccinated in Pfizer Trials” – The Wall St Journal reports that Pfizer has started to test its Covid-19 vaccine in children ages six months to 11 years old
• “Islamic charity ‘put Batley cartoon row teacher in danger’ by outing him” – Camilla Turner in the Telegraph reports on the Free Speech Union’s letter to the Charity Commission complaining about the Purpose of Life, a Muslim charity that doxxed the teacher at the centre of the Batley Grammar School row
• “Ben Habib, co-founder of Unlocked, agrees with Mike Graham that Boris Johnson should be replaced” – He is not impressed by Boris Johnson!