News Round Up

• “Don’t break Covid rules as lockdown easing begins, public told” – The Telegraph relays the Government’s advice to exercise extreme caution when engaging in those activities we’re now allowed to do – so no hugging, maintain the two metre rule and don’t meet up with anyone from outside your household indoors
• “Vaccines were supposed to liberate us, not expand the surveillance state” – No matter how obediently we stay at home, nor how many of us turn out for our jabs, writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph, there is always some pretext for locking society down
• “We should all be lockdown sceptics, Sadiq” – London Mayor Sadiq Kahn called his opponent a ‘lockdown sceptic’ last week. Writing in the Daily Mail, John Humphreys explains why that is a good thing (scroll down)
• “Pub Covid checks would not be permanent, says Oliver Dowden” – The Guardian reports comments made by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden on ‘Covid status certification’ yesterday. “Of course, we would never look to do this on a permanent basis,” he said. “It’s just whether it might be a tool in the short run.” There is nothing so permanent as…
• “The dystopian campaign of fear must end” – “It’s time to treat the public like adults,” writes Jon Dobinson for ThinkScotland, “restore freedom of speech, and stop creating fear”
• “Zinc effective against respiratory infections?” – In his latest blog, Sebastian Rushworth investigates zinc as a treatment against respiratory infections
• “Covid furlough fraud cases double in six months as bill hits £57 billion” – HM Revenue & Customs has received 26,232 reports of possible furlough fraud, according to yesterday’s Sunday Times, increasing fears that the scheme has been abused
• “Science nannies have scared us into silence, but surely vaccines either work – or don’t” – Camilla Long responds in the Sunday Times to PHE’s Dr Mary Ramsay’s turn on the Andrew Marr Show last week. “This is total madness,” she says
• “Moderna Covid vaccine to arrive in UK next month” – 17 million doses have been ordered, according to the Telegraph
• “Give pause before you raise a glass to the prospect of a vaccine passport” – The ‘papers for pints’ scheme is nothing less than a national ID card by stealth, says Stephanie Hare in the Observer
• “Vaccine passports would be final straw for battered pubs, warns Wetherspoon boss” – Tim Martin tells the Telegraph that a vaccine passport scheme could be the “last straw” for struggling pubs
• “Vaccine passports are a con trick, whatever they are called” – The Conservative Woman publishes another reader’s response to the consultation on vaccine passports
• “Covid Fascism” – Inspired by Naomi Wolf’s The End of America, Omar S. Kahn looks at the growth of Covid autocracy around the world
• “I wanna break lockdown with you” – A Lockdown poem by Alison Banville in Off-Guardian
• “The passports to hell!” – “Surely Johnson and the British government have it in their power to say ‘no’ to vaccine passports,” says Roger Watson
• “The longest three weeks of our lives” – The latest episode of The Week in Review by Bournbrook looks back on the week gone by and on a year of madness
• “Why temperature checks aren’t just pointless… they’re dangerous!” – The Medical Minefield podcast for the Mail On Sunday examines why constant temperature checks are little more than Covid theatre and why some are warning that they may create a false sense of security. Read the Mail On Sunday report here
• “Foreign holidays ‘are unlikely to be legal until August’ amid warnings people booking trips sooner are ‘very optimistic‘” – The date for relaxing travel restrictions is slipping, MailOnline reports
• “Ministers to debate adding France to Covid quarantine ‘red list’” – A Cabinet sub-committee meeting on Tuesday is expected to to discuss tightening restrictions on arrivals from Europe, according to the Telegraph
• “5,000 music fans attend Barcelona gig after passing same-day coronavirus screening” – A Sky News report on the rock concert in Barcelona on Saturday, which was said to be the largest held in a year. The 5,000 fans all took same-day screening test for COVID-19, but still had to wear masks
• “Merkel wants German states to do more to curb infections” – Having U-turned on a planned lockdown, the German Chancellor is now urging individual states to introduce their own restrictions, according to Deutsche Welle
• “Amish community may have reached Covid ‘herd immunity,’ health official says” – An Amish community in Pennsylvania may have become the first in the USA to attain ‘herd immunity’, the New York Post reports. They complied with stay-at-home orders at the beginning, but “by late April, they had resumed worship services, where they shared communion cups and holy kisses”
• “GraceLife Church pastor returns to pulpit after jail time for breaching COVID-19 public health order” – The Edmonton Journal reports that the Pastor James Coates has been released
• “Maharashtra considers total lockdown as virus cases jump” – India’s richest state, Maharastra, is considering a lockdown after recording the highest one-day jump in coronavirus infections since last March, according to Reuters
• “Gender inequality concerns rise as more men head back to the office” – The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a survey which suggests that more men are returning to the office than women, fuelling concerns of gender inequality in the post-Covid world. Are they going to ask just men to stay at home?
• “‘It’s going to hurt more than anybody thinks it ever could’: Dire economic prediction issued” – Sky News Australia interviews financial strategist Harry Dent who is predicting a worldwide economic collapse
• “Japan’s new normal in suppressing the spread of COVID-19” – An unsettling piece of propaganda from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• “The seven-day average of Coronavirus deaths is now 62” – Politics For All points out that the number of people now dying from COVID-19 is the same as it was when we released nearly all restrictions last June