News Round Up

• “Why the models warning of a third UK Covid wave are flawed” – The Telegraph highlights the faulty assumptions that lie behind the modelling from Imperial College, Warwick University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that suggests a release from lockdown could lead to a third wave in hospital admissions just like January’s
• “Are we at risk of another Covid wave?” – Ross Clark does the same for the Spectator, pointing out, as Glen Bishop did yesterday for Lockdown Sceptics, that the models under-estimate vaccine efficacy
• “The PM’s caution is hard to justify” – A Telegraph leader column, criticising Boris’s excessive caution
• “The chilling truth is we may never be permitted to return to normality” – “We are all going to pay far too high a price for this expensive and ill-conceived scheme,” says Philip Johnston in the Telegraph
• “This perverse plan for twice-weekly Covid tests will spark fear-mongering and anxiety” – Nationwide mass testing “will cost untold billions and lead to new bouts of fear-mongering and anxiety”, says Dr John Lee in the Daily Mail
• “We must never forget the Old Normal” – “Supporters of lockdown want us to forget that we once lived freely,” writes Professor David McGrogan in Spiked. We must not do that
• “SNP open to voting for Covid passports in England” – Ian Blackford has told the Telegraph that SNP MPs may vote for Covid status checks in England, arguing that they are justified to, er, protect the Scots
• “Pubs and clubs attack UK Covid passport scheme” – The UK’s largest nightclub operator and three nationwide pub chains are criticising vaccine passports as “undemocratic, unworkable and unfair to younger people”, the Guardian reports
• “What is the question to which vaccine passports are the answer?” –  “The more you ponder the Parliamentary arithmetic,” writes Paul Goodman in Conservative Home, “the more you see why more mass testing is likely to happen and why a state-run vaccine passport scheme is not”
• “Universities angry at PM’s failure to include reopening plan in Covid roadmap” – The Guardian reports that universities still don’t know when they will be permitted to welcome all their students back
• “We agreed to be part of the ‘Event Research Programme’ in early March” – A statement from the Hot Water Comedy Club, explaining that they agreed to take part in a research project to support the case for reopening, not in a vaccine passport trial
• “Teenage Nightmare” – An account of the impact of lockdown restrictions on teenagers’ mental health by April, a teenage blogger
• “Covid passports go against the purpose of the vaccine itself – to secure our freedoms” – “Asking a free citizen to produce a vaccine passport to order a pint of beer in a pub negates the very idea of a free citizen,” writes SDP leader William Clouston in Bournbrook
• “Death rates plunge but Project Fear is still on the rise” – “The fear and panic of 12 months ago was at least understandable when it looked as if we might have an uncontrollable and deadly virus pandemic on our hands,” says Peter Lloyd in the Conservative Woman. But the data is telling a different story now
• “Theatres and live gigs must not bow down to perpetual Covid tyranny” – Too much Covid caution will kill the arts and culture sector, argues Ella Whelan in the Telegraph
• “Michael Gove asked Telegraph readers for their views on vaccine passports, here’s what they had to say” – The Telegraph has published some of its readers’ responses to Michael Gove’s article on Sunday soliciting their views on the vaccine passports debate. No prizes for guessing which side they’re on
• “EU’s data watchdogs warn against risks of vaccine passports” – The European Union’s data regulators have warned that plans to introduce vaccine passports “must protect data and shouldn’t be applied beyond the current pandemic”, Bloomberg reports
• “German CDU chair Armin Laschet calls for harder lockdown” – According to the Deutsche Welle, Armin Laschet is calling for a “bridge lockdown” – a hard lockdown until people are vaccinated. But his proposal has been met with some scepticism by political opponents
• “Restaurant owners clash with police in Rome lockdown protest” – The Associated Press reports on anti-lockdown protests in Rome
• “Why can’t we be like the Land of the Free?” – America is currently a land of almost “limitless travel, full sports stadiums and thronging bars” writes Tom Leonard in the Daily Mail
• “If you had Covid, do you need the vaccine?” – A deep dive into the evidence by Dr. Paul E. Alexander, Dr. Howard C Tenenbaum and Dr. Parvez Dara for AIER, concluding that “immunity caused by natural exposure remains the most robust and durable and successful manner to protect the population”
• “New York’s vaccine passport programme Is already failing” – “Liberty advocates, rejoice,” says Jordan Schachtal. The New York State “Excelsior Pass” has so many issues that it would not be surprising if it was scrapped by the end of the year
• “Vaccine passports prolong lockdowns” – Vaccine passports may sound “like a way of easing coercive lockdown restrictions, but it’s the opposite”, say Professors Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya in the Wall Street Journal. In fact, “the passport idea depends on keeping the underlying restrictions in place”
• “Masks Seriously Harm Children’s Linguistic Development” – Children learn to make words and sounds by observing the mouth, teeth and tongue, specialist Meghan Mansell points out in this AIER discussion with Dr. Naomi Wolf
• “Can we trust the government’s roadmap out of lockdown?” – Ian Collins is not sure on his talkRADIO show yesterday