News Round Up

• “Enjoy freedom… but don’t overdo it!” – Boris is urging Brits to ‘behave responsibly’ as they head out to shops and beer gardens today, the Daily Mail reports
• “Covid third wave no longer expected in the summer, government advisers admit” – Government scientists have conceded that Britain is unlikely to see a surge of infections over the summer, the Telegraph reports, despite the gloomy modelling submitted to SAGE at the end of March
• “More than half of people in England living in areas with almost no new Covid cases” – The infection rate is now so low in many parts of the country that Public Health England has been redacting the weekly tally of cases to protect the privacy of people who test positive, according to the Telegraph
• “Come what may, the roadmap must not be delayed” – “Cases may well rise when more restrictions are eased,” says an editorial in the Telegraph, “but now the vulnerable have been vaccinated, that must not get in the way of unlocking”
• “Shutting up shop: high street names we’ll see no more” – As non-essential retail reopens, the Observer has published a round-up of some of the big high street names that have gone out of business as a result of the lockdowns
• “Fancy a pint? You’d better have booked it long ago” – Some might struggle to get into a pub garden for a spontaneous drink, according to the Sunday Times. Many venues are fully booked for weeks
• “Why I will not be returning to the pub next week” – “The conditions for drinkers next week are far removed from the convivial and relaxed atmosphere of this British institution,” says Niall McCrae at the Unity News Network
• “Covid-status certificates could lead to deliberate infections, scientists warn” – Government scientific advisors are warning that ‘Covid Status Certificates’ might encourage some to get themselves infected on purpose so they can obtain proof of antibodies, according to the Guardian
• “Villages near Salisbury want Novichok litter-pick ban to end” – The BBC reported last week that villages near Salisbury are calling for an end to the litter pick ban which was put in place after the Novichok attack in 2018 and, per the very cautious advice of Public Health England, is still in force three years later
• “EU commissioner takes another jab jibe at UK” – The Spectator’s Steerpike responds to Thiery Breton’s assertion that Britain is “largely dependent on the EU for its vaccination campaign”
• “The inequality pandemic” – The cost of lockdowns and other Covid containment measures has harmed the poorest most, says Özgür Polat in the Brussels Times
• “Increased sunlight exposure linked to reduced coronavirus death risk” – The Jerusalem Post reports on research that suggests people who live in sunnier areas may have a lower risk of succumbing to COVID-19
• “Iran enforces 10-day lockdown amid fourth wave of pandemic” – The Associated Press report that Iran has begun a 10-day lockdown that will see most shops closed and offices restricted to one-third capacity in cities declared to be ‘red zones’
• “Burbank puts fence around restaurant to stop anti-lockdown owner from serving customers” – The Tinhorn Flats Saloon & Grill in Burbank, California has been fenced off by authorities after it repeatedly refused to obey orders to shut down, according to the Daily Mail
• “The damage of lockdowns to young people” – Writing for AIER, Ethan Yang details the damage lockdown policies has done to young people, including increased incidents of suicidal thoughts, skyrocketing anxiety and setbacks to their education and career prospects
• “Will Covid hysterics ever let our children live normal lives?” – For more than a year, children “have suffered from irrational, unscientific and downright superstitious policies inflicted upon them by adults”, says Karol Markowicz in the New York Post, “and there is no end in sight”
• “Top U.S. diplomat criticises China, says ‘need to get to the bottom’ of COVID-19 origin” – US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said that it is important to “get to the bottom” of the origins of Covid, arguing that China’s failure to provide global health experts with proper access to the country last January made the pandemic worse than it needed to be
• “India bans export of Remdesivir COVID-19 treatment drug” – Authorities in India ordered the embargo, according to Deutsche Welle, after rising Covid infections led to increased internal demand for the antiviral drug
• “China considers blending vaccines to bolster effectiveness” – According to the Irish Times, China is considering mixing and matching different vaccines after the head of the country’s centre for disease control admitted its domestically produced jabs are not very effective
• “‘The right path’– Chile defends Sinovac use amid fresh efficacy questions” – Reuters reports that Chilean authorities have defended its use of Sinovac, saying that the number of hospitalisations has fallen
• “The secret COVID-19 death toll figure that had the NSW government terrified” – The Government in New South Wales, Australia was given an alarming warning back in March last year, based on modelling, that 25,000 people could die from Covid in the state, the Sydney Morning Herald reports
• “Le Retour! Danser Encore” – We will dance again! The flash mob returned to Paris’s Gare de l’Est
• “We can expect a large number of preprints and papers reporting ‘breakthrough infections’” – Professor Francois Balloux has written a twitter thread on the likely scare stories about Covid strains that “break through” vaccine-mediated immunity and why they should be taken with a pinch of salt