News Round Up

• “Hundreds of people break lockdown rules to attend surprise gig by rapper AJ Tracey in Manchester” – The rapper announced on Twitter that he would do a surprise gig in Platt Fields park and huge numbers turned up, according to MailOnline
• “To understand the dangers of Covid passports, simply imagine an obesity equivalent” – The argument for vaccine passports could just as easily be applied to limiting the freedoms and choices of the overweight, says Sir Charles Walker MP in the Telegraph, which goes to show the dangers of handing such powers over to Government
• “The Government’s obsession with making us healthy will be the death of me” – More and more, the Government is treating us as “walking biological threats, rather than human beings”, writes Zoe Strimpel in the Telegraph
• “Consultation launched on staff COVID-19 vaccines in care homes with older adult residents” – The Government has launched a consultation on making the COVID-19 Jab mandatory for care home workers
• “Cancer research ‘could be delayed by two years’ due to coronavirus pandemic” – The search for new treatments has been slowed by the lockdowns, the Evening Standard reports
• “Covid advisor’s Cheltenham amnesia” – Steerpike of the Spectator notes that Susan Michie now says that she always thought the March 2020 Cheltenham racing festival should not have gone ahead, although she defended it at the time
• “Dr. Mike Yeadon on France Soir” – The former Scientific Director at Pfizer talks vaccines and vaccine passports with France Soir
• “Mayo coroner questions Nphet’s figures for Covid deaths” – The Irish Independent reports that the Mayo Coroner Patrick O’Connor believes the Covid death figures recorded by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) in Ireland “do not have a scientific basis”
• “Archbishops attack Stephen Donnelly’s ‘clandestine’ Mass ban” – Ireland’s four Catholic archbishops have said they are taking legal advice after the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly “clandestinely” outlawed public Mass, the Sunday Times reports
• “98% of French teachers say ‘non’ to AstraZeneca” – A mass vaccination centre in Nice has closed due to lack of demand, according to MailOnline
• “The failure of Germany’s coronavirus strategy” – Merkel is pushing for more powers for the federal government to contain Covid, Spiegel reports, but the states are pushing back
• “Guinea receives purchase of 300,000 Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines” – Guinea received the shipment yesterday, according to Reuters, and is expecting a donation of a further 200,000 shots in the near future
• “Plot Twist: Toronto police make no arrests, allow anti-lockdown protest to proceed” – Protestors gathered on Saturday at Queen’s Park in Toronto, the Post Millennial reports and, despite Premier Doug Ford’s lockdown orders, they were left alone by the police
• “As mask mandates end, Oregon bucks trend with permanent rule” – An Oregon health official is considering extending the masks and social distancing rules in the State indefinitely, according to AP News
• “How did top U.S. scientists get so much wrong about COVID-19?” – “Getting a grasp of an emerging virus is a tough task,” writes Joseph Curl in the Washington Times, “but that begs the question as to why so many people were declaring so many things – without knowing”
• “Pathogens in one lesson, courtesy of Sunetra Gupta” – Jeffrey A. Tucker of the AIER praises Pandemics: Our Fears and the Facts by the Oxford Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology
• “The dangers of pausing the J&J vaccine” – “To deny the J&J vaccine to older people is neither desirable nor necessary,” writes Professor Martin Kulldorff in the Hill
• “Wuhan officials identified Huanan market as a pandemic risk at least five years before Covid emerged” –  The Wuhan Centre for Disease Control took evolutionary biologist Dr. Eddie Holmes to the market, using it as an example of the type of place where animal to human transmission could occur, the Telegraph reports
• “Dr. Fauci says restrictions on liberties have ‘nothing to do with liberties’” – Dr. Fauci appeared on CNN after his fiery exchange with Rep. Jim Jordan to explain that Covid “is a public health issue”, and “not a civil liberties issue”
• “Dr. Roger Hodkinson summarises it all (again)” – Watch the Canadian pathologist deliver a very clear message for the Government of Alberta: “Open Up”
• “Jay Bhattacharya on variants, vaccine passports, and the future” – Dr. Jay Bhattacharya makes a guest appearance on the Tom Woods Show and talks about variants, YouTube censorship, vaccines and the problems with vaccine passports
• “Hundreds of entertainment workers gathered in Rome” – Euronews reports on the Italian showbiz protest against the lockdown restrictions