News Round Up

• “Up to 30 countries could be on ‘green’ list for early summer holidays” – A ray of sunshine from the Telegraph this morning. Let’s hope it’s true
• “Government foot-dragging threatens to wreck a glorious summer of sport and music” – Just when you were beginning to feel cheerful, Iain Duncan Smith pops up on the Telegraph‘s comments pages to sound a note of caution
• “Risk of suffering serious blood clot after AstraZeneca jab doubles in fortnight” – New data from MHRA reveals that the risk of getting a blood clot from the AZ vaccine has gone up from one in 250,000 to around one in 126,600 – or a rise of four in a million to 7.9 in a million, the Telegraph reports
• “Covid vaccines will cut transmission” – A major new study by Oxford University suggests that vaccines are cutting infection rates, according to the Daily Mail
• “There’s a conspiracy of silence among politicians about the hidden victims of lockdown” – “Twenty thousand pupils seem to have vanished from school rolls,” writes Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph. But no one is in a hurry to find them
• “Social distancing rules for hospitality ‘a good way off’ being lifted in Scotland, Chief Medical Officer warns” – According to the Telegraph, Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Gregor Smith thinks that the “proportionate” one-metre rule will be in place for a good while yet in Scotland’s bars and restaurants
• “What Johan Giesecke missed out” – Professor Martin Kulldorff felt there were a few important issues missing from UnHerd’s interview with Johan Giesecke
• “Pubs and restaurants need rational and evidence-based policy” – Hugh Osmond, the founder of Punch Taverns, explains in the Times why he and Sacha Lord are taking the Government to court over Covid regulations
• “Emergency Covid powers are becoming routine, warns ex-legal chief” – Sir Jonathan Jones QC told a committee of MPs that the Government has fallen into “bad habits” in its use of emergency powers, the Law Gazette reports
• “The Covidian Cult (Part II)” – Writing for Off-Guardian, C.J. Hopkins considers how the Covidian Cult became the dominant culture
• “Why is the BBC plugging Covid vaccine in pregnancy before trials are complete?” – The BBC’s Woman’s Hour jumped the gun, “dispelling fears” about the vaccine’s effect on pregnancy and women’s fertility before the trials were completed, writes Sally Beck in the Conservative Woman
• “The HART Bulletin” – The latest update from the Health Advisory and Recovery Team, covering mortality risk from COVID-19, vaccines for the pregnant, the risk of reinfection and more
• “We are so screwed” – Watch Dan Hannan tell the House of Lords that “the world into which we emerge from lockdowns will be poorer, colder, more pinched, more authoritarian”
• “COVID-19 curbs divide Italy’s coalition parties” – Italy’s National Unity Government is split over the country’s exit from lockdown, Reuters reports
• “The Vaccination Craze” (pdf) – A free preview of Corona Unmasked. New Facts and Figures, a book by Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi and Dr. Karina Reiss that’s being published on May 10th
• “Rollout of electronic bracelets to start in May” – According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel is going to start rolling out its electronic bracelets next month to ensure that incoming airline passengers comply with quarantine rules
• “Vaccinating everybody may not help Africa” – A mass global vaccine effort is “a classic case of medical colonialism” says Toby Green in UnHerd, “where rich countries bulldoze poorer ones into submitting to their public health goals”
• “Was Tanzania vindicated on Covid testing claims?” – President Magufuli was ridiculed when he abandoned testing after his “trials allegedly showed fruit juice and engine oil testing positive for the virus”, writes Sonja Elija in News Africa. But his refusal to place Tanzania under lock down now seems like the right call
• “Covid lockdown cost/benefits: A critical assessment of the literature” (pdf) – A working paper by Canadian economist Douglas W. Allen of Simon Fraser University which argues that “it is possible that lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history”
• “Fauci has chalked up 300+ media appearances over past year” – “For decades, Anthony Fauci was an unrecognisable Government bureaucrat,” writes Jordan Schachtel. “That all changed with the COVID-19 pandemic”
• “Not Even Gretchen Whitmer Wants More of the CDC’s Lockdowns” – Michigan has the fastest growing Covid caseload in the US, but as Ryan McMaken points out in Mises Wire, the Governor is resisting calls to impose a stay-at-home order
• “Vaccines should be available for all and mandatory for none” – “Vaccine passports could mark the crossing of the final frontier into a dystopia with no exit,” says Professor Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia
• “Fact-checking Covid vaccine experts” – A New Zealand vaccine expert claimed that “the risk of blood clot was 165,000 times higher after having COVID-19, compared to the risk after having the AstraZeneca jab”. Simon Thornley does a fact check for Covid Plan B, the Kiwi sceptics group
• “It’s not the mandates that matter, it’s behaviour” – Dr. Fauci was asked why Texas has a lower rate of infection than states with lockdowns. His explanation: “There is a difference between lockdown and people obeying the lockdown”