News Round Up

• “Face masks could be gone by summer as vaccines keep Covid at bay” – A report in the Telegraph claims Government advisors now think masks might go this Summer, as vaccines are now doing “a lot of the heavy lifting”
• “Rise in blood clots forces vaccine chiefs to ponder alternative to AstraZeneca for under-40s” – The latest data on blood clots is prompting vaccine authorities to consider giving the under-40s an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab, the Telegraph reports
• “UK COVID-19 Update: R Number Increases but Infection rates fall” – The R Number has increased a little according to Medscape, but there’s been no corresponding resurgence in infections
• “Exposure risk of COVID-19 indoors is the same at six feet and 60 feet” – The Daily Mail reports new research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which suggests that social distancing indoors might not be all that worthwhile
• “Booster jabs to battle new coronavirus strains will be ready by September” – Oxford experts Professor Andrew Pollard reckons the booster jabs will be with us by Autumn, the Daily Mail reports, but the current vaccines will provide some protection
• “Students have been wronged – we deserve a refund” – “After three years and tens of thousands of pounds, I cannot even collect my degree certificate in person,” writes Sabrina Miller in the Telegraph. “A refund really is the least we can ask”
• “Call to lift the care home quarantine” – The Relatives and Residents’ Association is calling for blanket 14 day quarantine for care home residents who venture outside to be lifted, Care Management Matters reports
• “Test and Trace is watching you…” – We may be heading “to the creation of a surveillance society”, says Lucy Wyatt in the Conservative Woman, “with Test and Trace just the beginning of an excuse to monitor us all”
• “Non-vaccinated, non-person” – “Covid vaccine passports are on the way,” writes Kathy Gyngell at the Conservative Woman, and she urges all to watch a France 24 report into how they’re working out in Israel
• “Doctors Without Facts: Médecins Sans Frontières gets it wrong on Brazil” – According to MSF, Brazil’s COVID-19 situation is the result of its failure to implement mask mandates and social distancing. Harry Dougherty points out that Brazil’s excess mortality rate, though high, is not as high as in some countries that have adopted such policies
• “Covid’s IFR just keeps dropping” – Kit Knightley notes in Off-Guardian that estimates for Covid’s Infection Fatality Rate keep falling, from the WHO’s first calculation of 3.4% last year to Professor John Ioannidis’s recent paper which put it at 0.15%
• “Solace, hope and even joy” – This week’s Irreverend podcast looks into Boris Johnson’s recent doom-mongering, asking “is he a ‘floundering buffoon’, a puppet or something even more sinister?”
• “Parliamentarians in favour of first lockdown relaxations” – Most members of the Netherlands House of Representatives are in favour of the planned easing of lockdown on April 28th, the NL Times reports, even though the Outbreak Management Team from the Health Department think its a bit too early
• “‘Short sharp’ lockdown from April 26th to May 9th” – The Cyprus Mail reports that the island is to go into a fresh lockdown on Monday. Once it is lifted, visitors to crowded venues will need to have had a negative test, a vaccine, or to have had the illness within the last six months. It is unclear whether this will include supermarkets
• “Greek police set up checkpoints, turn back Easter travellers” – According to Euronews, police have set up checkpoints around Athens to stop people leaving the city for Orthodox Easter, as infection rates are still too high for the Government to allow free travel
• “Israel and Bahrain hail ‘world’s first’ deal for mutual COVID-19 vaccine passport scheme” – The two countries have struck an accord to recognise each other’s vaccine documentation and are heralding it as the “first of its kind”, RT reports
• “Texas Attorney General sues Biden administration over COVID-19 risk at southern border amid migrant surge” – Fox News reports that Texas Attorney General Kim Paxton is suing the Biden administration for allowing large numbers of migrants to cross the border, thereby encouraging the spread of Covid
• “14 Months Later: A Pathway Forward” – A route back to normality, set out Paul E. Alexander, Howard C. Tenenbaum, and Dr. Parvez Dara for the AIER
• “Three months before Olympics, Japan declares ‘short’ emergency in Tokyo” – Japan has declared a “short and powerful” state of emergency in Tokyo and Osaka, Reuters reports. The Prime Minister says the country will take measures to ensure the Olympic can go ahead this Summer
• “Perth lockdown for three days will see Anzac Day services cancelled” – Covid has once again found its way past the border quarantines, ABC reports
• “These brave doctors are upholding their Hippocratic oath and putting patients – Not Profits – first” – A video from the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance featuring doctors speaking out about the benefits of Ivermectin
• “Track coach fired over masks” – Tom Woods interviews Brad Keyes, who lost his position at New Hampshire’s Pembroke Academy when he refused to make his athletes wear masks while racing outdoors
• “This is art” – German social media was set alight on Thursday, according to Spiegel, by the publication of a series of videos of celebrities delivering short reflections about Covid policies, most laced with irony. For instance, the actor Jan Josef Liefers thanked the media for doing its bit in keeping the panic right where it belongs at the top of the news agenda. A few more are available with subtitles on Dr Simon’s twitter feed, and many more are available here if your German is up to it