News Round Up

• “Classified study found COVID-19 could have originated in Chinese lab” – Abc7 reports an investigation conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a US biodefense research institution, which concluded that the virus may indeed have come from the lab. And in case you missed it, ex-New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade wrote a piece for Medium a couple of days ago floating the same hypothesis
• “How the UK’s Covid reopening has proved Imperial’s pessimistic modelling wrong” – The Telegraph‘s Sarah Knapton compares what the Imperial modelling said would happen with what actually has happened as the country reopens and marvels at Neil Ferguson’s pretence that he predicted it all
• “Disposable masks pose pollutants risk, study finds” – Researchers at Swansea University have found that disposable face masks could be releasing chemical pollutants and nanoplastics into the environment, the BBC reports
• “There’s a reason you’ve not seen your GP recently – and frankly it’s a scandal” – Writing in the Telegraph, Allison Pearson lays out the consequences of the ongoing reluctance of GPs to see patients in person
• “Baby boomer addiction to booze rose during lockdown… and even more people are having their first drink in the morning, study suggests” – New research by King’s College London has found that the number of boomers becoming heavy boozers has risen sharply during lockdown, according to the Daily Mail
• “Testing Times” – Sir Desmond Swayne MP weighs in on the madness of “test, test, test”
• “The ‘Nudge of the Week’ challenge” – Psychologist Dr. Gary Sidley launches a new game on his Coronababble blog: Who can spot the week’s most egregious ‘nudge’
• “Vaccinating children is a crime against humanity” – “To administer a new vaccine, developed with new technology, to an entire generation of our children for a disease which they need no treatment for and without knowing its longer-term side effects is unconscionable,” writes George Cooper for the Conservative Woman
• “Vaccine Passports are just a way for the regime to expand its power” – At the Mises Institute, Ryan McMaken rebuts Matthew Parris’s recent article in the Spectator which made a libertarian case for vaccine passports
• “A Cesspool of Insanity: The Sluice Gates of Covid” – Omar S. Khan’s latest piece was censored by Medium, so here it is again on his personal blog
• “Is India’s Covid death spike related to vaccination?” – The real story in India, argues Belinda Brown in the Conservative Woman, “lies not in the number of deaths but the suddenness with which they have occurred”
• “The funeral of our craven, spineless media” – “Lots of people are to blame for this wholly avoidable disaster,” writes James Delingpole in the Conservative Woman. “But definitely among the worst offenders in that rogues’ gallery of shame is our craven, spavined and spineless media”
• “With deaths at a nine-month low, why is Boris sticking to the roadmap?” – Toby asks the question of the moment on the Andrew Pierce Show on Mail+
• “There is no credible evidence of outdoor transmission” – A montage of various Government advisors explaining that there is almost zero threat of SARS-CoV-2 transmission outdoors, compiled by Sceptic Nurse
• “German ‘jab to freedom’ Covid bill criticised as unfair to young people” – The Guardian reports on Germany’s plans to return “basic rights” to vaccinated people, and those who have recovered from Covid, but not to the unvaccinated and those who’ve never had the virus
• “Manitoba pastor who openly defies pandemic restrictions tells court he has no authority to enforce rules” – In a court hearing challenging the right of the Government in Manitoba to impose public health restrictions, Pastor Tibias Tissen explained that he had no scriptural authority to limit numbers at a service or to enforce mask wearing, CBC reports
• “A letter from Canada: we’re handling Covid worse than you” – A letter to Americans by Brian Lee Crowley and Richard Audas in Spectator USA, conceding that Canada has fared worse when it comes to all-cause mortality and “the economic and human cost in lost jobs; the public debt burden facing future generations [and] the harm done by restrictive lockdown policies”
• “The COVID-19 Emergency Did Not Justify Lockdowns” – “Even if we grant, contrary to fact, that COVID-19 poses to humankind a threat that’s categorically unique, it does not follow that lockdowns are justified or even excusable,” says Donald J. Boudreaux in AIER
• “New Jersey Offers Free Beer to Every Resident Who Gets Vaccinated Against COVID-19” – Sputnik News reports on New Jersey’s “Shot and a Beer” programme, a campaign to encourage the young to get jabbed
• “Why Is There No Correlation Between Masks, Lockdowns, and Covid Suppression?” – An analysis of how the lockdown/mask narrative has failed on its own terms by Anthony Rozmajzl for Miseswire
• “Washington D.C. mayor bans dancing at weddings out of fear people will touch each other while reception capacity is capped at 25%” – Restrictions are being relaxed in Washington D.C. but standing and dancing at weddings is forbidden, says the Daily Mail. The Mayor’s office explained “that when people stand and dance their behaviour changes”
• “India’s Coronavirus emergency tells a story poorly understood” – “The crux of the problem in India is not the proportion of cases and deaths from Covid,” writes Ramesh Thakur on the Pearls and Irritations blog. “It is the lack of a fit-for-purpose public health infrastructure and medical supplies of equipment and drugs”
• “Why I’m Removing All Articles Related to Vitamins D, C, Zinc and COVID-19” – Dr. Joseph Mercola explains why he is deleting all his controversial pieces about Covid: he’s had enough of the aggressive censorship campaigns
• “Doom: Niall Ferguson on the Politics and Policies of the Pandemic” – Historian Niall Ferguson appears on Uncommon Knowledge to discuss his new book in which he shows that “by historic standards, COVID-19 is not a really massive disaster”
• “Covid 19: Asymptomatic Transmission” – Dr. Sam Bailey of New Zealand blows the lid on concept of asymptomatic transmission to justify population controls
• “Do you not realise how insane these restrictions are when yesterday one death was recorded from Covid?” – Julia Hartley-Brewer had quite the clash with Liz Truss yesterday when the Trade Secretary appeared to be advocating a Zero Covid strategy