News Round Up

• “Boris Johnson to push ahead with reopening despite rise in Indian variant cases” – The Prime Minister is set to push ahead with Monday’s easing of restrictions, the Telegraph says, hoping that a local surge in vaccinations can suppress the Indian variant
• “Ten Million over-50s and vulnerable people in Indian variant hotspot towns will get urgent second doses” – Anxiety about the Indian variant has prompted an acceleration of the vaccine rollout, according to the Daily Mail, with Public Health England’s medical director Dr Yvonne Doyle saying: “Hospitalisations continue to fall, which shows the vaccine is working”
• “Every patient to have right to see a GP as NHS abandons ‘total triage’” – The NHS has stepped back from plans to use online and telephone screening and has announced that all patients will have the right to see their GP face-to-face, the Telegraph reports
• “Allow Care Home Residents Home Visits without Need for 14-day Self-isolation” – John’s Campaign is calling on the Government to take the next step in easing the restrictions on care home residents and drop all requirements for 14-day self-isolation
• “Covid passport plans ‘scaled back’ as ministers question health benefits” – According to the Telegraph, plans for Covid passports are being scaled back and are “unlikely to be required for cinemas, small theatres or restaurants”
• “The HART Bulletin” – The latest news from the Health Advisory and Recovery Team
• “Britons are left behind in race to sun loungers as other European nations waive tests and quarantine for vaccinated travellers” – Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all dispensed with quarantine and test requirements for vaccinated visitors, according to the Daily Mail, but Portugal will ban British tourists until at least May 30th
• “Nicola Sturgeon advisor Devi Sridhar’s warning after sudden surge in Covid cases” – Scottish doom monger Professor Devi Shridhar has warned Supreme Leader Nic Sturge-On not to open the border because of the Indian variant, Edinburgh Live reports
• “We really need an inquiry into how SAGE forced Britain into lockdown” – “Time is running out to learn the real lessons of the Covid response,” says Fraser Nelson in a sceptical piece about lockdowns for the Telegraph. “The virus (or another lurgy) might be back with us this winter”
• “Covid vaccines have already saved 12,000 lives and prevented 33,000 hospital admissions, Public Health England study claims” – The Daily Mail reports Public Health England research which suggests that the jabs have saved 11,700 deaths in those aged 60 and older from December up to April. Not the lockdown, then, Boris?
• “Every Brit ‘needs to drink 124 pints’ to save the nation’s pubs after lockdown” – Brits have a lot of drinking to do, the Star suggests, if the industry is to get back to pre-pandemic income levels – although, mercifully, that’s 124 pints in the next 12 months
• “Will our vaccines stop the Indian variant?” – In the Spectator, Ross Clark points to some evidence which suggests that while the Indian variant “has some ability to sidestep vaccines, the high level of vaccination in Britain should still prevent a new wave of serious disease here”
• “Lockdown was a choice” – “Agree with the policy if you like,” says Tom Moran in the Critic, “but you can’t argue Lockdown harms were caused by Covid”
• “Covid sceptics aren’t as stupid as we thought, say experts” – Gawain Towler looks into the MIT researchers who were taken aback by the data literacy of lockdown and mask sceptics in the U.S. for the Conservative Woman. Noah Carl covered it for Lockdown Sceptics here
• “Vaccination, thalidomide and the lessons unlearned” – Kate Dunlop tells the story of thalidomide, “the disaster was meant to change our relationship with new medicines for ever”, in the Conservative Woman
• “The Return of our Swedish Doctor, explaining it all!” – Sebastian Rushworth MD appears on Ivor Cummins’s Fat Emperor podcast to talk about his new book and the latest developments in Sweden
• “Nonsense on stilts” – Nick Stokes is this week’s guest on the Telegraph‘s Planet Normal podcast. His wife Joy died a few weeks ago after signs of her cancer were missed as she was repeatedly refused a face-to-face appointment
• “James and Laura’s Chinwag #20” – James Delingpole and Laura Perrins are at it again, giving “it both barrels on the subject of the lockdown and Boris Johnson’s useless regime”
• “Our moment of liberty is coming to an end” – “Things are not going to get back to normal,” says Dan Hannan, “the political and psychological changes wrought by COVID-19 will last long after the virus has faded”
• “French MPs take a swing at Covid-easing as sex clubs allowed to reopen but nightclubs remain closed” – Euronews reports that the country’s swingers’ clubs will be permitted to reopen on May 19th but its nightclubs are likely to remain shut until July. Go figure!
• “German police warn of fake Covid vaccine passport problem” – Police in Germany have said that criminals have begun selling illicit proof of vaccination, Deutsche Welle reports, after the country lifted some lockdown requirements for those who have been jabbed. Who could have predicted that?
• “Canadian Doctors Are Being Censored” – The AIER’s Ethan Yang highlights Canada’s growing enthusiasm for censoring doctors, including on edict from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario which warns doctors they have a “professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements”
• “Ohio Lottery to Give five People $1 Million Each to Encourage Vaccination” – Aiming to bolster slumping demand for the vaccine, the state of Ohio will use federal coronavirus relief funds to make millionaires out of five vaccine lottery winners, the New York Times reports. But will launching a state-wide “vaccine lottery” really reassure people the vaccines are safe?
• “Bill de Blasio pitches free burgers, fries with COVID-19 shot” – The mayor of New York City has teamed up with the fast food chain Shake Shack to offer a greasy treat to get people to take the vaccine, the Washington Times reports
• “Let’s demand a recount… of Covid deaths” – “America has inflated the death rate due to SARS-CoV-2,” writes Dr. Thomas T. Siler M.D. in the American Thinker and “this dishonesty undermines public confidence in how the pandemic was managed”
• “American Kids Can Wait” – Writing in the Atlantic, Tracy Beth Hoeg, Vinay Prasad and Monica Gandhi argue that America should hold off vaccinating its children and allow the doses to be deployed in hard hit regions overseas
• “Made in Vietnam: why Hanoi wants to make its own vaccine” – One of the only nations in the region to effectively rebuff Chinese vaccine diplomacy, Vietnam is, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, developing not just one vaccine but four
• “Gov. DeSantis grants clemency to Florida business owners arrested for not enforcing masks” – Watch the next President of the United States announce on Fox’s The Ingraham Angle that he is going to grant pardons “for any Floridian that may have outstanding infractions for things like masks and social distancing”
• “There was a religious belief that lockdowns and facemasks work” – Professor Sunetra Gupta is pleased that there is to be an inquiry and hopes that “it will finally plant in people’s head the notion that there are very big questions surrounding some of these mitigation strategies