News Round-Up

• “Boris Johnson and Joe Biden agree new ‘Atlantic Charter’” – Boris Johnson and Joe Biden today are publishing a new ‘Atlantic Charter’ setting out their joint vision for the world’s recovery post-pandemic, MailOnline reports. What’s the betting it includes the phrase “build back better”?
• “Global Britain is ‘shut for business’, warns Theresa May” – The former Prime Minister has warned that “incomprehensible” travel restrictions are costing jobs and crippling the country, says the Telegraph
• “COVID-19: Record high hospital waiting list in England as 5.1 million need treatment” – NHS England data shows that the number of people waiting a year to start treatment is 35 times higher than in 2020, according to Sky News
• “Britain hit by Monkeypox: Two patients in Wales catch virus” – While giving evidence to MPs yesterday about the Government’s response to Covid, Matt Hancock mentioned that there had been two cases of the Monkeypox virus confirmed in the U.K., MailOnline reports
• “Euro 2020 will be exempt from lockdown rules if Freedom Day delayed” – The Euro 2020 games are set to proceed with crowds of up to 45,000 even if the final unlocking is delayed, according to MailOnline
• “£1.5bn worth of PPE bought by government not fit for use in hospitals” – Officials have admitted that the Government bought almost three billion items of PPE that are not fit to be used in the NHS, the Times reports
• “Mum claims second dose of Covid vaccine left her mute” – Sofia Gomes, a mother of six, lost her voice just hours after receiving her second AstraZeneca jab, Metro reports
• “The third wave: it’s here – but it shouldn’t delay our reopening” – “There is no point delaying reopening, because a landmark has been reached,” writes Philip Thomas in the Spectator. “COVID-19 has been downgraded into a nasty bug which is now no more lethal than viruses such as influenza”
• “The beast of inflation is stalking the land again” – “After half a century during which it has slept quietly, inflation has re-emerged blinking into the post-pandemic light,” writes Bank of England economist Andy Haldane for the New Statesman
• “SAGE wants this madness to carry on… forever!” – “Professor Michie’s face-masks-forever views are cruel and oughtn’t to infest our Government for a moment longer,” writes Michael Curzon in Bournbrook
• “There can now be no question about the Government’s timeline for opening up. June 21st must stand” – The Rt Hon Dr Andrew Murrison MP offers ConservativeHome some “learnings” for handling a pandemic, based on his experience leading military vaccination teams in London and the South West
• “Farewell to Freddie” – In the latest post on his Lockdown Satire blog, Andy Lambeth imagines the End of Year Student Awards at Fulkin Hill Secondary School where students, parents and staff remember Freddie, who bravely stepped forward to do his bit in the vaccination campaign. He was one in a million
• “The Innova tests: another Covid scandal in the making? Part 2” – Sonia Elijah examines the mounting evidence of the inadequacy of the Innova lateral flow tests in the second instalment of her three-part investigation for the Conservative Woman
• “Diary of a plague rat” – “Going to restaurants or bars at the moment is a miserable experience,” says Liz Hodgkinson in the Conservative Woman. “I am glad that they have re-opened for indoor service, but things are far from being back to normal”
• “Debunked, the myth of asymptomatic Covid transmission” – Panda’s Abir Ballan and Helen Tindall run through the evidence which shows that the overall likelihood of asymptomatic individuals “transmitting the disease to others is negligible”
• “I’m not given to hyperbole, but the coming week is one of the most important in British history – if not the most important” – “If COVID-19 ‘Freedom Day’ on June 21st is postponed, as seems likely, and the public complies with it, Britain will never return to normal,” says Neil Clark in RT
• “Is the EUDCC different from a vaccine passport or green pass?” – The practical details of the EU’s Digital Covid Certificate, which launches on July 1st, courtesy of Euronews
• “Tests and quarantines cannot become the ‘new normal’ for travel, say airlines” – The Airlines4Europe group is calling for the gradual lifting of restrictions on travel within the EU, the Brussels Times reports
• “Individual tourists to be allowed into Israel starting July 1st” – “Vaccinated individual tourists are going to be allowed in Israel starting from July 1st,” the Jerusalem Post reports. Vaccinated travellers only, not those who have had the disease and recovered, and they will need to present their vaccine certificate and the results of a PCR test before boarding the plane
• “Johnson & Johnson CEO says people will likely need Covid vaccine with annual flu shot for next several years as variants spread” – Alex Gorsky, the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, said Wednesday that people will likely need to receive Covid vaccine doses alongside the flu shot for the next “several years”, CNBC reports
• “Covid Vaccine should not be Mandatory or Termination!” – A Change.org petition set up by staff of Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas to protest against their employer’s ‘No Jab, No Job’ policy
• “Green for hugs, red for no touching: US events introduce pandemic colour coding” – With Covid restrictions continuing to ease, event hosts have been giving out red, yellow and green stickers to help guests communicate their boundaries, the Guardian reports
• “Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America” – “We were right about the China Virus from the beginning,” the former President’s statement reads. “This is why the Chinese Communist Party should pay $10 Trillion in global reparations”
• “Looking Deeper Into the New York Times‘ China-Lockdown Excitement” – Though not one for conspiracy theory, Jeffrey Tucker cannot help but wonder, if the New York Times’ reporting on the latest lockdown in China “is not just theatre to scare the Americans into locking down yet again”, he says in RealClearMarkets
• “Skull and crossbones sign given to unvaccinated in rural India” – According to Reuters, police in rural India have handed out signs with the colours of the Indian flag saying “I am a Nationalist” to people who have been jabbed, and skull and crossbones signs saying “Do not come near me, I am not vaccinated. Please stay away from me” to the rest
• “China approves seventh self-developed COVID-19 vaccine, can cross-neutralise variants” – The new vaccine was developed by the Institute of Medical Biology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, according to China’s Global Times, and will take the country’s vaccine production capacity to six billion per year
• “Covid Victoria restrictions explained: new coronavirus rules for regional Vic as Melbourne lockdown ends” – Residents of Victoria are being released from a circuit breaker lockdown to be faced with a whole new plethora of Covid restrictions, detailed here in the Guardian
• “Orwell in Danandrewstan” – “George Orwell must be looking down on the state of Victoria, rueing his lack of imagination,” James Macpherson reckons, writing for Spectator Australia
• “So what about Sweden, huh?” – Writing for the Spectator Australia, Ramesh Thakur argues that Sweden continues to show that lockdowns were no solution to COVID-19
• “Why the risk is not applicable to those arriving on diplomatic passports?” – wonders Julia Hartley-Brewer, a little confused as to why Covid travel restrictions should not apply to people attending the G7 summit in Cornwall today. International Trade Minister Greg Hands did not seem to know either