News Round-Up

• “Boris to delay June 21st lockdown lift until July 19th as Delta variant triples in week” – According to the Sun, Boris Johnson is set to delay “freedom day” to July 19th, with the possibility that restrictions could be dropped on July 5th if hospitalisations stay low
• “We’ll quash future ‘zoonotic’ pandemics within 100 days, vow G7 leaders” – The Carbis Bay Declaration, drawn up at the G7 meeting, will see the world’s leading democracies commit to a series of measures that are designed to quash future pandemics within the first 100 days, the Telegraph reports. These include a new animal vaccine development centre at Pitbright Institute in Surrey that will aim to stop viruses leaping into the human population. What could possibly go wrong?
• “Police test positive for Covid at G7 summit” – Police officers working at the G7 summit in Cornwall are self-isolating after one of their colleagues tested positive for COVID-19, ITV reports
• “Tony Blair urges Boris Johnson to consider jab-related restrictions” – Tony Blair has urged Boris Johnson to “look again” at “distinguishing” between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in order to save his June 21st Freedom Day, according to MailOnline, and he insists that it would not be discriminatory because people choose whether or not to get the jab
• “Covid passports will be discriminatory and must be scrapped, say MPs” – A Cross-party group of MPs has warned that the Covid passports set to be used by Sports fans at the Euro 2020 match on Sunday will “disproportionately discriminate” based on race, religion, age and socio-economic background, according to the Guardian
• “Lamborghinis almost sold out amid post-lockdown revenge spending spree” – After spending a year at home, some have decided to buy themselves a treat such as a nice luxury car, the Telegraph reports. Apparently this year’s supply of Lamborghini cars is almost sold out
• “Commencing Legal Action to Protect Children from Harm” – A fundraiser for a legal challenge against the vaccination of children under the age of 16
• “Treatment of care home residents is ‘cruel and grotesque’” – The Express reports on a John’s Campaign legal action against the “damaging and grotesque” care home quarantine rules
• “How serious is Britain’s third wave?” – We keep being told that “the link between Covid cases and hospitalisations has been broken”, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator, but looking at the data he finds it is not “entirely clear whether or not hospitalisations are tracking infections in the way they were during previous waves”
• “Why are GPs still not seeing patients in person?” – “The number of face-to-face appointments is way down,” writes Max Pemberton in the Spectator. “This is not driven by patient demand: it’s a downgrade of a vital public service”
• “The ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ horror shows we need to get out of lockdown to get back our humanity” – “Learning to live with Covid means learning to live without it being the alibi for near-criminal neglect of the elderly,” says Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph
• “Lockdown is the biggest single mistake in world history” – The continued lockdown is the “biggest mistake in world history”, the Archaeologist Neil Oliver says, speaking to the Herald Magazine. “Whoever lockdown has saved, I think by an order of magnitude others have been hurt”
• “The problem with Covid models” – “We should no longer let Covid policy be guided by the most pessimistic modelling,” says Rob Lyons at Spiked
• “Child Sacrifice and deception in the time of the Covidians” – “A future historian may compare the superstition of the Aztec to those of the Covidian,” writes Michael Driver for the Conservative Woman. “The ridiculous masks, the ineffective lockdowns, the cult-like obedience to authority”
• “Join the drive to halt child vaccination” – A message from the UsForThem campaign, published by the Conservative Woman, about how readers can support the campaign against vaccinating children
• “Vaccine, through the distorted lens of Channel 4” – Harry Dougherty takes issue with the Channel 4 programme The Anti-Vax Conspiracy which, he says, “lumped the Covid vaccine debate in with the MMR fiasco, a quite separate issue”
• “How COVID-19 news works: the fourth estate has become a fifth column” – “The headlines never tell the whole story,” writes Roger Watson in Unity News Network. “In fact, they often tell the wrong story”
• “Hearing our Fears” – Laura Dodsworth joins Revs Jamie and Tom for the latest Irreverend podcast, discussing her book and the issues that arise from it, including the Church’s response. Rev Jamie Franklin has written some reflections on their conversation here
• “EU countries agree Covid vaccine scheme – excluding Britons” – People who have been fully vaccinated for 14 days should be able to travel freely from one EU country to another, according to a proposal approved by ambassadors from the 27 members, the Mail says
• “Only for children with certain pre-conditions” – Stiko, Germany’s vaccination commission, has recommended Covid jabs for children between the ages of 12 and 17 who have certain pre-existing conditions, tagesschau reports, but not otherwise
• “Did the hospitals lie about the intensive care beds?” – BZ Berlin summarises the fresh scandal brewing in Germany where a report of the Federal Court of Auditors suggests that hospitals have been underestimating the availability of intensive care beds, a key number in justifying lockdowns, and that the Government knew about it back in January
• “Italy halts AstraZeneca vaccine for under-60s” – The Italian Government is limiting the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to people over the age of 60, according to Reuters, after a teenager who had received the shot died from a rare form of blood clotting
• “Pakistan province to block phones of the unvaccinated” – Seeking to encourage people to get jabbed, officials in Punjab province have said that they will block the phones of people who have not been vaccinated, the AFP reports
• “Suspected suicide attempts increased among adolescents during pandemic, CDC study finds” – Research carried out by the U.S. CDC has found that suicide attempts among teenagers increased over the last year, particularly among girls, the Washington Examiner reports
• “Unvaccinated Students At High School Marked And Tracked At Prom” – Students at Exeter High School in New Hampshire who were unable to provide proof of vaccination before their High School Prom had a number written on their hand at the beginning of the evening and were traced throughout, even on the dance floor, according to the Daily Caller
• “Cleveland Clinic Study Indicates Healthcare Workers Infected with COVID-19 Unlikely to Benefit from Vaccination” – A study involving employees of Cleveland Clinic found that once the health workers were infected with SARS-CoV-2, they did not become re-infected, even if they hadn’t been vaccinated, TrialSiteNews reports
• “You are not God, Dr Fauci. If science was never challenged, we would never make any progress” – Micah Curtis has a message for Dr. Anthony Fauci in RT: Being a scientist “doesn’t make you God”
• “China invites Taiwanese to come to get vaccinated against COVID-19” – China’s Government has invited residents of Taiwan to come to the Chinese mainland to get jabbed with their “highly effective” Covid vaccine, Reuters reports. Not many takers
• “Chinese researchers say new batch of coronaviruses found in bats” – Researchers in China say they have uncovered a new batch of coronaviruses in bats that resembles the COVID-19 virus, according to the Hill
• “China brands COVID-19 lab-leak theory as ‘absurd’, Blinken urges transparency” – Reuters reports that China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi used a call with Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, to express Beijing’s serious concern that people in the U.S.A. were spreading the “absurd story” about the virus escaping from a Wuhan laboratory
• “Covid-19 pandemic: Chile capital locks down despite mass vaccination” – Rising Covid cases in Santiago have sparked a lockdown, the BBC reports, despite 60% of the country being fully vaccinated
• “Three corona updates” – Ramesh Thakur provides Spectator Australia with three Coronavirus updates, on the “race to stupidity by the Australian state chief health officers”, the data from India, and Dr. Anthony Fauci
• “COVID-19 Deaths This Year Have Already Eclipsed 2020’s Toll” – More than 1.88 million COVID-19 deaths were recorded this year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data, and on Thursday the count for 2021 surpassed the total for 2020
• “Boris Johnson – we must be open for all” – “With 80% of the U.K. having antibodies we’ve all waited long enough,” says Alan D Miller