News Round-Up

• “Cases start to fall in Covid hotspot Blackburn” – Department of Health data show that cases appear to have started levelling off or falling in the four areas that were first hit by the Indian ‘Delta’ variant outbreaks, according to MailOnline
• “Pupils “must be allowed to stay in school if they say no to jabs”” – MailOnline reports on UsForThem’s campaign to protect children’s right to decline the jab
• “Pfizer supply shortage forces Covid vaccine roll-out to slow down” – The vaccine roll-out is slowing down, the Telegraph reports, as supplies are cut in hotspots where infections have taken hold among younger groups
• “Hospitality hit by a triple whammy as stricken firms face huge costs” – The Treasury is expected to announce only limited help for the hospitality sector, the Daily Mail says, as industry leaders warn the costs could force 25,000 venues to remain shut while social distancing mandates remain in place
• “Covid jabs to become mandatory for care home staff in England” – Under plans to be announced by ministers, Covid vaccines will become mandatory for most of the 1.5 million people who work in the U.K.’s social care sector, the Guardian reports
• “‘Devastated’ couples in tears over Boris’ ‘cruel’ wedding rules” – MailOnline reports on the impact of the latest guidance on weddings, which includes the threat of a £10,000 fine for couples who fail to complete a risk assessment
• “Third of U.K. hospital Covid patients had ‘do not resuscitate’ order in first wave” – The Guardian reports research which suggests that a “do not resuscitate” notice was attached to nearly a third of patients admitted to hospital with suspected COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic
• “Capacity crowds for Wimbledon finals” – According to the BBC, the men’s and women’s Wimbledon finals are set to be the first U.K. outdoor sporting events to be played before a full stadium
• “UKMFA Open Letter to Professor Devi Sridhar” – The letter from the UK Medical Freedom Alliance draws Professor Sridhar’s attention to some inaccuracies in statements she made about the safety of the vaccines for children on BBC’s Newsround
• “AstraZeneca antibody cocktail fails to prevent COVID-19 in large trial” – AstraZeneca has reported that a late-stage trial failed to provide evidence that its COVID-19 therapy, which uses a cocktail of two types of antibodies, protects people from the disease, Reuters reports. A setback in its efforts to find alternatives to vaccines
• “Fear over freedom: Here’s what the doom-laden Government graphs didn’t show us” – The Telegraph’s Health and Science Correspondent Henry Bodkin and Data Projects Editor Alex Clark put Monday’s night’s graphs into context
• “Britain is still paying the price for the original sin of locking down” – “It was clear to anybody that the ‘three week’ lockdown started by Boris Johnson would last much longer,” writes Jonathan Sumption in the Telegraph
• “The cost of delaying ‘freedom day’” – “If the Prime Minister is as fixated on data as he professes, where are the cost-benefit analyses or the impact assessments?” Annabel Denham asks in the Spectator. “We all need a better sense of the trade-offs”
• “Covid and the difficulty with following the science” – Examining the latest SPI-M modelling paper for the Spectator, Ross Clark finds that it must be difficult for the Prime Minister to follow the Science given that it’s all over the place
• “The Government’s embrace of Covid pessimism makes a nonsense of policymaking” – “When you don’t know, you don’t have to assume disaster is nigh,” writes Andrew Lilicoin in the Telegraph, pointing out where the SAGE modellers are going wrong
• “It doesn’t matter what you say, Prime Minister – June 21st will still be our Freedom Day” – “All sensible nations accept that full vaccination works,” says Allison Pearson in the Telegraph. “Why must our country be the hysterical outlier?”
• “Teaching unions are too powerful when they can demand that pupils be vaccinated” – “During the pandemic, teachers’ unions have shown themselves to be the malevolent power-hungry political entities they truly are,” writes Calvin Robinson in the Telegraph
• “I supported previous lockdowns, but this extension makes no sense at all” – “The Government’s decision yesterday is definitely a mistake,” writes the Telegraph’s Charles Moore, a supporter of previous lockdowns. “For the first time, I suspect, it will find itself paying a political price”
• “We need a futile gesture” – A transcription of Boris’ speech with just a few tweaks, courtesy of Andy Lambeth at Lockdown Satire
• “Delaying ‘Freedom Day’ shows the Government won’t give up its new powers without a fight” – “Some of us warned that Government would not relinquish the powers it had assumed without a fight,” says Victoria Hewson in CAPX. “It gives me no pleasure to have been proven right”
• “This untested vaccine should never have been released. The truth will out and heads will roll” – Writing for the Conservative Woman, Neville Hodgkinson highlights Dr Roger Hodkinson’s interview with Anna Brees about vaccine side effects
• “Travel hell in the time of Covid” – Sally Awdry shares with the Conservative Woman her experience of trying to beat the deadline that was set when Portugal was taken off the Green List
• “Vaccination, vaccination, vaccination? No, no, no!” – “I have a confession to make,” says Nicola Lund in the Conservative Woman. “I have been radicalised into becoming an ‘anti-vaxxer’ by Boris Johnson and the mainstream media”
• “Funny old game, life” – The reaction to the sudden collapse of Denmark’s Christian Eriksen in the match on Saturday sums up “the false logic from which we have all suffered over the last 15 months” says Dr Sinead Murphy in the Conservative Woman
• “Covid Cacophony: Swelling Inhumanity” – “It seems we have given our hearts away indeed, and our minds with them,” writes Omar Khan in his latest article. “And we must, desperately, genuinely, and with conviction, relocate them, revive them, and animate them anew”
• “The Economic Case Against Lockdown” – Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Luke Johnson discusses the restrictions imposed on businesses and how they affect people in the latest edition of Collateral Global which focusses on the economy
• “Toby Young reacts to the four-week lockdown extension.” – Watch Toby respond to Boris’ announcement on Mike Graham’s talkRADIO show
• “Dr Renee Hoenderkamp” – In the latest Delingpod, James talks to Dr Renee Hoenderkamp about her frontline experiences during the pandemic and her serious concerns about vaccinating children
• “Did COVID-19 Come From a Lab?” – Bret Weinstein is the guest on the latest Triggernometry podcast, discussing the lab leak hypothesis with Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster
• “More countries restrict travel from U.K. over Delta variant fears” – Ireland to double to 10 days its quarantine period for UK travellers who are not fully vaccinated, according to the Guardian, following a growing trend for stricter rules on British arrivals
• “Italy to relax COVID-19 restrictions in six more regions” – The regions of Emilia Romagna, Lombardy, Lazio, Piedmont and Puglia, and the autonomous province of Trento, have had their risk level downgraded, according to Euronews
• “Coronavirus pandemic worsened corruption in EU” – A new survey by Transparency International has found that 29% of EU residents used well-connected friends or family to receive medical care during the pandemic and at least 6% of people paid bribes to access health care, Deutsche Welle reports
• “Watchdog announces review of NIH grants that likely includes money connected to Wuhan lab” – CNN reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched an investigation into how Dr. Fauci’s National Institutes of Health manages and monitors its grant program, which likely includes money for the Wuhan lab
• “Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Fire Fauci Act gains co-sponsor: these Republicans signed onto the bill” – Momentum is gathering behind Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill which would allow Dr. Fauci to keep his job but change the salary to $0, Newsweek reports
• “Hundreds of people receive expired vaccines at Times Square site” – Nearly 900 people were given expired COVID-19 vaccine doses at a site in New York City’s Times Square, according to the Washington Express, and they have been told to get re-jabbed
• “What I Learned During the 2020 Fight Over Lockdowns” – “I was party to a strategy that successfully helped fight the lockdowns, and it taught me some valuable lessons about the role of ideas in realising change,” says Jeffrey Tucker in RealClearMarkets
• “Japan considers placing Tokyo under quasi-emergency during the Olympics” – Even after the current state of emergency ends, Tokyo may face COVID-19 restrictions for the Tokyo 2020 Games, according to Time Out Tokyo
• “Liquor sales restricted once more as country moves to lockdown level 3” – South Africa is tightening its lockdown, Fin24 reports, fighting Covid by restricting the sale of alcohol for offsite consumption
• “Vaccine efficacy vs harms” – Clear-eyed analysis of the evidence on vaccine efficacy and the risk of vaccine harms from Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia
• “Dr. Peter McCullough with Reiner Fuellmich” – Dr. Peter McCullough joins Reiner Fuellmich on the Stiftung Corona Ausschuss to discuss early treatment, vaccines, and the broader implications of COVID-19
• “This is a marker in history to say we will never forget” – Claire Fox of the Academy of Ideas and Lawrence Fox of the Reclaim party launch the People’s Lockdown Inquiry, a new publication featuring contributions from the likes of Molly Kingsley, Laura Dodsworth, Dr Gary Sidley, Toby and more. Available here