News Round-Up

• “Lockdown lifting ‘cannot be accelerated to July 5th’” – The Telegraph understands from senior Government sources that the country is “probably not in the place” to unlock at the two-week review stage
• “All kids aged 16 and 17 to be offered ­Covid jab before school starts in September” – People aged 16 and 17 are set to be offered a ­vaccine before they head back to school in September, according to the Sun, subject to the approval of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation
• “We are injecting funds to restore Britain’s status as a scientific superpower” – “I cannot think of a time in the last 100 years when the entire population of this country has been so deeply and so obviously indebted to science – and to scientists,” says Boris Johnson in the Telegraph, heralding the launch of a new outfit, to be headed by Sir Patrick Vallance, which will boost investment in the scientific sector
• “Pensions raid to pay for Covid pandemic” – The Treasury is considering ways to claw back cash from pensioners to help pay for the ruinous lockdowns, the Telegraph says
• “Government ordered to hand over plans on how NHS would cope if overwhelmed by pandemic” – The Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered the Department of Health and Social Care to hand over “pandemic influenza briefing papers”, the Telegraph reports, in a move likely to raise questions about whether Britain was sufficiently prepared for COVID-19
• “Andy Burnham rages at ‘hypocrite’ Nicola Sturgeon over travel ban” – Andy Burnham branded the SNP leader a “hypocrite” and demanded compensation for holidaymakers and businesses affected by her ban on travellers from Manchester to Scotland, MailOnline reports
• “Asthma inhalers can speed up Covid recovery by three days” – MPs have been told that doctors prescribing inhalers have seen the recovery time cut by as much as three days, according to MailOnline
• “Ministers say PM had ‘up to date’ data before delaying Freedom Day” – MailOnline reports that Justice Secretary Robert Buckland has dismissed claims that Matt Hancock failed to disclose crucial data in the run up to the decision to delay unlocking
• “Head of Independent Sage to launch international climate change group” – Sir David King is to be the head of a new Climate Crisis Advisory Group, according to the Guardian. He hopes to replicate the success of Independent Sage
• “Our freedoms are at the mercy of gloomy modellers” – “It is shocking that decisions affecting thousands of jobs and millions of lives were taken on the basis of dubious, incomplete evidence,” says Ross Clark in the Telegraph
• “Soldiers of faith, take a sword to the Covid rulebook” – “If all the faiths banded together and as one declared that they would ignore the Covid regulations that threaten to destroy them, they would form a mighty army which could, as in the past, move mountains,” says Liz Hodgkinson in the Conservative Woman
• “Revolt!” – Writing for the Conservative Woman, Henry Getley tells the story of the Peasants’ Revolt
• “What I know (and don’t know) about SARS-CoV-2” – An overview from Edward Curtin at Off-Guardian
• “Lockdown, Lib Dems and Leaks” – In the latest episode of the Week in Review, Bournbrook contributors S.D. Wickett and Luke Perry and guest contributor Peter Tutykhin discuss the delay to reopening and Dominic Cummings’s most recent leaks
• “Robin Monotti: A Conversation with Eric Clapton” – Italian architect Robin Monotti talks to Eric Clapton about the musician’s experiences over the past 18 months
• “Meet the secret nomads whose bosses don’t know they’re working abroad” – A Euronews travel feature on people who, having been told to work from home, have chosen to work abroad instead, without telling their employer
• “Delta variant fuels spike in coronavirus cases in Lisbon” – Portuguese authorities have confirmed that it is the Delta variant which is causing cases to rise in Lisbon, Euronews reports
• “Vaccinated tourists, children 0-6, to be allowed into Israel from July 1st” – Israel’s Minister for the Interior has announced that vaccinated tourists, and children up to the age of six will be permitted to enter the country from July 1st, the Jerusalem Post reports. Specifics as to which countries they may come from and which vaccines will be accepted are to follow
• “Ben-Gurion let 2,832 people into Israel without COVID-19 tests on Friday” – Some 2,832 people entered Israel through Ben Gurion International Airport without taking the coronavirus test, according to the Jerusalem Post, due to congestion in the system
• “Three countries ask Israel for Covid vaccines if Palestinians nix deal, source says” – Should the Palestinians decide they don’t want the one million vaccines offered by Israel, Haaretz says that there are three other countries who will happily take them
• “Google And USAID Funded Wuhan Collaborator Peter Daszak’s Virus Experiments For Over A Decade.” – The National Pulse has spotted that Google’s charitable arm and the United States Agency for International Aid also funded gain of function research
• “New Harvard Data (Accidentally) Reveal How Lockdowns Crushed the Working Class While Leaving Elites Unscathed” – In an item for the Foundation for Economic Education, Brad Polumbo highlights a new data analysis from Harvard University, Brown University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which indicates that lockdowns “devastated workers at the bottom of the financial food chain but left the upper-tier actually better off”
• “Atlanta mayor blames city’s rising violence on lifting of lockdown restrictions” – The Democratic Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is claiming that the spike in the city’s crime rate should be blamed on the early easing of COVID-19 restrictions in Georgia by the statehouse GOP, the Post Millennial reports
• “The Soviet Union once denied a deadly anthrax lab leak. American scientists backed up the story” – In Yekaterinburg, Russia in 1979, Patients with unexplained pneumonia started showing up in hospitals. U.S. spies picked up clues about a lab leak, but local officials suggested the source was contaminated meat, according to this account published in Nation World News
• “Cuba encouraged by early efficacy results of homegrown COVID-19 vaccine” – Cuba’s Soberana 2 vaccine candidate has shown 62% efficacy with just two of its three doses, according to Reuters
• “Shenzhen airport tightens COVID-19 measures as China logs 30 new cases” – Anyone flying into Shenzhen airport must produce a negative test result that’s no more than 48 hours old, Reuters reports, following the outbreak of new cases in southern China
• “Wuhan Institute of Virology listed as candidate for Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize” – The Chinese Academy of Sciences has listed the Wuhan lab as a candidate for the 2021 Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize, according to the Global Times, and selected “bat woman” Shi Zhengli and director Yuan Zhiming as outstanding contributors
• “State takes testing to ‘a new level’ in fight against Delta COVID-19 strain” – Thousands of people who visited one of Sydney’s biggest shopping centres have been asked to get a COVID-19 test regardless of symptoms, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, as authorities attempt to “flush out” undetected cases of the Delta variant
• “Border worker sacked for refusing COVID-19 vaccination challenges dismissal” – A New Zealand border worker who was fired for refusing the vaccine has taken the case to the Employment Relations Community, Stuff reports, but it has been rejected
• “Melburnians ‘prefer to live elsewhere’, poll finds” – Rita Panahi of Sky News Australia responds to a new poll which shows that a third of Melbourne residents want to escape from Dan Andrews’ tyrannical regime
• “MP Derek Sloan raises concerns about censorship of doctors and scientists” – Canadian politician Derek Sloan uses a press conference on Parliament Hill to provide censored doctors and scientists with a voice. He is joined by Professor Byram Bridle, Dr. Patrick Phillips and Professor Don Welsh
• “People don’t realise the crisis that’s coming” – Phones 4U founder John Caudwell tells Dan Wootton about the economic crisis he sees coming as a result of empty offices and shops