News Round-Up

• “England set to drop facemasks and social distancing on July 19th” – England is on track to lift all remaining lockdown restrictions on July 19th, according to the Times, replacing them with personal responsibility as fears of a big summer wave fade
• “Ministers urged to end lockdown early after ‘encouraging’ Covid data” – Ministers are facing renewed calls to end lockdown curbs two weeks early after yet more “encouraging” Covid data showed that hospitalisation and death rates remain low, the Daily Mail reports
• “Government accused of hypocrisy as football VIPs allowed to visit UK without quarantine” – The Prime Minister was accused of hypocrisy yesterday, the Telegraph says, as it emerged that the Government has caved in to Uefa and will allow thousands of football VIPs to attend the Euro 2020 finals without quarantining
• “Nicola Sturgeon unveils plans for Scottish ‘Freedom Day’ on August 9th” – The First Minister announced yesterday that restrictions would be in place in Scotland until August 9th, the Telegraph reports
• “One in 10 children absent from school as self-isolation wreaks havoc with education” – Official figures show that one in 10 children are absent from school amid a quadrupling of the number of pupils self-isolating, the Telegraph reports
• “Hospitals’ fear ‘perfect storm’ of winter flu outbreak and Covid” – According to the Daily Mail, some 78% of hospital trust leaders in England are extremely or moderately concerned about the operational pressures they will face this winter, from Covid, the flu and the waiting lists
• “‘I found a suicide note in a corridor’ Head says schools can’t shut” – A Wales Online feature on Armando Di Finizio, the head teacher at Cardiff’s Eastern High who does not ask pupils to wear masks and is determined schools should stay open
• “Covid outbreak at care home where every resident is vaccinated” – Kenwyn Care Home in Truro is closed to visitors following an outbreak of COVID-19. According to Cornwall Live, all residents and 94% of the staff are fully vaccinated and every single case has been asymptomatic so far
• “COVID-19: Extra disruption payment to 9,000 Northern Ireland students” – More than 9,000 students at Queen’s and Ulster University are to receive £495 for the disruption caused by the pandemic, the BBC reports, on top of the £500 payment from Stormont to about 40,000 students in Northern Ireland
• “Irrational fear of Covid has crushed Brexit Britain’s buccaneering spirit ” – “Five years after the Brexit vote, the pandemic response has suffocated the boosterism that was one of the driving forces behind the Leave campaign,” says Philip Johnston in the Telegraph
• “Covid restrictions are taking a terrible toll on our schoolchildren” – “It’s a devastating indictment of the priorities of our society that while in London, football fans crowd the streets in their thousands, down the road, parents are asked to watch their children’s sports days on Zoom,” says Molly Kingsley in the Spectator
• “I can no longer support this irrational lockdown” – “If the current restrictions are not lifted on July 5th or 19th, Boris Johnson will live to regret it,” writes lockdown hawk Iain Dale in the Telegraph
• “‘Safe vaccine’ pledges are on ever shakier ground” – Writing in the Conservative Woman, Neville Hodgkinson summarises the concerns about the vaccines that have been put forward by Dr. Robert Malone and Steve Kirsch
• “Dancin’ the fright away” – Vlod Barchuk asks a question of readers of the Conservative Woman: “Do you believe in what you think about masks, vaccines, ivermectin, vitamin D enough to follow through with what that implies?”
• “The anti-Covid pill Big Pharma doesn’t want you to have” – John Hollaway tries to fathom out why medical authorities have been reluctant to consider the potential benefits of ivermectin in treating COVID-19 in the Conservative Woman
• “Who’s pulling Hancock’s strings?” – A more pertinent question, writes Roger Watson in the Unity News Network, would be “why is he still in a job?”
• “Delta or Indian Variant – Real World Impact? We Now have the Data!” – Ivor Cummins looks at the official data on hospitalisations and finds that the Delta variant “doesn’t add up to anything much at all in terms of real world impact”
• “Dr Gary Sidley HART Group Interview” –  HART’s Dr Gary Sidley appears on the Real Normal Podcast chatting about the State of Fear and the Government behavioural psychological techniques that have been deployed to frighten the whole country… and about real ale
• “The ‘Indian variant’ summer wave” – The Swiss Doctor considers the impact of seasonal influences on the spread of the Delta variant
• “Moderna Plans to Expand Production to Make COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters, Supply More Countries” – Moderna is adding two new production lines at its its plant in Norwood, Massachusetts, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the company prepares to produce booster shots to target new variants
• “How Covid lockdowns failed to protect the vulnerable and instead fattened up the laptop privileged ‘café latte’ class” – Writing for TrialSiteNews, Paul Elias Alexander delivers a devastating verdict on lockdowns and the governments and advisors who advocated for them
• “We Just Got Even More Proof that Stay-At-Home Orders Lethally Backfired” – In an item for the Foundation of Economic Education, Brad Polumbo highlights new research by economists at the University of Southern California which found that lockdowns failed to reduce overall mortality and may have increased it
• “The New Clerisy” – “‘I believe in science’ has come to mean, ‘I do not question expert authority’,” says Leighton Woodhouse, “which is as antithetical to the scientific spirit as you can get”
• “Why lockdown states may shut down again this fall” – “During Covid Mania, many became convinced that this annual reality can be stopped by the ‘new science’ human interventions,” say Jordan Schachtel. “And these same citizens, politicians, and ‘public health experts’ may demand more of the same in the coming months”
• “The Covid Lockdowns Showed Us How Dangerous Social Engineers Have Become” – Using Hayek and Popper’s views about social engineering, Dr Birsen Filip provides a comprehensive demolition of the pro-lockdown position for Mises Wire
• “Why Has ‘Ivermectin’ Become a Dirty Word?” – “At the worst moment, Internet censorship has driven scientific debate itself underground,” writes Matt Taibbi
• “Philippines’ Duterte threatens vaccine decliners with jail, animal drug” – Reuters reports that Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared to TV to warn citizens that they must get jabbed or face either jail or an injection of ivermectin, which he said was “meant for pigs”
• “Food security evades labourers following job loss during COVID-19 lockdown” – Lockdown has pushed families living at a labour camp in West Bengal to the brink of starvation, according to the Hindu
• “Wuhan lab used Chinese military as key advisers” – Fabrizio Gatti, an Italian author, has found that the Wuhan Institute of Virology listed members of the Chinese military on its oversight committees, according to the Times, and it also included international scientists without their knowledge
• “China to Keep COVID-19 Border Restrictions for Another Year” – Beijing intends to keep its pandemic border restrictions in place for at least another year, the Wall Street Journal reports, for fear that variants might disrupt two upcoming events: the Winter Olympics and the CCP transfer of power where Xi Jinpings is expected to seek a third term
• “Covid outbreak at Chinese port exacerbates global supply chain delays” – A COVID-19 outbreak at a major port in Shenzhen, China is putting a strain on the global shipping industry and pushing up freight prices, the Financial Times reports
• “‘Yet to find a single case of COVID-19’: North Korea tells WHO” – North Korea has informed the World Health Organisation that the country has tested more than 30,000 people for COVID-19 but has not yet found a single case of infection. A claim which the Hindustan Times reports is widely doubted
• “New South Wales Covid update: New Zealand suspends travel bubble as Victoria shuts border to parts of Sydney” – The Guardian reports that New Zealand has suspended its quarantine free travel with New South Wales after health officials confirmed that a positive case had made the trip over the weekend
• “Why Does the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli Keep Changing Her COVID-19 Story?” – Professor Colin Butler, epidemiologist at Australian National University picks apart contradictory statements in the science media and asks why science writers ignore China’s disinformation on virus research in an interview with the Disinformation Chronicle
• “The online detectives sowing doubts about the origins of the pandemic” – A feature in El Pais on the work of DRASTIC, the twitter group investigating the lab leak theory
• “Once you have a legal precedent for lockdowns people will see them in the normal frame of the way Governments operate” – The worst effect of the actions of the Government, according to lawyer Francis Hoar, is that “fundamental rights are now seen as almost optional extras”. Watch the full interview with the Express‘s Lucy Johnston for Sketch Notes on a Pandemic here