News Round Up

• “Fears over the Peru ‘Lambda’ variant that can seemingly dodge vaccines” – Global health officials are warning that an “unusual” mutation in the “Lambda” variant that’s hitting the U.K. could make it resistant to vaccines, the Sun reports
• “Common cold could prime the immune system to fight off Covid” – The Telegraph’s Science Editor Sarah Knapton reports that researchers at University College London have discovered that some people have natural protection against Covid and seem to fight off an infection using pre-existing memory T-cells
• “Michael Gove and Sarah Vine split raises Covid distancing questions” – Downing Street has refused to say whether the lead-up to Michael Gove and Sarah Vine’s divorce has involved the Cabinet Minister breaking any social distancing rules, the Telegraph reports
• “No 10 won’t order work from home staff back to offices after July 19th” – Boris Johnson is ready to ditch the work-from-home guidance, according to the Daily Mail, but it will be left to employers and their staff to decide whether or not they will return to office life
• “Tories slam health officials’ ‘five year plan for winter Covid rules’” – The Covid Recovery Group’s Deputy Chair Steve Baker has attacked contingency plans drawn up by the Department of Health and Social Care for Covid restrictions over the next five years as “far fetched”, MailOnline reports
• “The Government terrorised us into lockdown… now we need a plan for recovery” – Laura Dodsworth calls for “a SAGE for recovery” in the Sun
• “Draconian restrictions on schools are pointless” – “The experience of living with viruses such as influenza should give us a benchmark for what measures are acceptable from July 19th onwards,” writes Professor Robert Dingwall in the Telegraph. “If we were not doing something in September 2019, as the respiratory virus season approached, why would we be doing it in September 2021?”
• “New research suggests ivermectin works” – The Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART) highlight the paper, published last week in the American Journal of Therapeutics by Dr. Tess Lawrie and colleagues, which provides fresh evidence of the value of ivermectin in treating COVID-19. Part of HART’s latest newsletter
• “Are we heading for another winter lockdown?” – Dr Mark Toshner reckons we are, he tells the Spectator, unless we get better at dealing with new outbreaks
• “The impact of Covid school closures is now painfully clear” – Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Education Endowment Foundation, reports the findings of its investigation into the educational impact of lockdowns in the Spectator
• “Locked-in syndrome: why this must all end on 19th July” – “In extending restrictions because of the Delta variant,” write Professor Paul Dolan and Professor Sunetra Gupta, “the Government decided that those who stood most to gain from the delay .. are more important than those who will lose out enormously”
• “The origins of lockdown” – Daniel Ben-Ami draws on the writings of Hannah Arendt to consider whether the term “totalitarian” is a useful description of the lockdown period in a long-read for Spiked
• “The pandemic lies, according to Piers Corbyn” – Daniel Miller interviews the anti-lockdown warrior Piers Corbyn about pandemic lies, vaccines and more for the Conservative Woman
• “Cowardice and hypocrisy – a dispatch from the Covid front line” – In the Conservative Woman, Damian Karras describes his experience working as a community nurse as the health services responded to COVID-19. “The NHS is now a religious body with its members needing guidance from above”
• “Ending furlough must not be delayed” – “It is commendable that the Treasury was able to implement the scheme on such short notice,” writes Danielle Boxall in the Conservative Woman. “But as with all measures introduced during the pandemic, these should be lifted as soon as possible”
• “Restrictions lifting? The suspense is killing us!” – Roger Watson expresses world-weary scepticism about ‘Freedom Day’ in the Unity News Network. “I can see July 19th being a proverbial damp squib”
• “Do not require health and social care workers to take COVID-19 vaccination” – The Department of Health has responded to this petition confirming its intention to make the vaccine mandatory for care home workers, including any visiting professionals such as healthcare workers, tradespeople, hairdressers and beauticians
• “In defence of the Church’s role in our society” – In the latest episode of the CoronaStories podcast, Rose Shepherd describes how she was affected by the experience of missing church services during the lockdowns
• “Right Said Fred“– James Delingpole was excited to welcome lockdown sceptic musicians Richard and Fred Fairbrass from Right Said Fred to the Delingpod. They talk freedom marches, civil liberties and the damage the lockdowns have done to music
• “Freedom Fighters and Whitewashed Tombs” – The latest episode of the Irreverend podcast sees Revs Jamie and Tom discuss the freedom march in London and the “wonderful time” that was had by all
• “WHO sounds alarm over Euro 2020 as Covid cases soar” – The World Health Organisation has called for better monitoring of Euro 2020 football matches, according to MailOnline, as Delta Covid infections climb across Europe
• “Portugal reimposes curfew due to spread of Delta COVID-19 variant” – Portugal has re-imposed a nightly curfew from Friday in 45 municipalities, including Lisbon, in response to growing numbers of Delta Covid cases, Euronews reports
• “Hoteliers say unvaccinated staff should test every 72 hours” – The Cyprus Hotels Association has proposed that unvaccinated hotel staff should have to produce a negative Covid test result every 72 hours, the Cyprus Mail reports
• “Could editing the genomes of bats prevent future pandemics?” – Stat News reports that in a paper titled “Preventing COVID-59”, scientists Yaniv Erlich and Daniel Douek propose using a technology called a gene drive to rewrite the DNA of bats to make them immune to infection from coronaviruses and thereby avoid “spillover events” in future
• “Another Respiratory Virus Is Spreading as U.S. Gets Back to Pre-COVID-19 Life” – Cases of RSV, which are typically more common in winter months, are rising in Southern states, the Wall Street Journal reports
• “YouTube censors video of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Satoshi Ōmura discussing ivermectin” – Reclaim The Net reports on the latest case of Big Tech censorship. In 2015.
• “What exactly happened in Wuhan?” – Writing in the Week, the Seeker sets out the two key working hypotheses for the origins of the coronavirus and why one of them, the lab-leak, was initially derided as a conspiracy theory
• “Australia to halve international arrival cap as Scott Morrison unveils four-stage Covid exit plan” – Australia’s Prime minister Scott Morrison has announced a four-stage exit plan to take country out of Lockdown, the Guardian reports. Stage 1 means halving the number of international arrivals while the country vaccinates the population and Stage 2 is expected to begin next year
• “A Zero Covid Utopia Downunder? Pt 1” – An update on Australia’s zero-Covid policy from Phil Shannon in LeftLockdownSceptics
• “Everything you need to know about Delta and Delta Plus” – According to Australia’s Daily Telegraph, the Delta Variant is “97% more infectious than the original virus and it’s more than twice as likely to send you to hospital”
• “Delta Variant Found To Be Twice As Virulent And Blah Blah Blah Whatever Who Cares At This Point” – “If you’re, like, one of those Karens who loved worrying about this sort of thing, now you have new reasons for that while everyone else goes back to normal,” says the Babylon Bee
• “Reduction in returning travellers a ‘pathetic capitulation’ by Scott Morrison” – Scott Morrison’s reduction in the numbers of returning overseas travellers, shows “how far Australia is from having a proportional, sane response to COVID-19”, says Sky News Australia’s Rita Panahi
• “Plans are being drawn up for social distancing, masks and other restrictions for the next five winters” – The Whitehall proposals for Covid restrictions over the next five years bear the “hallmark of an abusive relationship” says author Laura Dodsworth and she encourages people to do what they can to regain their agency