News Round-Up

• “Grand ambitions: Boris Johnson’s two years as Prime Minister” – It was the week that was supposed to be a turning point – as well as the second anniversary – for Boris Johnson’s premiership. But it ended up being a damp squib.
• “Freedom Day will make or break Boris Johnson” – “This week’s ‘Freedom Day’ was Boris Johnson’s Falklands,” says Matthew Paris in the Times. And it will make or break him.
• “Our latest Covid wave may have peaked – and at a far lower point than expected” – Figures suggest end of the third wave may be on the horizon, with virus infections largely falling since July 15th.
• “Pingdemic chaos dealing £5 billion blow to economy” – Firms suffer disruption as hundreds of thousands of workers are told to self-isolate and economists warn of growing cost.
• “Surge in last-minute bookings as holidaymakers race to beat travel list review” – With school year ending, a late booking surge has tour operators and airlines braced for the busiest weekend of the year.
• “Israeli, U.K. data offer mixed signals on vaccine’s potency against Delta strain” – Local research in Israel claims Pfizer shot now only 41% effective against symptomatic Covid, while British stats have it at 88%.
• “Sweden’s no-lockdown Covid strategy vindicated” – Alone among the advanced countries of the world, Sweden followed the sensible policy for dealing with a highly transmissible virus with a 99%+ survival rate.
• “Will vaccine efficacy decline over time?” – Data emerging from Israel suggests that booster vaccines may be more urgent than first thought. Immunity might be waning for those who got their jab in the winter months, according to figures from the Israeli Ministry of Health.
• “Vaccines Are All In Your Head” – “Reality is not binary, and that applies to vaccinations,” says satirist Tim Murray. “I’m a transvaxxite. This means I identify as vaccinated although I was not jabbed with a vax.”
• “Lockdowns are killers in the global south” – A report on India’s excess mortality published on Tuesday by the Center for Global Development. The report’s authors estimated total excess deaths in India over the past 15 months at a staggering 4.9 million.
• “Italians will need Covid ‘green passes’ to access some venues” – Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s Government approved a decree on Thursday ordering the use of the so-called ‘green’ passes starting on August 6th to allow access to leisure venues.
• “‘It’s making me question my future’: NFL star DeAndre Hopkins hints he might retire after league announces strict vaccine plans” – Several big-name NFL superstars have voiced their opposition to league plans to harshly penalise players who may be responsible for COVID-19 outbreaks in their team, which could lead to forfeited games and players not being paid.
• “What should we be scared of at the moment?” – Pessimistic forecasts have been proved wrong again, according to the latest bulletin from HART.
• “‘He lied to Congress’: Sen. Rand Paul announces criminal referral to DOJ for Fauci” – “It’s a dance,” Republican Senator Rand Paul told Dr. Anthony Fauci, “and you’re dancing around this because you’re trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around the world from a pandemic.”
• “Lockdown fallout emerges in excess fatality numbers” – People are now dying in excess numbers from all causes as the collateral damage of two national lockdowns begins to emerge across Scotland..
• “The Zero Covid dream has been crushed, so why are we still indulging its extremists?” – Australia has shown the folly of obsessing over case numbers, yet Britain hasn’t learned anything either.
• “Has the bubble burst for Covid policies that don’t work?” – A new report reveals that isolating children had little impact, so why did the Government bother when it hurt them so much?
• “The emptiness of open letters – UnHerd” – With enough signatories, any demand in an open letter will be fulfilled.
• “Opinion | How Science Lost the Public’s Trust” – From climate to Covid, politics and hubris have disconnected scientific institutions from the philosophy and method that ought to guide them, says Matt Ridley in an interview in the Wall St Journal.
• “The End of “Cancel Culture”?” – Young Americans may return us to a culture of compassion and forgiveness, polling suggests.
• “Conservative leaders say Biden admin is ‘ripping the U.S. Constitution to shreds’ in scathing open letter” – A group of conservative leaders said President Joe Biden’s administration is “ripping the U.S. Constitution to shreds” in a scathing open letter that demands the White House and federal government be fully transparent about all actions to restrict speech.
• “Why is Jeremy Farrar targeting Sunetra Gupta?” – Prof Martin Kulldorff, one of the three original signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration, comes to the defence of Prof Sunetra Gupta, who has been blamed for the delay to the second lockdown by Jeremy Farrar. See his Twitter thread here.