News Round-Up

• “Modellers warned of ‘1m cases a week’ even as third wave was subsiding” – A day before cases peaked at 60,000, Government scientists were saying that ‘stringent Covid measures’ could be needed, according to the Telegraph.
• “NHS made secret pandemic plan to deny care to elderly” – Strategy drawn up by NHS England following 2016 pandemic planning exercise was designed to stop hospitals being overwhelmed, reports the Telegraph‘s Investigations Team.
• “UK appears to defy dire ‘Freedom Day’ predictions as Covid cases fall” – Government will not say they believe worst is over, but cases fell for seven consecutive days this week, reports the Guardian.
• “Summer holidays are at risk as ministers threaten a new danger list” – Plans for an ‘amber watch list’ have sparked uproar in Whitehall, with some ministers warning the scheme could wreck the hopes of millions of Britons to go to holiday hotspots in Europe this summer, says the Daily Mail.
• “I refuse to be imprisoned by an incompetent Government invoking bogus science” – How on earth did this administration allow itself to be outflanked by both Labour and less vaccinated Europe, asks Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph.
• “Next Covid variant ‘could kill one in three people’” – Research presented to SAGE warned a future strain could be as deadly as MERS, which kill 35% of infected people, according to MailOnline.
• “Britons back ban on vaccine refusers at pubs, restaurants and shops” – Research for MailOnline found that nearly two-thirds of Britons are in favour of barring those who have not received two jabs from nightclubs and football matches.
• “Vaccine passports deny basic freedoms, Cabinet critics tell Boris Johnson” – Boris Johnson has been accused by Cabinet ministers of denying people their fundamental freedoms over plans for vaccine passports, according to the Times.
• “Is the government bluffing on vaccine passports?” – Ministers may be using the threat of vaccine passports to encourage young people to get their vaccine, says Katy Balls in the Spectator.
• “Coronavirus: Clarifications on new SafePass measures” – A SafePass will be required from everyone aged 12 and over at all premises where more than 10 people including staff can congregate, the Cypriot Health Ministry said on Friday.
• “Demonstrators take to streets of Slovakia’s capital, blocking roads to protest against Covid vaccination law” – Hundreds flocked onto Bratislava’s streets and obstructed traffic in the capital, to protest against a recently passed law granting fully Covid-vaccinated people easier access into public venues than non-inoculated citizens, according to RT.
• “De nouvelles manifestations anti-passe sanitaire prévues dans toute la France ce samedi” – Le Figaro publishes the locations and start times of all the anti-vaccine passport and anti-lockdown protests happening in France today.
• “Why Covid ISN’T as infectious as chickenpox” – British experts called into question the claims made by the CDC about the Delta variant, saying that if this was the case then Covid infections in the U.K. would not have dipped.
• “No proof Covid screens stop transmission in pubs or the workplace” – New guidance after ‘Freedom Day’ told employers to consider placing screens and barriers between workers to Covid transmission, but a SAGE paper says they do not always help, according to MailOnline.
• “Lockdown fanatics have created a poisonous Covid culture war” – The vicious abuse heaped on those who question the rules betrays the nasty side of the pro-lockdown brigade, writes Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
• “In our determination to ‘follow the science’ we have abandoned all logic” – “Following the science” is all very well. But which scientist’s interpretation of the science would that be, asks Iain Duncan Smith in the Telegraph.
• “Study shows schools do not spread Covid” – Schools are not spreading Covid, according to an official study that has boosted hopes that the return to class will not trigger an autumn surge in infections, according to the Times.
• “Covid in Sydney: Military deployed to help enforce lockdown” – Authorities say the deployment is needed, but critics argue it will “pick on” marginalised groups, according to a report on BBC News.
• “Australian War Crimes Syndicate To Police The Streets Of Sydney” – Caitlin Johnstone writes on her Substack account about the fact that New South Wales police have requested 300 Australian Defense Force troops to help enforce lockdown rules in eight local government areas in the suburbs of Western Sydney.
• “More than a quarter of Britons fear life will NEVER get back to normal” – Research for MailOnline has found that 26% of Britons cannot see our pre-pandemic lifestyles returning at any point.
• “Sweden: Despite Variants, No Lockdowns, No Daily Covid Deaths” – Michael Fumento in AIER says the country the media love to hate is reaping the best of all worlds: few current cases and deaths, stronger economic growth than the lockdown countries, and its people never experienced the yoke of tyranny.
• “CNN’s Death Toll” – Robert E. Wright in AIER accuses CNN and other cable news networks of whipping up panic to boost their ratings and the CDC recently revealed that anxiety is the second most important contributing factor to death from/with Covid.
• “Matt Hancock pictured loading up last of his belongings from home” – The former Health Secretary is pictured in the Mail loading up his car with his belongings as he moves out of the family home.
• “Premier League stars ditch Covid app to stop football pingdemic” – Players are likely to receive a ‘ping’ from their phone if a team-mate tests positive for coronavirus given the close contact inside dressing rooms – so they’re dumping the app, according to the Daily Mail.
• “If we want to live we have to suffer and weep” – David Pearce, a leading figure in the transhumanist movement that obsesses Silicon Valley’s elites, is an “abolitionist”. Nothing so niche and small-timey as slavery; Pearce is an abolitionist with respect to the totality of human suffering, writes James Marriottt in the Times.
• “Any conviction politicians out there? Hello?” – James Allan in Spectator Australia laments the disappearance of conviction politicians.
• “The Lockdown and the Vaccine” – Michael Gove has said that it is a selfish act to refuse the vaccine against coronavirus, but Alastair Cavendish disagrees in British Freedom.
• “For Majority of U.K. children, Covid Mortality is 0.000” – The most comprehensive and perhaps important Covid study to date reveals that the threat to children and teenagers from the virus is virtually zero, writes Bill Rice in Uncover DC.
• “Defining Away Vaccine Safety Signals” – Matthew Crawford on Substack takes a close look at the CDC’s methodology when it comes to evaluating the safety of the Covid vaccines – and is alarmed by what he’s discovered.
• “A ‘no jab, no job’ policy would be a disaster” – Now that the government has announced that it will be compulsory to present a vaccine passport to enter a nightclub or other large venue from September, is it moving towards making double vaccination compulsory in the workplace too? Ross Clark is concerned in the Spectator.
• “Estate agent guilty of assault after Chris Whitty headlock video” – Lewis Hughes, 24, admitted the attack which took place in St James’s Park last month and was handed a suspended sentence.
• “Teenagers accused of sexual assault for slapping a man on the bottom” – Hannah Phillips and Scarlett Bareham, both 19, entered no pleas to the charges which relate to an incident at a popular nightlife district in Portsmouth, Hants. Did he really mind?
• “Cambridge don hits back after Geoffrey Chaucer branded a ‘rapist’” – The damning portrait of Chaucer in the latest edition of the Chaucer Review has divided scholars and prompted one former Cambridge don to resign from the publication’s board in disgust at the “grotesque caricature”, reports the Daily Mail.
• “NHS Bans ‘Offensive’ Capital Letters” – The NHS thinks capital letters may be triggering for some people, according to Guido Fawkes.
• “Latin will be taught in state schools to end its ‘elitist’ status” – Officials believe subject will help pupils learn modern foreign languages and could bring improvements in English and maths, reports the Telegraph.
• “Universities have succumbed to racial groupthink” – Critical race theory has replaced critical thinking, writes Jim Butcher in Spiked.
• “The Multiversity and its Discontents: The Evolution of a Fatal Flaw” – Retired Psychology Professor John Staddon writes about the decline of the university for Minding the Campus.
• “The Government has begun to tackle the Chinese military’s exploitation of U.K. research – but there’s much more to do” – Radomir Tylecote and Roberto White revisit the paper they wrote for Civitas about the extent of Chinese influence in Britain’s higher education sector.
• “Girls are being abused because those ‘protecting’ them are too worried about being called racist” – In the wake of another child grooming report, whistleblower Maggie Oliver says she’s sick of seeing authorities sweep abuse under the carpet.
• “Index on Censorship: U.K. Internet Regulation Plans ‘Catastrophic for Free Speech’” – Index on Censorship has become the latest free speech organisation to lambast the U.K. government’s Online Safety Bill, says the Epoch Times.
• “Are you prepared to pay the cost of going green?” – Nigel Farage talks about how expensive Net-Zero by 2050 is going to be on his GB News show.