News Round-Up

• “Time for the Great Covid Reset” – “I believe we need a dramatic change of stance when it comes to Britain’s approach to the pandemic – one that could best be summarised thus: stop fighting Covid, start living with it,” writes Professor Brendan Wren in the Mail.
• “Learning to live with Covid has to be more than a slogan” – The continued obsession with infection figures encourages paranoia when vaccines have severely weakened the link between cases and deaths, reads the Telegraph editorial.
• “Record number of NHS England patients waiting for routine hospital treatment” – The Health secretary warns that the 5.45 million-long waiting list will rise sharply even further, as a result of the lockdown backlog, reports the Guardian.
• “Ambulances record busiest month ever with more than 1 million calls” – Health chiefs say NHS services are dealing with “pent-up demand” after the lockdowns, with growing numbers reaching crisis point after waiting too long to get help, reports the Telegraph.
• “We’ve been fooled – two jabs won’t buy you holiday freedom after all” – Data is proving that the vaccines don’t block transmission, a development that could prompt tighter travel restrictions once more, writes Annabel Fenwick Elliott in the Telegraph.
• “Covid-Zero: Was It Worth It?” – “After 18 months do we still trust the apparently unquestionable, but inconsistent ‘medical advice’? Will we follow these people for another year,” asks James Newburrie in Quillette.
• “AstraZeneca Covid vaccine’s clots aggressive but very rare, find scientists” – The rare blood clots that can be caused by the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine are more aggressive and deadly than other thrombosis conditions, leading scientists say, as reported in the Times.
• “Blood clots from AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine ‘strike one in 50,000’” – The clots have stopped completely since under-40s were advised not to have AstraZeneca’s jab in May because first doses have stopped being dished out, reports MailOnline.
• “Every woman of child-bearing age should read this warning on the Covid vaccines” – “Pfizer themselves say on their website that available data on their Covid vaccine administered to pregnant women ‘are insufficient to inform vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy’,” writes Neville Hodgkinson in TCW Defending Freedom. “That, at least, is TRUE.”
• “‘Slugs and mould’ in quarantine hotels” – Dirty rooms, bad food and unsafe conditions can be found in some of the U.K.’s “prison-like” quarantine hotels, reports BBC News.
• “Quarantine hotel rules face legal challenge” – London-based firm PGMBM says it is an “unlawful deprivation of liberty” for fully vaccinated, negative-testing Red List travellers to spend 11 nights in quarantine hotels, reports BBC News.
• “Covid may have begun with Chinese scientist collecting bat samples, says WHO investigator” – The head of investigation says the possibility that a lab employee could have picked up the virus while working in the field is a “likely hypothesis”, reports the Telegraph.
• “CNN Demands School Kids Wear N95 Masks in School” – Children need weekly testing and continuous wearing of medical grade N95 biological face masks to prevent the spread of Covid in schools, says CNN’s Medical Advisor Dr Leana Wen, as reported in Watts Up With That?
• “Seychelles: What is causing the post-vax rise in cases?” – It may be one of the most-vaccinated countries on earth, but the Seychelles has seen an explosion in cases, writes Sonia Elijah in News Africa.
• “The cruelty of Australia’s endless lockdown” – “Australians are left with one question on their lips: when will this end? The bleak answer, at least according to the Government’s pandemic exit strategy, is not anytime soon,” writes Shahar Hameiri in UnHerd.
• “New Zealand borders to stay shut for rest of year as it pursues zero-Covid strategy” – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country will cautiously reopen to the rest of the world in 2022, reports the Telegraph.
• “We dodged hotel quarantine by the skin of our teeth, but it was worth the stress to see our son” – Sceptics regular Guy de la Bédoyère and his wife took advantage of a limited window in travel restrictions to Mexico for a long-awaited family reunion and tells the tale in the Telegraph.
• “Unbelievable exam results aren’t the only prizes in this fantasy world” – From the economy to the return to normality, the whole country is stuck in a wonderland of handouts, writes Douglas Murray in the Telegraph.
• “University of Leeds offers students £10,000 to defer place on oversubscribed courses” – Grade inflation and the unpredictability of results have left many universities with more students meeting the terms of their offers than expected, reports the Times.
• “Prepare for an avalanche of carbon taxes to meet the costs of net zero” – Banning electric cars and gas boilers won’t be nearly enough for ministers to achieve their climate goals, writes Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph.
• “Why do the poor always pick up the bill to be green?” – “Our poorest people are suddenly going to have to fork out a third of the national average wage, in one go, when their gas or oil boilers are working perfectly well,” writes Rod Liddle in the Sun.
• “Lie of credit — American Express tells its workers capitalism is racist” – American Express has invited the great-grandson of the Nation of Islam’s Founder to tell its employees that capitalism is evil, reports the New York Post.
• “Can the cancel mob please leave our classic musicals alone?” – A new production of Carousel changes the ending to rob wife-beater Billy of redemption. But this kind of meddling is asking for trouble, writes Ben Lawrence in the Telegraph.
• “Toby Young says Sir Philip Pullman has been targeted by a ‘blood crazed mob’” – “It is typical of cancellations that if someone comes to the defence of a person who is being targetted by these pitchfork-wielding Witchfinder Generals, they swivel and immediately point the pitchforks at you to deter anyone else from coming to the defence of the poor witch they’re about to burn,” says Toby in an appearance on talkRADIO.