News Round-Up

• “Mass boosters unnecessary as immunity ‘lasting well’, says Oxford vaccine professor” – Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert urges ministers to send third doses to countries where only a small number of people have been jabbed, reports the Telegraph.
• “Vaccine booster jabs are ‘safe and effective’, says medicines regulator” – Guidance has been updated ahead of a crucial decision by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, reports the Telegraph.
• “Number 10 fears double whammy of flu and Covid this winter” – The question preoccupying influential figures in Whitehall is whether we can get through winter without reimposing restrictions, writes James Forsyth in the Times.
• “The emergency is over. Now the government must relinquish its emergency powers” – “It is dangerous to give politicians a taste of power without the usual democratic restraints,” reads the lead article in this week’s issue of the Spectator.
• “Office small talk at risk of becoming a Covid casualty” – A survey has found that young workers fear they have forgotten how to chat to colleagues after 18 months in lockdown, reports the Telegraph.
• “The Smile Free Survey” – Here are the most welcoming supermarkets for unmasked shoppers, according to a new survey.
• “How do other countries survive without Our NHS?” – “As long as the institution is treated as an infallible deity to which only further sacrifices must be made – a few more billion pounds here, a few months locked up inside there – nothing meaningful will change,” writes Frederick Edward in Bournbrook Magazine.
• “Sixty doctors plead with chief medical officers to reject child vaccination” – “The Covid pandemic and its management has become one of the most contentious issues in a generation,” writes Dr. Ros Jones in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “Biden Plans Covid Vaccine Mandate for 80 Million Private Sector Workers” – Joe Biden says American companies with more than 100 employees will require vaccinations or once-per-week testing for their workers, reports the Epoch Times.
• “America’s Top 10 Vaccinated States Under Siege by Covid Breakthrough Infections” – The most vaccinated states are now all in some version of a surge, although the news wouldn’t cover such a point of view, reports TrialSite.
• “United Airlines Staff With Vaccine Exemptions Told They’ll Be Placed on Unpaid Leave” – The airline says: “We can no longer allow unvaccinated people back into the workplace until we better understand how they might interact with our customers and their vaccinated coworkers,” as the Epoch Times reports.
• “Sweden 1. Faith 0” – “Discovering Sweden is like discovering intelligent life in the universe after being told there can’t be any,” writes Richard Lyon in his latest substack update.
• “Australians shocked after NSW health officer says post-lockdown Sydney will be a ‘new world order’” – Dr. Kerry Chant, the Chief Health Officer of New South Wales, sent social media into a frenzy on Thursday, after she referred to a post-lockdown “new world order” during a Covid press conference, reports Russia Today.
• “Who wants to live forever?” – “Without a sense of what human life is for, and what its basic natural or even theological rhythms might be, we fall back on the idea that more is always better,” writes Giles Fraser in UnHerd.
• “Ireland freezes power exports to U.K. as energy costs rocket tenfold” – Low wind speeds and tight supplies of gas have sent power prices spiralling, reports the Telegraph.
• “Winston Churchill erased from his own charity in unprecedented display of wokery” – A charity set up to honour Sir Winston Churchill has sparked a ‘woke’ storm by changing its name and erasing him from its website, reports the Sun.
• “Boris Johnson accuses charity of airbrushing Winston Churchill” – But Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson says his family “unreservedly support” the organisation, reports BBC News.
• “The Queen ‘backs BLM’” – Sir Ken Olisa, the first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, tells Channel 4 the Queen and the royal family are supporters of BLM and “care about making Britain bound by the same values”, reports MailOnline.
• “Google and BBC staff are facing an onslaught of woke indoctrination, but it won’t work… people can spot bulls**t a mile away” – Bosses at Google are pushing training that suggests babies are racist, while BBC workers are playing games to “assess their privilege”. While employees pay lip service to it all, you can bet many think it’s utter madness, writes Charlie Stone in Russia Today.
• “I used to defend the BBC. Now I’m switching off” – The Today programme in particular has given up all pretence to presenting an objective point of view, writes Michael Howard in the Telegraph.
• “Woke book-burning” – A Canadian school board has burned 30 “problematic” books. Are you scared yet, asks Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
• “The political power of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown” – “Roy Chubby Brown is the culture war writ small, and this stuff really, really matters to working-class voters,” writes Rod Liddle in the Spectator.
• “Covid vaccines for 12 to 15 year-olds are being considered despite not being recommended by the JCVI” – Former NHS Consultant Dr. John Lee says on talkRADIO: “The medium and long-term risks are unknown. It’s just wrong to suggest for a potential societal benefit that you should do this.”