News Round-Up

• “Booster jabs will prevent lockdown, says Rishi Sunak” – Shops, pubs and restaurants must not shut again to deal with Covid, Rishi Sunak tells the Times, insisting there can be “no more lockdowns”.
• “Winter Covid wave won’t be as bad as last year – even without ‘Plan B’” – Modelling suggests hospital admissions will be nowhere near the highs of January unless transmission soars and immunity wanes, reports the Telegraph.
• “It’s not the public’s job to ‘save’ the NHS” – We have now locked down three times for the NHS. How many more do they need, asks Camilla Tominey in the Telegraph.
• “In defence of SAGE’s models” – “The models are not perfect, although they are much improved during the course of the epidemic,” writes Graham Medley in the Spectator.
• “Censorship is rife” – There are continuing concerns about the censorship of essentially all voices questioning any aspect pandemic management, writes HART.
• “Liverpool council health board advises people to work from home in face of rising coronavirus cases” – The Government has been saying the best way to manage the current rise in cases is for people to get vaccinated – including boosters. But Liverpool’s director of public health is advising people work from home to avoid gathering and spreading Covid cases.
• “Unions warn of ‘winter of chaos’ without urgent action to curb Covid” – A joint statement calls for mandatory mask-wearing and attacks the Government’s so-called “laissez-faire approach“, reports the Guardian.
• “Former vaccine chief will return to NHS role amid concern over booster jabs rollout” – Emily Lawson previously led the operational delivery of the coronavirus vaccination programme – and soon, she will be back.
• “‘Years to get children back on track after Covid’” – BBC News reports on how the pandemic has affected child development in one primary school in north-east England.
• “How many people have had Covid” – Does anyone know how many of us have had Covid? This is a critical question that politicians cared about only a year ago, writes HART.
• “Covid and mental health” – BBC Health Correspondent Deborah Cohen reports on the mental health pressures on the NHS as referrals are the highest rate on record.
• “The Infodemic and the Rise of a Modern Inquisition” – “The response to Covid has given the public an unprecedented glimpse of the impressive machinery that forms the global health establishment,” writes Elisabeth Taylor in Quadrant.
• “Labour’s instincts over masks are out of step with the people it needs to attract” – The Left seem to relish the imposition of rules and regulations to control citizens’ behaviour, writes Tom Harris in the Telegraph.
• “Like McCarthyism, America will soon wake up to wokeism” – Americans will look back on the woke movement with bemusement, says Janet Daley in a recent Telegraph podcast with Steven Edginton.
• “‘It’s absolutely appalling’: Unvaccinated Canadians become social outcasts and the new persecuted minority” – In Canada, the supposedly benevolent country that prides itself on inclusivity, Covid totalitarianism has become unavoidably apparent, with its decision that soon only the fully vaccinated can travel, writes Eva Bartlett in RT.
• “My heat pump has me left in the cold” – I was helping save the planet and saving myself the cost of buying oil. The perfect win-win. A toasty house whatever the weather and a minuscule energy bill. But I was wrong, writes John Humphreys in the Mail.
• “Insulate Britain activists are finally taken to court and ‘face jail’” – National Highways has made nine applications to the High Court for contempt of court against Insulate Britain activists for breaching injunctions by “dangerously” blocking the M25 during their protests, reports MailOnline.
• “The public is waking up to the costs of the West’s unilateral eco-disarmament” – COP26 is a problem for Boris Johnson. It is unlikely to reach consensus, and voters at home are wary of the implications of ‘net zero’, writes Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
• “The death of Britain’s dignity” – The Assisted Dying Bill exploits the rhetoric of compassion, writes Mary Harrington in UnHerd.
• “David Amess and the rise of Islamist denialism” – The Spiked team discusses the surreal response to the murder of an MP.
• “How Stonewall was exposed” – The charity can no long explain its fanciful dogmas, writes Douglas Murray in UnHerd.
• “Putin Warns Wokeness Is Destroying The West” – Putin says woke ideology is causing societal ills throughout the Western world and is no different than what happened in Russia during the 1917 revolution.
• “The latest celebrity must have? A trans child!” – “The Facts of Life passed from adult to child have become fictions passed from child to adult,” writes Julie Burchill in the Spectator.
• “Retired surgeon Dr. Tony Hinton says surgeons’ face masks don’t stop viruses and illnesses from spreading” – Dr. Hinton tells talkRADIO that wearing masks “doesn’t give people confidence it keeps fear going”.