News Round-Up

• “The staggering cost of ‘Plan B’” – “The introduction of vaccine passports, mandatory face masks and work-from-home advice would cost between £11 billion and £18 billion according to a leaked assessment of the so-called ‘Plan B’,” reports Fraser Nelson in the Spectator.
• “We must resist the moral panic pushing us back into lockdown” – Some of the Covid numbers may look similar to previous waves but, thanks to the vaccines, they are describing an entirely different reality, argues Robert Dingwall in the Telegraph.
• “We can escape a lockdown Christmas” – The Government has pinned its winter strategy on booster success, writes Tom Chivers in UnHerd.
• “Covid: ‘Plan C’ proposed, Department of Health Science Chief reveals” – A Government Minister last week said he was not aware of plans for households to be prevented from mixing as part of a ‘Plan C’. With cases rising in past days and weeks, there have been calls for more Covid restrictions to be put in place, reports Sky News.
• “Don’t ‘bash’ Britain for big Covid outbreak, Oxford expert says” – “It is unfair to ‘bash’ Britain for having higher Covid infections than the EU because it is testing up to 10 times more people than other countries, an eminent Oxford University expert has claimed,” reports MailOnline.
• “Not all vaccine experts are convinced Covid booster shots are needed” – “Even as booster shots of Covid vaccines become widely available in the U.S., some vaccine experts are not convinced that the shots are broadly necessary,” reports the Mail.
• “Covid, Masks and Magical Thinking” – “Anthropologists have been interested in magical thinking since the earliest days of their discipline,” argues Robert Dingwall in Social Science Space.
• “Why won’t the CDC or FDA reveal the VAERS URF?” – “This has resulted in the needless loss of life of well over 150,000 Americans,” argues Steve Kirsch in TrialSite.
• “More on original antigenic sin and the folly of our universal vaccination campaign” – A deeper look at a decisive limitation of our adaptive immune systems, writes Eugyppius in his latest Substack update.
• “Greenhouse gases kept rising during lockdowns, UN finds” – “Greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere have risen to a record high despite a drop in emissions due to Covid restrictions, the UN has warned,” reports the Times.
• “Nicola Sturgeon savaged for pushing own ‘selfish agenda’ as she moves to ‘shut down’ jobs” – “Nicola Strugeon has been accused of pushing her own ‘selfish’ independence agenda in a speech on climate change made ahead of the COP26 Conference,” reports the Express.
• “You can’t trust polling on climate change” – We want the environment sorted out – just not through our own personal sacrifice, writes Ross Clark in the Telegraph.
• “The deletion of Novara Media is an outrage” – YouTube’s censorship of political discussion has got to stop, demands the Spiked team.
• “Dave Chappelle meets soft totalitarianism” – Comedian says film festivals are banning his upcoming documentary in wake of transgender freakout, writes Rod Dreher in the American Conservative.
• “Netflix and the woke power play” – Millennial creatives are using identity politics to rise up the corporate ladder, argues Frank Furedi in Spiked.
• “Trans activists are trying to bully people” – Brendan O’Neill interviews Andrew Sullivan in Spiked.
• “Shouldn’t British police concentrate on catching criminals rather than promoting woke agendas on social media?” – “Where once British police sought to reassure the public by putting officers on the street, now there’s an unhealthy focus on promoting woke causes online,” writes Frank Furedi in RT.
• “Is Cambridge University ashamed of Winston Churchill?” – “When I first started at Churchill College, Cambridge, I was proud that I had joined an institution whose very existence was a testament to the legacy of a personal and national hero,” writes Harry Clynch in the Spectator.
• “The anti-abuse trap” – “The Government has had its sights set on online anonymity for some time,” writes Pertinax in Bournbrook Magazine.
• “Taking the knee is divisive – Quinton de Kock is not racist for refusing to do it” – If his career comes unstuck because of his wish to exercise his personal freedom, it would be added to cricket’s lengthening roll of shame, writes Simon Heffer in the Telegraph.
• “New Zealand will become a two-tiered society” – Martin Daubney chats to TalkRadio: “New Zealand locked down hard by closing the borders. Isn’t it funny that when Brexiteers suggested controlling our borders we were called fascists?”