News Round-Up

• “Petition: prohibit employers from requiring staff to be vaccinated against Covid” – Make it illegal for any employer to mandate vaccination for its employees. This should apply to all public sector (including the NHS, armed forces, and care workers), third sector, and private sector.
• “My post-vaccine chest pain and a desperate search for answers” – “It seems only fair that the health service repays this by investigating the adverse reactions of people like me, so that the public faith in the vaccines and their safety can be assured,” writes Bryan Blears in the Spectator.
• “Covid vaccines for five year-olds could be premature, warn paediatricians” – Concern grows over extending the vaccine rollout to younger children after it emerged they could be offered shot next spring, reports the Telegraph.
• “What to expect in year three of the pandemic” – “In the wealthier countries of the world, year three of the pandemic will be better than year two, and Covid will have much less impact on health and everyday activities,” argues Natasha Loder in the Economist.
• “It’s a danger to the world that the precise origins of Covid remain a mystery” – Until we can rule out a laboratory origin for Covid, we must act as if it may have happened, says Matt Ridley in the Telegraph.
• “Scientists urge caution over proposals to impose vaccine passports in U.K.” – Experts’ warning as Covid crackdowns across Europe result in widespread protests, reports the Guardian.
• “Are clubs using Covid excuse to rearrange fixtures?” – Football clubs in the Republic of Ireland have been exploiting Covid outbreaks to try and rearrange matches, writes Michael Foley in the Sunday Times.
• “Cast off without a thank you after 11 years of dedicated care home service” – “It is with great sadness and disappointment that I am writing to you with regards to my dismissal and my colleagues’ dismissal, due to our decision to oppose your vaccination campaign,” writes former care worker Lisa Alton in her resignation letter, published in TCW.
• “Covid and the smoke of Satan” – “There is the never-before-in-history decision of the worldwide Catholic Church, to say nothing of the worldwide Anglican communion, to shut its doors and abandon the flock out of the fear of mortal death, which the Bible plainly tells us is Satan’s stock in trade,” writes Michael C. Hurley in American Thinker.
• “The Covid children’s crusade” – “In a sane era, no ethics review board would allow doctors to bribe young children to undergo a treatment with unknown dangers,” writes John Tierney, who comments on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio paying children to get the vaccine in City Journal.
• “Scotland must look to England, not Europe, to escape the Covid ghost of Christmas past” – Nicola Sturgeon’s decision on extending vaccine passports could be the difference between Scotland plunging into darkness or festive cheer, writes Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph.
• “Pandemic malarkey: crooked timber” – “It must be dawning on all but the most wilfully reality averse that too much of this pandemic has been a Trojan Horse. The aim, globally more than locally, being to terrify us while other agendas are advanced,” argues Omar Khan in Uncommon Wisdom.
• “Harvard-affiliated study of healthcare workers evidences robust natural immunity” – “This study provides strong evidence as to the robustness of natural immunity. The healthcare workers that were infected previously appear to have greater immunity – the data suggests they aren’t a threat to transmit the pathogen,” reports Trialsite.
• “In angry rant, state media anchor demands Austrian-style vaccine mandates for Germany” – As Saxony and Bavaria announce closures and cancel Christmas markets in the face of surging infections, the press unfolds a coordinated campaign to blame the unvaccinated, writes Eugyppius in his latest Substack update.
• “U.S. Government documents support Wuhan lab-leak Covid origin story” – U.S. Government documents suggest the bat and lab escape Covid origin theories might both be true, as Wuhan Institute was studying Lao bats, which are carriers of a virus similar to Covid, reports MailOnline.
• “Why we should scrap Islamophobia Awareness Month” – The term ‘Islamophobia’ is too often used to shield radical Islamists from criticism, writes Wasiq Wasiq in Spiked.
• “The woke mob wants to replace virtue with ‘correct-think’” – Young people are being taught that goodness isn’t found in forgiveness, fortitude and courage, but in reciting fashionable cultural mantras, writes Inaya Folarin Iman in the Telegraph.
• “A new spectator sport has emerged – and it’s destroying our way of life” – As Azeem Rafiq has found, private messages have become a vast database of potential recrimination, writes Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times.
• “Rittenhouse acquitted: let the conspiracies and tantrums begin” – “The dominant media appealed to progressive America’s racialised paranoia and… vilified Rittenhouse as a white supremacist,” says Luke Perry, who analyses the American left’s unjustified reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal in Bournbrook Magazine.
• “The end goal” – Benedict Spence speaks to talkRadio about the return of lockdown to Europe and the violent demonstrations which have followed: “This is the end goal of governments taking advantage of the goodwill of their citizens to put in place wildly unpopular measures.”

Stop Press: Funny video in which someone with a Welsh accent has dubbed over Sajid Javid’s comments on Marr.