News Round-Up

• “People stop me in the street and ask… Will we be ok?” – “Compared with a year ago, we have vaccines, we have boosters, we have tests, and we have the infrastructure to get all of them to where they need to be,” writes Matt Hancock, who argues that the worst is behind us in the Mail on Sunday.
• “Omicron hits the mutation jackpot” – The South African Omicron variant is the first Covid variant to achieve immune escape from all three major antibody classes. Is it finally time to panic? ask Swiss Policy Research.
• “Price of Covid testing kits set to soar in wake of new Omicron rules” – Private firms likely to raise costs as Labour calls on the Government to tighten up travel restrictions after two new cases discovered, reports the Telegraph.
• “Will the E.U. condemn the Rotterdam police shootings?” – “As disturbing as the reports were of the shooting, equally shocking has been the silence from the E.U. and the United Nations,” writes Gavin Mortimer in the Spectator.
• “South Africa’s President calls for lifting of Omicron travel bans” – Cyril Ramaphosa says the action by countries including the U.K. and U.S. is discriminatory and unnecessary, reports BBC News.
• “U.K. & Irish rugby teams ‘unable to leave South Africa’ over positive Omicron variant test” – “Two U.K. and Irish rugby teams trying to flee South Africa after the discovery of the Omicron strain of Covid say they are unable to leave the country after reporting positive tests,” reports RT.
• “Action on NHS waiting lists expected as Omicron variant lands” – Ministers consider options for patients facing non-emergency treatment as the queue rises to a record six million, reports the Telegraph.
• “WHO explains why it skipped ‘xi’ when naming new Covid variant Omicron” – “The World Health Organisation has explained why it skipped the Greek letters ‘nu’ and ‘xi’ in naming the new Covid variant Omicron,” reports the Epoch Times.
• “Israel seals borders and Morocco bans flights as Omicron Covid fears rise” – Red-listing of 50 African countries and use of phone monitoring technology among measures approved by Israel, reports the Guardian.
• “Face of Australia’s vaccine rollout says Omicron could be a good thing” – Australia’s former Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nick Coatsworth said early reports from southern Africa suggested the new strain may spread more quickly, but symptoms appeared to be milder, reports the Mail on Sunday.
• “Dancing mayor and shopping Biden breach mask mandates” – “San Francisco Mayor London Breed is facing a backlash after being filmed dancing carefree and maskless in a club despite the city’s mandate. U.S. President Joe Biden is meanwhile facing his own public-masking critiques,” reports RT.
• “Naturally immune people at little risk of reinfection and severe disease from Covid: study” – “People who recovered from Covid are at little risk of contracting the disease again, according to a study published this week,” reports the Epoch Times.
• “Part three: are the scientific journals censoring the science? My candid conversation with Dr. Robert Malone” – “Malone revealed the alarming counts of censorship by the scientific journals and the major conflicts of interest at play,” says Sonia Elijah, who speaks to Dr. Robert Malone in Trialsite.
• “Climate extremists have terrified a generation into not wanting children” – Instead of combating this alarmist ideology with facts and reason, our authority figures have only pandered to it, writes Douglas Murray in the Telegraph.
• “The silent treatment” – “Government proposals mean that someone challenging a child’s transgender identity would risk criminal sanctions. This would create a legal concept of a transgender child whose acquired identity cannot be challenged,” writes Tim Dieppe in the Critic.
• “Bowling the googly of identity politics” – People shouldn’t be shoehorned into categories which either damn or absolve them, writes Melanie Phillips in her latest Substack update.
• “Britain needs new ‘non-woke’ universities” – Some have proposed new rules enshrining universities’ obligation to protect free expression on campus – another path would be competition, writes Andrew Lilico in the Telegraph.
• “What the BBC show trial of Michael Vaughan tells us” – “What we got in this interview was the grilling, the accusations of thought crimes, the confession, the repentance, but no absolution,” writes Melanie McDonagh in the Spectator.
• “RAF accused of ‘needless wokery’ for ditching ‘airmen’ and ‘airwomen’” – “They have decided to replace the gender-specific titles with ‘aviators’ in a bid to be ‘more modern and appropriate’,” reports the Mail on Sunday.
• “‘Toxic masculinity’ is a term that helps precisely no one” – Benedict Cumberbatch has called on men to “fix their behaviour”, but this kind of preaching is just counterproductive, writes Zoe Strimpel in the Telegraph.
• “Prepare for the worst” – In an interview on ABC News, Dr. Fauci said that the U.S. (and presumably everywhere else) needs to “prepare for the worst”.