News Round-Up

• “Pupils ‘vilified’ if they don’t take Covid tests or wear masks in class” – The Telegraph reports on a call for a crackdown on schools that threaten to banish children to back of the class or deny them lessons if they don’t follow the rules.
• “London’s Covid cases and admissions peak without overwhelming NHS, figures suggest” – Boris Johnson may have been right to avoid further curbs, as seven-day case rates have been falling in the capital since December 26th, reports the Telegraph.
• “Plan B is working in England, insists minister” – “I don’t see any reason why we need to change”, says vaccines minister ahead of cabinet meeting, the Independent reports. But the Royal College of Nursing and other unions have other ideas.
• “Covid: More hospital trusts declare ‘critical incident’ over staff shortages” – At least eight trusts have taken steps to protect services in the past week, amid staff shortages, reports the BBC.
• “Heads warn of weeks of Omicron disruption in English schools” – Staff absences mean some pupils face return to remote learning, amid doubts over advice to combine classes, reports the Telegraph.
• “Chinese-style mass testing must end if we’re ever to learn to live with Covid” – “The mass testing of perfectly healthy people would have been considered insane just a few years ago, yet is now a national orthodoxy. Lining up children before they go to school to have a swab stuck up their noses to check for a disease that they probably have not got – and which will affect them very mildly if they do have it – is not only bonkers, it is inhuman, as is requiring they wear masks in the classroom.” Philip Johnston back on strong sceptical form in the Telegraph.
• “Modellers are heading for a showdown” – To make Covid models actually useful for guiding policy their authors urgently need to include economists or other experts in behaviour, writes Andrew Lilico in the Telegraph.
• “The problem with ‘vaccine equity’” – Having the jabs is just one part of the equation, writes Ross Clark in the Spectator.
• “Is this the most bizarre anti-vaccine conspiracy theory yet?” – The Telegraph‘s Michael Deacon on the tiny flaw in the supposed plan to massacre the vaccinated but leave the rebellious unvaccinated alive.
• “Dr. McCullough: Outpatient Treatments for COVID-19 Have Been Suppressed” – Peter McCullough tells the Epoch Times that the public should question why governments and public health officials around the world have put little to no emphasis on outpatient treatments in their effort to fight the COVID-19 virus.
• “They Said They Would Slow the Spread” – Jeffrey A. Tucker at the Brownstone Institute sees the current surges across America as marking both the end of the pandemic and the spectacular failure of the coercive state public health policies designed to prevent them.
• “Covid and mass formation psychosis” – Alexander Adams in Bournbrook Magazine on the origin of the concept and how it is playing out in the pandemic.
• “Whitty and Van-Tam, knighted for defending the indefensible” – The Government medics have had “the unenviable task of defending the indefensible as front men for a Government in the grip of a massively powerful wave of global hysteria”, writes Neville Hodgkinson in TCW.
• “Why masks could be on planes forever” – Just like the 100ml liquids rule and other security rituals, the mask directive feels more like theatre than a proven safety measure, writes Oliver Smith in a depressing piece for the Telegraph.
• “Pandemic is stunting babies’ development due to stress on mothers” – A U.S. study finds that infants born during the crisis scored lower on motor and social skills than pre-Covid children, the Telegraph reports.
• “Yuzhou in Central China announces lockdown after recording three asymptomatic cases in two days” – Almost unbelievably extreme response from the authorities, reported in the Global Times, so it must be true.
• “Open Letter to Members of the House of Lords re Vaccine Mandates for NHS and CQC-regulated Healthcare Workers” – The latest open letter from the UKMFA, fully referenced and judiciously worded as usual.
• “Heat Pumps v Hydrogen: (Scalded Or Burned!!)” – According to a new study from the European Consumer Organisation, the cost of hydrogen from electrolysis is more than four times the cost of natural gas, meaning average annual bills would rise from £375 to £1,830, writes Paul Homewood.
• “New Study: Pacific And Indian Ocean Sea Levels Rising ‘Much Slower Than Climate Model Predictions’” – Over 700 low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have coasts that have been stable to expanding in size since the 1980s, writes Kenneth Richard in NoTricksZone.
• “Is this the end of progressive America?” – Multiple fronts of resistance are taking shape, writes Joel Kotkin in UnHerd.
• “The Eternal Away Game” – Watch Bournbrook‘s S.D. Wickett on the challenges of being outnumbered and what Twitter’s new regime means for online dissent from progressive orthodoxy.
• “‘White Coats for Black Lives’ and the Transformation of Medical Schools” – A national organisation of medical students has successfully pressured their schools to embrace radical identity politics, reports City Journal.
• “AOC and the self-absorbed left” – Feminism has taught too many women that narcissism is desirable, argues Amber Athey in the Spectator.
• “Plight of the white male student” – “He knew before he called that I would sympathise, but talking was still risky. If our conversation got out we both could be targeted by the fabricated allegations of bigotry and extremism that await those who dissent. Other students, unsurprisingly, are reluctant to complain, however discreetly.” Mark Campion on the risks of dissent in TCW.
• “Ex-ITV boss attacks the craven MSM” – Watch former head of ITV News Mark Sharman in an interview with ex-BBC journalist Anna Brees ask “when did it become the [Government-appointed] regulator’s job to determine debate on Government policy” or discourage investigation of alternative views?