News Round-Up

• “The legacy of Covid: Lockdowns have left us lonelier” – The toll of the pandemic on the nation’s wellbeing has been laid bare: not only are we lonelier, Covid has also hurt our sleep and made us more addicted to screens, research reveals, according to the Mail.
• “Trudeau’s Emergencies Act reappraised – how the Canadian Maple fell without a sound” – Alex Story in Time for Recovery says what happened in Canada earlier this year has been almost forgotten in the light of the war in Ukraine, yet Justin Trudeau’s response to the truckers’ protest shocked the world.
• “UK Covid cases breach 100,000 again as daily figure rises 12%” – Mail report that Government dashboard data showed the U.K.’s Covid cases, deaths and hospitalisations all rose today. Cases dropped yesterday, although this was down to a “technical error”.
• “Professor Doom strikes again!” – While there are high levels of immunity in the U.K., “there is a long way to go” in the pandemic and it will continue to “throw surprises”, England’s Chief Medical Officer has said, according to the Mail.
• “England’s last ditch scramble for free lateral flows: NHS medics complain they can’t get any Covid tests as health chiefs steer public away from online site ahead of ‘£2bn-a-month’ scheme being shut down next week” – Many people are already saying they are struggling to get hold of the packs of seven swabs, which have run out by 10am every day this week, reports the Mail.
• “How did we let lockdown happen?” – Two years on from the UK’s first ‘stay at home’ order, we must vow to never shut down society again, says Fraser Myers in Spiked.
• “False narratives about Covid left us with millions of deaths – will we challenge them now?” – The Guardian plumbs the deaths with an extraordinarily misinformed piece from Debora MacKenzie.
• “The Canary Islands will suspend all Covid restrictions from Thursday” – Mail report that President Angel Victor Torres made the announcement on Tuesday during the annual Canarian debate, adding: “It is not the end of the pandemic. We will remain vigilant.”
• “An end to WFH?: Pret sales in City return to near pre-pandemic levels” – Figures from Bloomberg’s “Pret Index” show the chain’s transactions in the City and Canary Wharf reached a near pandemic high of 86% of pre-COVID-19 levels last week, reports the Mail.
• “How Boris’s historic lockdown speech has aged two years on” – Marking two years since Boris Johnson announced the unprecedented first U.K. coronavirus lockdown, the Mail looks back at a “historic speech” that changed life as we knew it.
• “More children seek gender treatment after lockdowns” – The number of children seeking gender-change treatment on the NHS has risen by more than a fifth since the COVID-19 lockdowns, the Times reports.
• “Children must be at the core of the Covid inquiry” – Two years on from the introduction of lockdowns, we must understand the true cost of that policy on the country’s children, says the Telegraph in a leading article.
• “Covid inquiry ‘ignores that children paid the ultimate price’ during pandemic” – The Children’s Commissioner calls for the scope of the inquiry to be widened to include social care in light of a number of harrowing, high-profile cases, reports the Telegraph.
• “Sir Chris Whitty: Childhood obesity ‘significantly’ worse as a result of lockdowns” – The Chief Medical Officer has described the potential for “substantial” impact on children’s health, with mental welfare and cancer rates also affected, the Telegraph reports.
• “Nearly 2,500 BC Health-Care Workers Fired for Refusing COVID-19 Shots” – Nearly 2,500 health-care workers in British Columbia were put out of a job when they decided not to receive the COVID-19 shots, reports the Epoch Times.
• “How Vaccine Messaging Confused the Public” – If politicians and health bureaucrats had been honest with the public, setting out the criteria the COVID-19 vaccines were trialled against, and what could and could not be expected of the vaccines, then this widespread misunderstanding need not have occurred, argues John Gibson at the Brownstone Institute.
• “Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine safe for children under six” – The Mail reports that Moderna announced Wednesday morning that it has successfully completed clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine in children as young as six months old and soon plans to submit data to regulators to get its jab approved.
• “Results from the Moderna paediatric Covid vaccine trial: if this is success, I’d hate to see failure” – Contrary to reports, these are results are awful and the study itself proves this drug is not needed in this age group, says El Gato Malo.
• “Pfizer vaccine can damage brain cells and immune system, study suggests” – Guy Hatchard in TCW Defending Freedom on a pre-print study that points to possible effects of mRNA vaccines on crucial brain functions.
• “Disney Launching Task Force to Make More LGBTQ+ Content for Children and Families” – Disney CEO Bob Chapek continues to apologise to the company’s politically active employees and has announced a “task force” to develop action plans to make more LGBT-aware content for children and families, reports Breitbart News.
• “Cambridge college told to keep slavery-linked memorial of Tobias Rustat in court victory against cancel culture” – The ruling rejects what it calls a “false narrative” around Tobias Rustat, arguing removal of the memorial would cause “notable” harm to the chapel, reports the Telegraph.
• “Ketanji Brown Jackson Refuses to Define Word ‘Woman’” – President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee refused to define what a woman is or say whether she agreed that punishments for possessing or distributing child pornography should be strengthened, reports the Epoch Times.
• “‘Basic facts of biology’: Boris Johnson enters the transgender debate” – The Telegraph notes that this is the PM’s first significant intervention on whether men and women are self-identified genders or immutable biological categories.
• “If Ukraine rejects a deal, there could be much worse to come” – Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley in TCW Defending Freedom offers a frank assessment of the current state of play.
• “Scholz: Russian energy ban would mean European recession” – Politico reports that the German Chancellor has pushed back against calls for energy sanctions in response to war in Ukraine.
• “As Energy System Comes Apart, Germany Now Preparing Emergency Natural Gas Rationing Plans” – “The Government is having a contingency plan drawn up to determine which companies should first stop receiving gas when Russian natural gas fails to arrive,” reports Blackout News, according to Watts Up With That?

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.