News Round-Up

• “War on NHS ‘waste and wokery’ begins: Up to 8,000 health service jobs to be axed over next two years in clampdown on bureaucrats” – NHS England Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard revealed plans to cut between 30% to 40% of jobs at a trio of health bodies by 2024, reports the Mail.
• “Has ‘Long Covid’ peaked too? Number of Brits with lingering virus symptoms falls for first time in a year amid rise of milder Omicron strains” – The Mail reports that the number of people who say they have Long Covid in the U.K. has fallen for the first time in a year, according to ONS data.
• “Come on, monkeypox, raise your game!” – Where are the piles of pox-ridden bodies on the streets, the undertakers’ carts piled high with corpses and Nightingale hospitals full to overflowing with pustulating patients taking the strain off our permanently overwhelmed NHS, asks Dr. Roger Watson in TCW Defending Freedom.
• “Monkeypox: July Update” – Read the latest update from the Swiss Doctor.
• “Model Misspecification and Grossly Inflated Estimates of Lives Saved” – While models are often a useful tool to simulate scenarios that have not occurred, inaccurate assumptions about model parameters can easily lead to model misspecification, writes Dr. Spiro P. Pantazatos in Brownstone.
• “The Best Mask Study Yet” – Ian Miller in Brownstone summarises a new study which found no statistically significant benefit to mandating masks in schools, in a comparison between two very similar, neighbouring school districts in North Dakota.
• “Fury as train company blames ‘staff shortages from Covid’ for massive cancellations and tells passengers only travel ‘if journeys are necessary’ this weekend” – TransPennine Express, which runs trains across the North of England, has urged passengers to think “is my journey necessary” because “short-notice cancellations are likely”, reports the Mail.
• “Judge Recarey ordered the suspension of Covid vaccination for children” – A judge in Uruguay has ordered the suspension of Covid vaccination for children between the ages of five and 13, Tele Mundo reports (via Google translate).
• “Collateral damage of lockdowns could be ‘killing 1,000 people a week’: non-Covid deaths rise in England and Wales as experts blame pandemic restrictions and backlogs” – The Mail with an article on the recent surge in non-Covid deaths, but failing to mention the possible contribution of vaccine injury. Readers are on it though, with the second-highest rated comment (900 up-votes) pointing the omission out, and other commenters listing their loved ones lost to vaccine injury.
• “After backlash, Beijing drops Covid vaccination mandate for crowded venues” – Reuters reports that Beijing’s city government has dropped plans to allow only vaccinated people to enter crowded venues such as libraries, cinemas and gyms from Monday, following a strong online backlash to the measure announced earlier this week, in a rare sign of the limits of Chinese totalitarian rule.
• “Updated analysis of deaths in males 15-19 years of age” – HART looks at the latest data from the ONS on non-Covid deaths in 15-19 year old males, which show some worrying trends.
• “Shinzo Abe, Fierce Opponent of Communism & Covid Mandates, Assassinated” – Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot on Friday during a campaign rally, was a titan of anti-communism in Asia and a fierce opponent of Covid mandates, writes Michael Senger.
• “The “safe and effective” narrative is falling apart” – Steve Kirsch gives a list of 25 leading indicators that the momentum is moving in sceptics’ favour, particularly, he says, in the U.K.
• “Brexiteer Steve Baker backs Suella Braverman as he drops his own leadership bid” – The leading lockdown- and climate- sceptic MP tells the Telegraph why the Attorney General can turn the Conservative Party around.
• “Sajid Javid pushed for Christmas lockdown and mandatory Covid vaccines” – The Telegraph reveals the former Health Secretary advocated strict rules to curb the spread of Omicron.
• “Is Russia winning the war?” – Ukraine will lose without drastic Western mobilisation, argues Aris Roussinos in UnHerd.
• “The climate scaremongers: The good old days of global cooling!” – Paul Homewood in TCW Defending Freedom says that by the 1970s, the world had undergone three decades of cooling, which followed what one renowned climatologist described as the “benign warming trend” of the early 20^th century. 
• “Persuasion, review: erroneous Austen ‘update’ is woke-washing at its worst” – Netflix’s adaptation comes with dreary dialogue and almost a total disregard for its supposed source material, writes Tim Robey in the Telegraph.
• “Why they hate Suella Braverman” – The media are once again horrified by a woman of colour who dares to hold the wrong opinions, writes Inaya Folarin Iman in Spiked.
• “Penny Mordaunt’s pro-trans stance ‘ruins her chances’ of becoming Tory leader” – The Trade minister, an early frontrunner in the race, is criticised by conservative activists over her statements that trans women are women.
• “The causes of excess deaths has inverted” – Dr. Clare Craig tweets analysis showing the proportion of deaths attributed to heart problems has dramatically increased since 2020.

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