News Round-Up

• “Covid hospitalisations have now peaked in every region” – NHS England data show daily admissions are trending downwards across the country and have fallen by nearly a fifth since the peak in some areas, the Mail reports.
• “Children up to four years old were just as likely to die from the flu or a stroke as Covid at the height of the Omicron wave, data shows – and those aged 5 to 14 were four times more likely to die from cancer” – Breaking the figures down by age group showed that among children aged one to four years cancer was the leading cause of death followed by heart disease, while Covid was in third place with the flu and a stroke, reports the Mail.
• “Europe must act now or risk tougher Covid measures later” – European nations must accelerate vaccine uptake and bring back mask wearing to tackle a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by an Omicron offshoot and avoid stricter measures later in the year, a senior World Health Organisation official said on Tuesday, according to the Cyprus Mail.
• “Covid inquiry sidelining children, MPs and campaigners fear” – The first three modules of inquiry were announced on Thursday, but none explicitly mentions effects of crisis on youngsters, reports the Telegraph.
• “Support for vax passes, mask mandates waning” – George J. Dance says that Canadians’ tolerance of Covid vaccine passports and mask mandates has waned, according to a national polling firm.
• “‘Manipulated’ Alzheimer’s data may have misled research for 16 years” – The Telegraph reports on a scandal that surrounds a 2006 article, a keystone of recent dementia work, that critics say is based on “shockingly blatant” evidence tampering.
• “Patronising, selective, abusive – the vaccine propaganda machine at its worst” – Laura Perrins in TCW Defending Freedom was not impressed with the BBC’s Unvaccinated.
• “More Injections, More Infections?” – The Swiss Doctor asks if Covid vaccinations drive Covid infections.
• “Why I’m glad the Libs lost” – Liberal they ain’t, says James Allen in Spectator Australia.
• “Why I won’t have a Covid booster” – Lionel Shriver in the Spectator says three is quite enough risk to bear.
• “Green energy shift gives China ‘leverage’ over Britain, Lords warn” – Overreliance on Beijing’s critical minerals market is a “national security concern”, the Telegraph reports.
• “CNN director on the pivot to climate activism” – El Gato Malo with the video of a CNN director saying they are pivoting from Covid alarmism to climate alarmism.
• “Climate Alarmists Respond to the Global Warming Pause” – Eric Worrall in WUWT doesn’t find the rebuttal persuasive: “The oceans swallowed my global warming? Desperate butt covering from alarmists who are facing increasingly embarrassing questions about the failure of the world to end.”
• “Stagflation and Net Zero” – The U.K. Government is not honestly communicating the economic cost of moving to Net-Zero by 2050 and meeting the planned carbon reductions by 2030, write Professor Brian Sturgess, Chris Hill and Oliver Ontiveros in EnviroTech.
• “Dave Chappelle’s latest cancellation should trouble us all” – Comedian Dave Chappelle was due to perform a sell-out stand-up show last night, but just hours before he took to the stage the show was called off, and it’s not hard to guess why, says Debbie Hayton in the Spectator.
• “Woke activism has no place in the classroom” – Too many schools are teaching children divisive ideas about race, against the wishes of parents, says Alka Sehgal Cuthbert in Spiked.
• “‘Cancel culture’ backfires as donors pull cash from Edinburgh University” – A tower named after philosopher David Hume was rechristened in 2020 after students condemned comments he made relating to race, but the decision has cost the university dear, reports the Telegraph.
• “Making social class a ‘protected characteristic’ is patronising nonsense” – It’s a nebulous concept so highly subjective, it’s almost impossible to define – so of course it’s squaring up to be the new flashpoint, says Judith Woods in the Telegraph.
• “Police told to focus on catching criminals, not ‘Twitter debates’” – The Telegraph reports that new guidance warns officers not to intervene in “trivial or irrational” online incidents simply because someone is offended.
• “Free Speech Union writes to Lancaster council leader over Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown show cancellation” – The Free Speech Union has written to Lancaster City Council leader Caroline Jackson over the council’s decision to cancel the Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown show in Morecambe next month, the Lancaster Guardian reports.
• “Disney rebrands ‘Fairy Godmother’ roles to make them gender neutral” – The move reflects the woke company’s desire to prioritise “inclusion” and operate with “greater flexibility with respect to forms of personal expression”, according to the Telegraph.
• “Elon Musk is right about ESG” – The label has become indistinguishable from a scam, says Greg Barker in UnHerd.
• “Against Tory tinkering” – Bin the Online Safety Bill, says Charlie Peters in the Critic.

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