News Round-Up

• “Don’t panic about the ‘most vaccine-resistant Covid strain ever’! Experts say Britain’s wall of immunity means none of the current variants pose a threat to U.K.” – The XBB mutant strain – which has been detected in England – has mutations that make it harder for Covid-fighting antibodies to spot, but experts say there’s no cause to panic, reports the Mail.
• “What are EU thinking? European Union approves Covid jabs for babies amid growing fears of winter wave” – The Bloc’s drug watchdog gave the green light for children older than six months to get either Pfizer or Moderna’s jab, the Mail reports.
• “The ACIP Vote Today and What This Means” – Dr. Robert Malone says the U.S. advisory panel voted unanimously 15-0 for the CDC to recommend that children get the COVID-19 “vaccines and boosters”, while the actual vote to add the experimental COVID-19 mRNA injection to the childhood vaccination schedule is on Thursday.
• “Hong Kong spends £3.4bn to lure businesses after Zero-Covid policy cripples economy” – The Telegraph reports on the “top talent pass” which aims to reverse the exodus of foreign nationals.
• “IMF ponders ways to end people’s hesitancy to move away to cash” – Reclaim the Net reports on moves towards a digital-only future. (Watch the IMF video discussing the idea.)
• “The meaning of Jacinda Ardern” – Poppy Coburn in the Critic has seen the future, and it’s “soggy authoritarianism from elite darlings”.
• “NHS plans ‘war rooms’ as staff face their toughest winter in decades amid appointments backlog and fear of Covid resurgence” – ‘Winter resilience plans’ announced in a letter to staff include new 24-hour control centres in every area which will manage demand and capacity by tracking beds and attendances, according to the Mail.
• “Mark it Covid!” – El Gato Malo spots that deaths with cancer and Covid on the death certificate look to be being called “Covid” by the CDC to keep the cancer numbers down.
• “Boston University falsely denies gain-of-function accusations, lamely claims creation of chimeric SARS-2 virus will lead to ‘Targeted therapeutic interventions to help fight against future pandemics’” – Eugyppius calls out the obviously false denials of the GOF researchers who pretend they’re not.
• “When science and civil liberties clash” – Helen Dale at the Freethinker  argues that a modern liberal state cannot justify lockdowns – and adds that “supporters of mandatory vaccination who argue ‘my body, my choice’ in other circumstances have now created serious cognitive dissonance for themselves”.
• “Health Officials Dumped Stocks in January 2020, Before Covid Was Declared an Emergency” – Michael Senger highlights a report from the Wall Street Journal which found leading health officials “began offloading stocks at truly unprecedented rates in January 2020 – well before the COVID-19 emergency was declared”.
• “The Macroeconomic Consequences of Lockdowns and the Aftermath” – An economy freighted down with $92 trillion of public and private debt was, is and will remain an accident waiting to happen, argues David Stockman in Brownstone.
• “Agree with Us or Hold your Tongue” – Ramesh Thakur writes for Brownstone that governments, health bureaucrats and drug regulators around the world have egregiously exploited the Covid crisis, and the freedom of doctors to dissent from Government diktat is the latest casualty.
• “The SARS-CoV-2 transmission riddle – Part 9” – Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson with the latest instalment of their quest for a robust method of finding the truth about infectious disease transmission.
• “Call for evidence on Net Zero review” – Chris Skidmore MP invites evidence on the Government’s approach to delivery its Net Zero target, as part of an Independent Review of Net Zero – closes October 27th.
• “Typhoon Frequency Has Fallen Since 1950, Contradicting Alarmist Global Warming Claims” – The typhoon trend is just more ‘Inconvenient Truth that the climate alarmists don’t want the public to know, writes Pierre Gosselin at WUWT.
• “Just Stop Oil bankrolled by non-profit funded by oil heiress” – The Telegraph reports that Aileen Getty is a founding member of Climate Emergency Fund, which has handed out more than $4m to activists including Extinction Rebellion.
• “‘It’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’: Suella Braverman launches savage blast at two men who blocked Dartford Crossing in Just Stop Oil protest” – “It’s the Labour Party, it’s the Lib Dems, it’s the coalition of chaos, it’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati… that we have to thank for the disruption we see on our roads today,” she said, according to the Mail. Somehow I don’t think we’ll be hearing the same from Grant Shapps.
• “HSBC climate change adverts banned by U.K. watchdog” – The regulator said two of the bank’s posters “omitted material information and were therefore misleading” amid complaints of “greenwashing”, reports BBC News.
• “University to take action after report finds founder benefitted from slavery” – Dundee University says it will “decolonise” its curriculum after Mary Ann Baxter’s family wealth is partly traced to “clothing worn by enslaved people”, reports the Telegraph. Oh dear.
• “Toxic masculinity is a harmful myth. Society is in denial about the problems of boys and men” – Richard Reeves argues in Big Think that we are tearing ourselves apart over gender issues, with the result that the problems of boys and men are left untreated.
• “Why Suella matters” – Matt Goodwin on what the departure of Britain’s Home Secretary tells us about British Conservatism.
• “The Met needs to get its house in order” – It is failing to deal with police misconduct – but it is not institutionally racist or sexist, argues Luke Gittos in Spiked.
• “The BBC is beyond saving” – A hundred years since its founding, the Beeb is now a preachy HR department with some TV channels attached, says Gareth Roberts in Spiked.
• “Sorry, Elon, Donald and Ye. Americans by wide margins want social media firms to counter abuse, racism, conspiracy theories, and fake news, says poll that suggests weak demand for absolute free speech platforms” – The Mail reports that “Americans by wide margins want guard rails on their social media platforms and blocks on everything from harassment to abuse, racism, conspiracy theories and fake news”. According to, er, a YouGov poll – not exactly known for reliable outputs or favouring ‘conservative’ causes.
• “We’re now learning just how bad the ‘collateral damage’ is post-pandemic” – Does a tweet from Bill Maher signal a shift in opinion on the U.S. Left?

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