News Round-Up

• “New Covid variant XBB.1.5 that is already behind one in 25 cases in the U.K. is a ‘wake-up call’ and could worsen the NHS crisis, experts warn” – Here we go again – read about the latest scariant in the Mail.
• “Nearly 50 shops closed their doors every day in U.K. last year” – More than 17,000 shops across the country closed – up nearly 50% on 2021, reports GB News.
• “Whitehall’s WFH culture laid bare: Number of desks at main Government buildings plummets by one fifth in three years as thousands of civil servants are allowed to continue working from home” – There are now fewer than 22,000 desks across the main Government buildings – a fall of more than 5,000 in less than three years as staff continue to work from home, the Mail reports.
• “President Xi finally admits the mistakes of China’s disastrous Zero Covid policy as huge exit wave of infections ‘peaks’ in Beijing after 250m people were infected last month” – The premier acknowledged “unprecedented difficulties and challenges” in his New Year’s Eve address to the nation, and said it was “only natural” that his policy sparked protests, according to the Mail.
• “China’s Covid policy has ravaged its economy” – The country is no longer projected to overtake America this decade, writes Austin Williams in UnHerd.
• “No public health rationale to screen China flights for Covid, Chief Medical Officer says” – An unexpected intervention in Australia as leading public health experts said the urgent new restrictions were “not science-based” but “political” as variants could come from anywhere, reports the Age.
• “Covid restrictions on Chinese travellers are a bad idea” – The underlying idea that politicians can control viruses was never true, says Dr. David Paton in UnHerd.
• “The devolution of the public health function” – Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan on “how another nonsensical political gesture is feeding the testing industry”.
• “Emboldening the biosecurity state” – Jamie Walden in Bournbrook says it is “depressing to have Covid regulations in the U.K. for the first time in 10 months”.
• “Japan’s imperial family don face masks on new year’s day appearance” – Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako appeared at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan, to greet 1,500 well-wishers on New Year’s Day – but they were cautious with face masks, reports the Mail.
• “Why are people still wearing masks?” – The New Conservative‘s youth correspondent, 14 year-old Jack Watson, on the widespread reluctance to ditch masks.
• “Yet another ‘conspiracy theory’ comes true – vaccines fuelling variants and causing sickness” – The Wall Street Journal is catching up, says the Naked Emperor.
• “Something wicked this way comes (and by something, I mean mRNA immune system dysregulation)” – Alex Berenson with an accessible Q&A on the recent paper reporting an explosion in tolerance-inducing antibodies after the mRNA boosters.
• “Vaxxing Deaths or Covid Deaths?” – Ron Unz sets out the argument against the vaccines driving excess deaths.
• “Home Insulation Makes Little Difference To Energy Consumption – New Study” – WUWT reports on an unusually frank piece from the Guardian.
• “‘Woke’ review of Parliament’s historic art collection lists 343 pieces tainted by slavery – with Robert Peel, Robert Walpole and Edmund Burke among those named for links to abhorrent trade in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries” – If the Government can’t even squash wokery in Parliament, as per this story in the Mail, what hope for the rest of the country?
• “Trans NHS staff can treat patients who request same-sex care for intimate procedures” – One NHS trust said it is unable to guarantee patients will be treated by a clinician of the same-sex if requested, according to the think tank Policy Exchange, as reported in the Telegraph.
• “Female-only Welsh publisher invites submissions from trans authors” – Transgender and non-binary authors can submit work to state-funded publisher Honno intended for female writers, prompting concerns that it has “caved to ideology”, the Telegraph reports.
• “‘It was difficult for my wife… she married what she thought was a straight guy’: How Britain’s ‘first non-binary CofE priest’ came out to their [sic] spouse and three children after having a ‘revelation’ from reading the story of Adam and Eve” – Bingo Allison, 36, who defines as ‘gender-queer’ and is thought to be the Church of England’s first openly non-binary priest, said it was “difficult” when he came out to his wife and three children, the Mail reports. I somehow doubt that was what the author of Genesis had in mind.
• “CDC Principles to Avoid Wrong-Speak” – The CDC is apparently afraid that we might hurt people’s feelings by using unapproved terms that ‘stigmatise’ them, and that this would lead to a threat to public health, says Dr. Robert Malone.
• “We need a parents’ revolt against woke indoctrination” – In 2023, let’s kick identity politics out of the classroom, declares Lauren Smith in Spiked.
• “There Is No Right Side of History” – William Deresiewicz in the Free Press writes that while he considers himself politically progressive, the idea that ‘history’ is on his side is a dangerous myth.

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