News Round-Up

• “China’s ‘zero-Covid’ policy was a mass imprisonment campaign” – The Chinese Government used the pandemic to accumulate ever more power, and the result was a totalitarian, anti-scientific humanitarian catastrophe, writes Murong Xuecun in the Guardian (yes, really).
• “Has CDC Director misled U.S. Congress on Cochrane Review A122?” – Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan catch Walensky making highly dubious claims about the Cochrane masks review in a Congressional hearing.
• “FDA Scraps Licensed mRNA Vaccines: Now Only Investigational Products Available to Market — Despite End of Public Health Emergency” — TrialSite News reports on the changes in the U.S. that have ended the approval of the original vaccines.
• “Shocking report details MHRA failings over Covid vaccines” – Sally Beck covers the Perseus report for TCW.
• “Why a COVID-19 lab leak just became more likely” – The Telegraph reports on the comments from China’s George Gao indicating that an intermediate species between bats and humans may not be required.
• “The ‘non-specific effects’ of vaccination, or: How certain vaccines appear to have enduring influences on infections and mortality in the vaccinated unrelated to the viral infections they prevent” – Virus transmission and the human immune system are poorly understood, and interventions to reduce human disease often have a range of unanticipated outcomes, writes Eugyppius as he reports on a new study.
• “Japan’s experts get excited about the ninth Covid wave” – Why do the Government’s scientific advisers think the next wave will be the biggest yet when Japan is the most boosted country on Earth, asks Guy Gin.
• “Do young people really still support the Covid measures?” – Jack Watson isn’t convinced in the New Conservative.
• “Scientific American: Social Bullying is the Best Motivator for Green Behaviour” – Can you smell the whiff of Chinese social credit systems – in which the Government increasingly becomes involved in bullying people who don’t conform to the direction of their leaders, asks Eric Worrall in WUWT.
• “The King should not apologise for slavery” – Why have we become so fixated with the crimes of 250 years ago, while casually ignoring the slavery of today, asks Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
• “How to lose sales and alienate people” – Lionel Shriver discusses woke capitalism and the conservative fightback in the Spectator.
• “The Bud Light boycott is working” – The beer company’s sales are down after its Dylan Mulvaney collaboration, says Noah Carl in UnHerd.
• “How Kirstie Allsopp lost the plot” – She hasn’t got the first clue about the trans debate, but has waded in anyway, writes Gareth Roberts for Spiked.
• “Now trans activist who boasts of her [sic] violence joins Women’s Institute: Self-professed ‘violent and cruel’ martial arts champion signs up to organisation amid row over policy to allow transgender members” – Shanu Varma, who has described himself as “violent and cruel”, said he had signed up to the organisation, the Mail reports.
• “Academics punished for speech soars over last three years” – A new report finds a surge in sanctions against professors, writes James Billot for UnHerd.
• “Professor says universities have become ideological monocultures” – Author Matthew Goodwin tells Planet Normal‘s Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan how free speech is being snuffed out on campus.
• “How Academic Freedom Died at Princeton” – Compact Magazine‘s Abigail Anthony is alarmed that 31 of Princeton’s academic departments have DEI committees.
• “BuzzFeed Is Quietly Publishing Whole AI-Generated Articles, Not Just Quizzes” – After announcing earlier this year a pivot to quizzes co-written by AI, BuzzFeed seems to have widened its purview to include articles, write Noor Al-Sibai and Jon Christian for Futurism.
• “America’s cities have descended into anarchy – and Britain’s could be next” – From crime to climate protesters, the predictable result of not upholding the law is more lawlessness, says Douglas Murray in the Telegraph.

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