An anthropologist by background with no training in medicine, virology or immunology, Devi Sridhar has nonetheless become a go-to person for the broadcast media during the pandemic, and frequently gets things wrong.
Do Covid outbreaks happen when enough people become infectious at once that the virus becomes ubiquitous and unavoidable? Is that why lockdowns don't stop it?
Time for governments to abandon the idea that vaccination provides protection against infection, and thus any notion of vaccinating people to protect others or conferring special privileges on the vaccinated.
The eighth of our weekly round-ups of Covid vaccine safety reports and news from a group of medical doctors to inform the debate on vaccination.
As infections resurge in Israel, the Government reports that the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine has dropped to 64% from 94% before. However, the effectiveness against serious disease is holding up.
Researchers in Israel have found that Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of a hospitalised Covid patient dying more than seven-fold, suggesting that Vitamin D supplements may protect against COVID-19.
The Prime Minister has signed off plans to end the legal requirement to wear masks on July 19th, saying the link between COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations has been broken.
Sajid Javid is striking a very different tone to his predecessor as he makes the right noises about opening up and getting our priorities right. But will he be able to deliver against all those with other ideas?
Prof Tim Spector dismayed many of his Twitter followers by calling for the vaccination of children to combat the Delta variant. But his arguments ignore key risk-benefit concerns and anyway make no sense.
As infections surge during winter in the 'Zero Covid' state, the national Government in Australia finally accepts that trying to keep Covid out forever is no way to run a country.
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