- “Major report warns damage done to non-Covid care threatens ‘decade of disruption’ and will cost extra £12 billions a year” – The Daily Mail highlights new research into cost of disruption in non-Covid care, a side effect of lockdown restrictions
- “Britain’s daily Covid death toll halves to 110 victims” – Britain’s daily Covid death count has halved in a week, MailOnline reports
- “Back to school: The urgent need for normality” – “In the obsession with infection metrics, we seem to have lost sight of what’s important about school itself,” says Jennie Bristow in the Critic
- “UK Government announces list of pilot events without social distancing” – WhatsOnStage reports on the Governments experiments in live events without social distancing
- “Greggs to open shops despite first loss in 36 years” – The bakery is betting on a post-pandemic recovery and opening 100 new shops, the BBC reports
- “SAGE’s covert coup, Part Three – The mass behavioural science experiment” – Third part of Sonia Elijah’s investigative series for the Conservative Woman. This one look at SPI-B, the “behavioural science” arm
- “Boris Johnson is accused of bending the knee to China” – Boris set out a review of foreign and defence policy yesterday, which urged “deeper trade links” with China. MailOnline reports that a number of Tories are accusing him of naivety
- “Repeal Coronavirus Act and end all COVID-19 restrictions” – A Parliamentary petition with over 43,000 signatures calling for an end to all restrictions
- “‘Giving a voice’ – an unfortunate confession from ONS” – Data analyst Simon Briscoe picks up on a comment from Sir Ian Diamond on Marr that illustrates the direction of travel in the Office of National Statistics
- “There’s no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots. So why are people worried?” – We should “resist drawing causal links between events where none exists” says Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter in the Guardian
- “How safe is the AstraZeneca jab?” – At least 37 people suffered a potentially life-threatening blood clots after taking the AstraZeneca vaccine, says Tom Chivers in UnHerd. But it needs to be put in context to be properly understood
- “The precautionary principle is literally killing Europe” – European countries are “pushing the precautionary principle to the point of absurdity” over the AstraZeneca vaccine says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph
- “Don’t blame the EU for the latest Covid vaccine clash” – Ross Clark in the Spectator points out that it’s not the EU that is suspending the vaccine rollout but individual countries
- “Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is linked to MORE blood clots than AstraZeneca’s – so why isn’t the EU banning it?” – MailOnline wonders why the side effects of the Pfizer jab are not being picked up on in the same way
- “Suspension of AstraZeneca shots is ‘political decision’: Italy’s medicines regulator head” – Reuters reports on the comments of Nicola Magrini, Director General of Italy’s medicines authority AIFA, who says that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and the decision to suspend it political
- “The curious case of Geert Vanden Bossche” – Rosemary Frei in Off-Guardian analyses the claims in Geert Vanden Bossche’s recent letter and interview
- “When it comes to vaccines, suddenly “from vs with” matters again” – Off-Guardian‘s Kit Knightley notes that, when it comes to the vaccines, many media commentators are suddenly insisting on a distinction between dying from something and dying with something
- “EU to lay out plan for lifting lockdowns amid astra setback” – Bloomberg reports on the European Union’s plans to get out of lockdown. They involve a tier system across the union and a legislative proposal for a vaccine pass
- “Huge rise in checkpoints and gardaí to quell St Patrick’s Day protest in Dublin amid concern over violent clashes” – The gardaí will be on patrol tomorrow to prevent St Patrick’s day anti-lockdown protests, the Irish Independent reports. Apparently, “disinformation analysts” have been looking at social media
- “Why isn’t Britain adopting the Danish roadmap?” – Denmark’s Prime Minister and opposition leader have agreed “in principle” that the country should reopen once all its over-50s have been fully vaccinated. James Lewisham at the Spectator asks why our leaders can’t make such a bold promise
- “UAE reports need for a third dose of China’s Covid vaccine” – UAE health authorities are reporting that some who have received the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine are needing a third dose to boost their response, the Times reports
- “China to Allow More Foreigners In – If They’ve Had a Chinese Covid Vaccine” – The Wall Street Journal reports a slight hitch in any plans to visit China
- “Hong Kong’s tough COVID-19 rules see babies isolated, families cramped in tiny spaces” – A report for Reuters on the rules in Hong Kong which have seen babies separated from parents and those with newborns herded into tiny quarantine quarters
- “New research highlights risks of separating newborns from mothers during COVID-19 pandemic” – Research from the World Health Organisation into the damage done by separating mother from newborns as a Covid precaution
- “Across virtually every key measure of childhood, progress has gone backward, UNICEF says” – A press release from UNICEF marking a year of lockdowns
- “Lockdown Anniversary! Reviewing ALL the Lies and the Liars Who Told Them!” – Steven Crowder looks back at a year of lockdowns
- A listener tells Julia Hartley-Brewer how maternity staff called security on her partner as he asked to be present at the birth of their first child during lockdown
By Jonathan Barr / 17 March 2021 • 01.43
