News Round Up

“They Think It’s all Over” – Nice round up in MailOnline of all the people across Britain ignoring lockdown restrictions to enjoy themselves in the sun
“The only people ‘taking liberties’ as we emerge from lockdown are the gloomsters in charge” – Why would families wanting a Covid-free BBQ in a Covid-free garden “obey the non-sensical rule of six?” Allison Pearson asks, in the Telegraph
“Two-tier policing, two-tier reporting of protests: stark evidence from Bradford” – The ‘Unite the North’ rally and the mob outside Batley Grammar School were policed and reported very differently, Niall McCrae points out
“Crude and Unethical: Why Boris Johnson was wrong to try and terrify us into submission” – The Government’s fear messaging was “ineffective, unhealthy and unethical”, says data psychologist Patrick Fagan
“Gove hints at vaccine passport app” – In the Spectator, Katy Balls describes a ‘listening exercise’ Michael Gove held with MPs about immunity IDs. It looks as though the general idea being discussed is that individuals could be asked to show either a vaccine passport, a negative Covid test or proof of antibodies to enter a venue, likely in the form of an app designed by, you guessed it, NHSX
“The flawed technologies behind vaccine passports” – Cybersecurity experts are warning that the race to create a vaccine passports app could be placing privacy and security at risk, the Telegraph reports. You read it here first
“AstraZeneca renames Covid vaccine as firm fights off controversy over drug” – The jab is henceforth to be known as ‘Vaxzevria’, reports RT. The European Medicines Agency has signed off the name change and the company says that it “does not involve any alterations to the actual drug”. Not an April Fool
“Kent coronavirus variant is not deadlier than the original strain but it increases the risk of being hospitalised by a third, PHE study finds” – Public Health England has found that the Kent variant is not 30% deadlier, MailOnline reports. It increases the risk of hospitalisation, but that the risk remains slight for the majority of cases
“Domestic vaccine passports aren’t just discriminatory, they’re unnecessary too” – “If the Government has any sense, which they seem to have lost as of late, they’ll throw out any idea of a domestic passport system,” writes William Parker in Bournbrook Magazine
“Our Biblical duty to challenge lockdown” – Peter Simpson sets out the Christian case against lockdowns for the Conservative Woman
“Is Britain turning into a ‘bio-security state’?” – Fraser Nelson talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls on the Coffee House Shots podcast to discuss Britain’s potential transformation into a ‘bio-security’ state, the subject of Fraser’s recent Telegraph column
“Reverend Jamie Franklin on the Delingpod” – The Irreverend‘s Jamie Franklin joins James Delingpole for a conversation about the ideology underpinning lockdowns from a theological perspective – and much else
“EU’s Covid Vaccine Export Curbs Ensnare Other Shots in Italy” – Bloomberg reports that Italy’s customs authority has help up a shipment of meningitis vaccines and plans to test its contents amid suspicion that manufacturer GSK may try to export coronavirus vaccines out of the EU
“Study shows no vaccine-resistant mutation exists in Israel” – According to Ynet news, the preliminary findings of research commissioned by the Israeli health authorities indicate that there is “no coronavirus variant currently in the country that is resistant to vaccines”
“Joe Biden urges states to pause COVID-19 re-openings as CDC warns of ‘impending doom’” – The U.S. President has called on Governors and Mayors to “maintain and reinstate” their mask mandates and pause their efforts to reopen, according to the Telegraph
“Lockdowns are more economically devastating than voluntary social distancing” – Writing for the Mises Institute, Dr. Mihai Macovei explains why the IMF’s claim that lockdowns have little or no economic cost because the epidemic would have wreaked havoc through the economy anyway “flies in the face of reality”
“Florida Governor to Forbid ‘Vaccine Passports’ With Executive Order” – “It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society,” DeSantis said, according to 6 South Florida
“Free states faring far better than lockdown states in one huge way, new data show” – The Foundation for Education highlights a pattern revealed in the latest unemployment figures in the US
“Needed: A COVID-19 Lockdown Commission” – The American people need a truly independent inquiry to examine the cost of lockdown and how to stop it re-occurring, says Alan W. Dowd for AIER
“Wars and ‘following the science’ are sure paths to tyranny” – Writing for AIER, Richard M. Ebeling sets out how America and many other parts of the world now face a “tyranny of science”
“Why is vaccinated Chile locking down again?” – Chile is ahead of the UK in vaccinating its population, but infections are increasing and large parts of the country have been placed back in lockdown. In the Spectator, Ross Clark wonders if this is because they are mainly using the Sinovac jab
“What went wrong in Canada’s Pandemic Response? A presentation by Lieutenant Colonel David Redman” – A presentation by the former soldier and head of emergency management in Alberta on where Canada went wrong in dealing with COVID-19, how long-term care has been needlessly devastated, and how to get out of this mess
“Our children’s futures are being put on indefinite pause” – The UNICEF Chief Executive Henrietta H. Fore makes a plea on behalf of the world’s children

“Our children’s futures are being put on indefinite pause. We must prioritize reopening schools, and we must prioritize reopening them better than they were before.”@unicefchief on the COVID education crisis. pic.twitter.com/jUKPNoS19J
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) March 29, 2021

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