Health and social care staff should not be "coerced" into having a Covid vaccine, says the Royal College of Nursing. The union encourages staff to take a vaccine but says that those who decide not to should be supported.
Competition between companies offering PCR test kits is bringing prices down, but slowly. Travel industry leaders say that the Government should step in to help make the cost of testing when travelling more manageable.
The Government has been accused of "cronyism", as it has emerged that the Health Secretary owns shares in an NHS contract-winning firm with which his sister is also heavily involved.
University students are calling for a "day of action" to highlight the disruption caused to their learning by months of heavy lockdown restrictions, which they say justifies a reduction in their fees.
The Government should not make access to any activities contingent on producing a vaccine passport, effectively coercing people into getting vaccinated, when there is still some uncertainty about its adverse effects.
A summary of all the most interesting stories that have appeared about the virus in the past 24 hours – not just in Britain, but around the world.
by Toby Young QPR's Dominic Ball declines to indulge in pointless virtue signalling The thing I’ve missed the most during England's three consecutive lockdowns is going to see QPR with my son Charlie. The last time we went to a game was on February 24th 2020. It now looks fairly probable (60:40) that fans will be readmitted to stadiums in August, although there are still a lot of unknowns, such as whether clubs will have to put a cap on the number of fans they admit, whether away fans will be admitted, whether fans will be shut out again if there's a winter resurgence of the virus, and so on. One way to mitigate these risks, according to an open letter sent to the Government by various sporting bodies last week, including the Premier League and the English Football League, is to make admission to stadiums and other sporting venues contingent on the production of a 'Covid Status Certificate' (CSC) and the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has set up a 'taskforce' to evaluate this proposal. It is expected to make a recommendation shortly, although it may fudge it and recommend that the decision is left to individual clubs, with those that reject vaccine passports being told to limit stadium capacity to 25% – or something. I'm ...
If the Government still has confidence in the vaccines then it needs to act like it. If it doesn't then it needs to be upfront about this so a proper debate can be had about what that means for the future.
