SARS-CoV-2 has a genetic feature that has never been observed in natural SARS-like viruses, but which is the preferred feature for scientists engineering viruses. Is this the smoking gun for a gain-of-function lab leak?
Nicola Sturgeon says Scottish children will be vaccinated "as quickly as possible" if the JCVI approves the vaccination of children aged 12 and over. Planning for a child vaccine roll-out has started already.
We're publishing an original piece on Lockdown Sceptics by Dr Sinéad Murphy, an Associate Researcher in Philosophy at Newcastle University, about why the arguments against lockdown have failed to cut through.
by Sinéad Murphy In his AIER article published on June 1st, David McGrogan describes support for Western governments’ Covid measures as attributable, not only to fear of a deadly virus or to care for those who are vulnerable to it, but to the pleasurable add-on awareness that Covid fear and Covid care are felt by everyone else around. Insofar as it is comprised primarily of this sense that everyone shares in the Covid experience, the Covid experience, David observed, is kitsch. David’s original analysis throws up the intriguing possibility that what we are dealing with in the satisfaction of so many in the Covid regime, and their palpable distaste for those who do not share their satisfaction, is neither a flawed Covid reasoning nor a distorted Covid morality but a new Covid aesthetic. In a comprehensive account of the conditions for the possibility of human experience, Immanuel Kant drew clear lines between objective knowledge, moral judgement and aesthetic feeling. His account of aesthetic feeling tallies well with the consensus experience of Covid and explains why it is that any attempt to intervene in this consensus experience with personal, factual, practical or moral arguments is a category mistake and unlikely to produce much effect. Kant’s classic example of an aesthetic experience is the one occasioned by a beautiful sunset, an example ...
People living in Greater Manchester and Lancashire are now advised to "minimise travel" due to the Indian variant, though Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has told locals not to cancel trips because of the new guidelines.
All government entities and private businesses in Texas are now banned from requiring proof of vaccination as a condition for service or entry, with Governor Greg Abbott declaring that the state is "open 100%".
A cabinet source says they expect the end of lockdown to be delayed by "between two weeks and a month" following a "fairly grim" briefing given to ministers by the Government's two most senior scientific advisers.
In a recent article, Bret Weinstein argues that we should welcome the lab leak theory. This is because, if it turns out to be true, we know how to prevent future pandemics of this kind. Simple: ban the research.
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.
Matt Hancock told MPs that 1% of Indian variant cases (126 of 12,383) were hospitalised. That compares to 2% with the British variant over the winter peak, suggesting the scariant is nothing to fear.
