- “Will you need a vaccine passport to go to the pub?” – The five main takeaways from Boris’s session at the liaison committee this afternoon, from Katy Balls at the Spectator
- “Health security body gives UK ‘protective shield‘” – The BBC covers Hancock’s announcement about the UK Health Security Agency which brings together Public Health England (PHE), NHS Test and Trace and the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC). It is launching on April 1st
- “COVID-19 Weekly Bulletin” – The latest update from the Health Advisory Recovery Team
- “I’m Janice! Get me out of here! I’ve been locked up for too long” – “We’ve endured the psychological experiment of Covid long enough,” writes Janice Turner in the Times
- “A year of fear” – Dr Gary Sidley explains how the Government’s language of fear led to a compliant population in the Critic
- “Should we vaccinate kids against Covid?” – Joanna Rossiter considers the implications of combining the flu and Covid jabs for the Spectator
- “Is AstraZeneca’s Covid jab effective against the South African variant?” – Writing in the Spectator, Ross Clark looks at a study which which suggest the AstraZeneca vaccine might be only 21.9% effective against the South African Variant
- “Lateral flow Covid testing too inaccurate to be used in mass screening, review finds” – The Telegraph reports the results of a number of major studies: asymptomatic testing only picked up around 50% of cases, and picked up far more false than real positives when infection rates were low
- “The many scandals of the PCR test: Part 1” – Sonia Elijah looks back at the Drosten paper and cycle thresholds for the Conservative Woman. Further scandals to be revealed in Part 2
- “Public Health has turned on the public” – “Gone are the days when employing the police in a Public Health campaign would be seen as a failure of policy,” says Amy Jones at UnHerd. “It is now seen as a necessary requirement”
- “Libertarians have lost their way over vaccine passports” – Boris believes he is being libertarian in allowing publicans the freedom to decide whether they ask for a vaccine passport, says Freddie Sayers at UnHerd. But a state truly devoted to protecting liberty “would not wave this measure through”
- “The hibernation of democracy” – The most dire consequence of lockdown has been the adjournment of politics itself, say Brendan O’Neil at Spiked
- “Young people are sick of lockdown” – Spiked reveals that two in five young people are regularly disobeying the Government’s advice
- “Huge crowd gathers in Sheffield park as worried dog walker issues lockdown warning” – A DJ performance drew crowds of young people at a Sheffield beauty spot, the Star reports, causing consternation among local dog walkers
- “Banging the Drum” – It is important to keep “banging the drum” against lockdown, writes Alistair Cavendish. “The anti-lockdown case” he reckons “is more popular than most of us think”
- “Is it time to take the British Bulldog to the Vet?” – It is acting more like a poodle says Roger Watson
- “Why I oppose lockdowns” – Watch Neil McEvoy, Member of the Welsh Parliament and leader of the new anti-lockdown political party Propel, explain why he is against lockdown
- “Lockdowns: Do they cause more harm than good?” – Listen to Dr. Oliver Robinson talk about his interdisciplinary review of lockdowns on the Pandemic Podcast with Dan Gregory
- “Europe tightens Covid restrictions as ‘third wave’ takes hold” – The Telegraph reports on restrictions that are tightening round Europe
- “GP suspended by Medical Council over refusal to give COVID-19 vaccine” – A County Kildare GP who refused to give COVID-19 vaccines to his patients on the grounds that they’re “untrustworthy” and “unnecessary” has been suspended by the Medical Council, the Irish Times reports
- “Angela Merkel backtracks on Easter lockdown after uproar” – Angel Merkel announced a strict lockdown over Easter and then decided that it “was not really doable”
- “There is no such thing as a public health expert” – “No one person or group can claim the mantle of public health,” writes Jordan Schachtel, “and no one person or group can claim to know what is best for the collective, just as no one leader should make devastating decisions for the ‘greater good’ of society”
- “The Six-Foot mandate was bad science” – “The scientific consensus says that three feet of social distancing is effective at reducing transmission,” says Ethan Yang in AIER. “To say that six feet is the minimum is not only unrealistic but unscientific”
- “Lockdown Tyranny: A personal retrospective” – James Bovard reflects on his contributions to AIER over the past year. Sadly he reckons, that “shutdowns could return whenever politicians can panic enough citizens with some new threat”
- “Russia’s Putin gets vaccine but without cameras” – Vlad has been impaled, the BBC reports, but decided that he wouldn’t be a “performing monkey”
- “The futility of the great lockdown melodrama” – Government, media, politicos and academics catastrophised COVID-19, says Peter Murphy in Quadrant, but the “reality was anything but”
- “The death of Covid tyranny may be nigh” – “The dam of scepticism may be about to burst as growing numbers abandon the Covid tyranny,” writes Ramesh Thakur in Spectator Australia
- “Inside Israel’s Effort to Entice Vaccine Holdouts” – Watch the Wall Street Journal‘s report on Israel’s vaccine roll out. Volunteers touting their benefits on the streets and incentives including drinks, pizzas and tickets to basketball games
- “Mark Dolan says vaccine passports are ‘deeply wrong’ and will backfire” – Mark Dolan is not impressed with vaccine passports
News Round Up
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.
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For some reason my Reddit has ‘lost’ the Lockdown Sceptics group. Can anyone point me to it?
https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSceptics/
Health Security body gives UK Protective Shield – Launching on 1st April is all we need to know
Is it an April Fool?
Correct
Perennial fool probably.
If we are to have vaccine passports are we also to have HIV test passports too?
If not why not?
If one is ethical, so is the other.
maybe ‘STD free’ tattoos
I’m struggling a bit today with asymptomatic long lockdown.
papers for the pub
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56517486#comments
sort by best rated comments and you will see the worm is finally turning 🙂
I will not be visiting any establishment that requires I show my ‘papers’ before being allowed in. As much as I enjoy going to my local pub I’ll continue drinking at home.
pub owner friend of mine has said after what the government have done to his industry, he spent a fortune ‘making it safe’ only to have it shut again, that anyone is welcome, he needs to make some money. Plus friends who dashed off to get their jab thinking it would get them a holiday this year are feeling angry. The backlash is still to come.
Cameron Covid Conperson ?
Guardian has it all.
From the roundup
‘I’m Janice, get me out of here !’
Free yourself, stupid bitch. You appear to have benefitted from an enhanced education and from the way you describe your own behaviour you have no faith in lockdown regulations yet the moment you are challenged you kop out and cave in.
No-one is gonna save You Janice, you have to save yourself with your privileged resources.
Couldn’t agree more. Bumsucking little twat she is.
I hadn’t noticed your post about her first Annie.
Welcome aboard Ben.
After 12 months ‘opposition’ to the bozo, hancock van tam claque by demanding ‘Sooner, Harsher, Longer Lockdown’ veteran Labour MP for Exter Ben Bradshaw has announced that he will not be voting to renew the Coronovirus legislation because
‘Police State’.
They say a leopard cannot change its spots. Watch this space.
Pic h/t Radio Exe.
The “pubs” have bemoaned for years about the number that close, week in and week out.
If they insist on face nappies and vaccine “passports” then they must have a “mass” suicide wish.
A few weeks into the current lockdown the landlord of my unlovely local pub was reduced to selling tins of unused mixed vegetables and even what appeared to be soft coverings from the limited exterior smoking area.
Whether this was to assist the newly destitute or to raise a few quid to feed himself was not at all clear.
From the roundup
‘Health Security body gives UK Protective Shield’.
It’s from Hancock so obviously bollocks. I don’t require yet more life unenhancing interventions in the name of Public Health (ie medico facism).
A mishmash of PHE, Track’n’Trace, the JBC and various failed individuals. I suspect its real aim is to wrest (?) control of Public Health policy from the provinces back to Whitehall.
Good luck with fight but let’s get the popcorn out.
I can’t wait until the circular firing squad/blame game/throwing each under under buses. Govt, PHE, SAGE, media. Who lied to who? Who gets the ultimate blame? There isn’t enough popcorn in the world. I expect Anders Tegnell to be investing heavily in corn share futures
sounds like nothing more than pricey “rebranding” to me – same old same old but 4 under one umbrella. Rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic springs to mind.
A Titanic that goes actively looking for icebergs to hurl itself against.
From the roundup.
Vaccine permit to visit the pub ?
As a young and middle aged man I spent part of most evenings in the pub, not to get pissed but to socialise and keep in contact with friends (and meet new ones!) before the internet.
During lockdown Lite, ie last summer + going into Tiers, I went out of my way to patronise local pubs and licenced eateries especially those that kept Track’n’Trace to a minimum.
I can now live without pubs and nightclubs so stuff their ‘permit’ though I will attempt entry now and then just to prove my point.
Todays youngsters were already having less sex and visiting pubs less often as a result of growing up on t’interweb, lockdown has reinforced this.
Bye Bye wet pubs but that always was the aim of Alcohol Concern and the like.
The Big Reset. Close all pubs, stop holidaying abroad, stay home and don’t socialise. Only those considered important will be allowed to do what we used to take for granted.
Meanwhile the offspring of rest will be left wondering why their oldies used to actually enjoy travelling abroad and going to the pub ‘to do what exactly’ ?
As a non-subscriber,I was able to read the beginning of the Times piece by Dear Ickle Grovelling Janice, who, when asked by some shop dork to put on face knickers, immediately complies with gabbled apologies.
Janice, you are what is wrong with this country. Go bury yourself, still in your filthy knickers.
Hi Annie, is that really you ?
Just finished your piece, yes I think it is, welcome back.
Never been away, but principal place of residence is now Reddit.