Brits who travel to Malta, which has just been added to the “Green List“, will have to show a vaccine passport upon arrival in the country or else be forced to quarantine. Those who have received one or no doses of a Covid vaccine will also have to self-isolate – at their own expense. The number of days tourists will have to quarantine for has not yet been announced, but the standard period on the island is currently two weeks. Malta is the only new addition to the Government’s Green List which is not yet classified as “at risk” of being pushed back down onto the “Amber List”. Sky News has more.
Malta is one of 14 countries and territories added to England’s travel Green List, meaning tourists heading there after 4am on June 30th will not have to quarantine on their return.
However, the Maltese Government has said anyone arriving from the U.K. from that date will need to present a Covid vaccine certificate which is recognised by the country’s authorities.
Those without a recognised vaccine certificate will have to quarantine on their arrival in Malta at their own expense, it said…
The Maltese Government said the decision had been taken due to the “situation of variant cases reported in the United Kingdom”.
The NHS Covid pass, which can be used by U.K. holidaymakers to show their vaccine status, is only available to people who have had two doses of a coronavirus vaccine.
It is yet to be confirmed whether the NHS app will be accepted in Malta…
Malta is the only new addition to England’s Green List not to have been put on a watchlist, meaning the others are at risk of returning to the Amber List.
Stop Press: The Guardian also reports that authorities in the Balearic Islands are calling on the central Spanish Government to tighten controls for holidaymakers arriving from the U.K..
The Sun has an old fashioned ‘minister-caught-having-an-affair’ scoop on its front page today – and the politician in the frame is Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
He cheated on his wife with Gina Coladangelo, 43, who he hired last year with taxpayers’ money, as Covid gripped Britain.
Mr Hancock, 42, and millionaire lobbyist Gina were caught on camera in a steamy clinch at his Whitehall office.
Whistleblowers revealed the Health Secretary had been spotted cheating on his wife of 15 years with married Ms Coladangelo.
He was seen kissing her at the Department of Health’s London HQ during office hours last month as the mutant strain began spreading.
A Whitehall whistleblower told The Sun it was “shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire”.
Last night, a friend of the Health Secretary said: “He has no comment on personal matters. No rules have been broken.”
Mr Hancock was pictured embracing his aide. The image was from just after 3pm on May 6 — as the rest of Westminster was engrossed by the local elections.
He is seen in his distinctive ninth-floor office inside the sprawling Department of Health building, which is a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament.
During the pandemic, the office has provided the backdrop to his Zoom appearances on TV — including the Andrew Marr Show.
Mr Hancock is seen checking the corridor is clear before closing the door and then leaning on it to ensure he cannot be disturbed.
Ms Coladangelo then walks towards him and the pair begin their passionate embrace.
According to a whistleblower, who used to work at the department, the pair have regularly been caught in clinches together.
The source said: “They have tried to keep it a secret but everyone knows what goes on inside a building like that.
“I’m just amazed he was so brazen about it as he was the Secretary of State.
“It has also shocked people because he put her in such an important, publicly-funded role and this is what they get up to in office hours when everyone else is working hard.”
On the face of it, this actually strengthens Hancock’s position – already pretty strong after Dominic Cummings’ singled him out for criticism. After all, Boris can hardly sack a Cabinet minister for having an affair without looking like a complete hypocrite. Nevertheless, there are some questions that Hancock will have to answer.
Was the Health Secretary having an affair with Gina Coladangelo before she became a paid, non-executive director at the DHSS?
Were the correct procedures followed before she was hired? Non-exec positions at Government departments aren’t usually advertised and Hancock wouldn’t be the first Secretary of State to appoint a crony to the board of his department. But they do have to be properly vetted – and interviewed – by the Civil Service. Did that happen in this case?
I expect the answer to the second question is probably “yes”, so Hancock’s fate will turn on the answer to the first. If the affair predated the job, that doesn’t look good. It feeds into the “One rule for them” theme which could end up being a problem for the Government. As a regular contributor to Lockdown Sceptics put it to me in an email this morning:
It looks to me that this might be another case of one rule for you and another for me. Seems suspicious that MH’s mistress was hired as an aide going into lockdown last year, while hundreds of thousands of other people were separated from their lovers for months on end. Also note that Hancock and mistress are seen social distancing in public and embracing in private.
Did Gina’s husband come home at the last minute?
Stop Press:MailOnline has a good selection of Hancock memes here.
Stop Press 2: Hancock condemned Neil Ferguson for breaking lockdown rules to see his lover last year.
Stop Press 3: Roberto Coladangelo, Gina Coladangelo’s brother, is an executive at a healthcare company that has won a string of NHS contracts. Sky News has more.
Overseas travel appears to be just as difficult today as it was before the Government’s “Green List” was updated. That all but one of the new quarantine-free Green countries also feature on the “Green Watchlist” means they are “at risk” of being pushed back onto the “Amber List” at any time. One holiday company has already ruled out taking new bookings for July and August due to the uncertainty, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps says that changes that occur “with quite a lot of regularity” will likely result in Green countries being demoted to Amber at short notice.
Appearing on Sky News this morning, Shapps dodged a question on whether or not he would book a foreign holiday for himself and his family given that the rules could be changed with very little notice, merely saying: “Sadly, I don’t think I’ve got time at the moment to take a holiday.”
.@KayBurley: Would you book a holiday to a green watchlist destination?
Transport Secretary @grantshapps says he 'hasn't got time to take a holiday' but adds individuals can make decisions depending on their flexibility.
Grant Shapps warned anyone looking to travel abroad that the rules could change at short notice after Malta, Madeira and the Balearic islands, among others, were added to the list of countries from which travellers could return without having to quarantine.
But there was concern across the beleaguered travel sector, with one prominent figure accusing the Government of being “overly cautious”.
Shapps said: “People will have to come to their own decisions… If people are in a situation where, from next week, they wanted to get away then these are the places where you can go for the purposes of holiday, of course, being aware of all the caveats about the risk of things changing because… that happens with quite a lot of regularity.”
And he acknowledged that the ongoing pandemic meant the status of any country could change with no notice, with those on the “Green Watchlist” most likely to see harsher restrictions reimposed.
“Whoever is booking to go anywhere this summer, travel insurance, making sure your flights are changeable and making sure the accommodation is changeable – all those things are going to be very, very important this year. And I think people need to weigh up whether that is going to work for them or not,” he told Sky News…
The holiday company On the Beach said it would not be taking new bookings for July and August while so much uncertainty remained about countries on the watchlist.
Criticising ministers’ caution, the Airport Operators Association Chief Executive, Karen Dee, said: “Any extension of the Green List is welcome, however small, but we also have to be realistic: this is not yet the meaningful restart the aviation industry needs to be able to recover from the pandemic.” …
The lists are reviewed every three weeks, meaning that the next announcement will be on Thursday, July 15th.
“Test and Trace shambles: 100,000 Covid cases missed over winter” – Figures from the National Audit Office show that while 724,000 patients tested positive for COVID-19 between November and April, only 625,000 were reached and asked for their close contacts, according to the Daily Mail
“School sorry after error results in COVID-19 test blunder” – Clyst Vale Community College told its Year 9 students to stay at home as a precautionary measure following a positive lateral flow test but then discovered it was a computer inputting error and there was no positive test at all, Devonlive reports
“Welsh Government Adopts Covid Advice from Meme Page” – The Welsh Government advised that tenor voices should be discouraged from choir rehearsals as they expel more virus when they’re singing than altos or sopranos. According to Guido Fawkes, they got this advice from a meme page
“Covid Status Certification” – The report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee calling on the Government to scrap plans to introduce domestic Covid status certification
“How the Lancet lost our trust” – Stuart Ritchie describes in the Spectator how the Lancet has become the “mouthpiece of the medical establishment”, an eventuality which would have “stunned” its founding editor Thomas Wakley
“Covid has warped our collective attitude to death” – “Following the science,” says A.N. Wilson in the Spectator, “means living in a fantasy world where death can be everlastingly postponed, or perhaps avoided altogether”
“Morally repugnant restrictions on children continue” – The HART group shines a light on the fact that schools are still subject to damaging restrictions even as an exemption is arranged to allow for a football match. Part of their latest update
“My Brother’s Story” – Sarah describes her year-long battle for her brother’s right to a family life on the John’s Campaign blog. A resident of an autism care home, he has just been allowed to visit his family for the first time since February 2020
“An Essential Journey” – Writing in Off-Guardian, Joanna Sharp describes her journey to Eastern Europe to visit her critically ill father
“Why don’t we have an MP like this?” – The Conservative Woman’s Kathy Gyngell salutes Derek Sloan, the Ontario MP who raised concerns about Covid censorship in a press conference at the Canadian parliament
“A visit to A&E” – Andy Lambeth takes aim at the NHS on his Lockdown Satire blog
“Covid and Anti-Androgens” – The Swiss Doctor looks at the potential of anti-androgen therapy, typically used against prostate cancer or hair loss, in treating COVID-19
“Fauci refused Trump’s request to pull funding from Wuhan lab” – According to the Post Millennial, Anthony Fauci resisted orders from the Trump administration to hold back from funding the EcoHealth Alliance, a not-for-profit company which was funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“Explaining Donald Trump’s Bizarre Reactions to the Coronavirus” – The Coronavirus “made a mess” of Donald Trump’s presidency, says Jeffrey Tucker in RealClearMarkets, “because he was neither intellectually nor temperamentally prepared to deal with it”
“Cathay Pacific crew told to get vaccine or risk losing job” – The airline Cathay Pacific has warned its staff that they risk being sacked if they don’t get the jab by August 31st, the BBC reports, explaining that timetabling crew had become “difficult and complicated” due to the need to separate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated
“Sydneysiders clear out supermarket toilet paper again” – It is just like old times down in Sydney according to the Daily Mail Australia as citizens rush to buy toilet roll and supermarkets reintroduce purchasing limits
“Covid and the clash of ideologies” – A talk by PANDA’s chief Nick Hudson at the Free Market Foundation describing how the foundations of the Covid narrative are crumbling
A new study, published as a working paper for the leading U.S. think tank National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), has shown (once again) that lockdown policies produced no discernible reduction of the pandemic death toll. If anything, they increased it.
The study uses excess deaths rather than Covid deaths to avoid the problems of different ways of counting Covid deaths, and also to capture policy deaths from lockdowns and other Government responses. It looks at the death tolls in 43 countries and all U.S. states to see how they varied with the length and timeliness of lockdown “shelter-in-place” (SIP) orders.
The authors find that longer lockdowns led to more excess deaths: “Countries with a longer duration of SIP [shelter in place] policies are the ones with higher excess deaths per 100,000 residents.” For U.S. states the finding was similar but less pronounced.
In U.S. states, earlier lockdowns were associated with slightly higher excess deaths rather than lower as lockdown theory would predict. In the comparison of countries, on the other hand, the predicted relationship was found.
To account for differences between countries and states (such as demographics) the authors carried out “event studies” to see how much each country or state’s excess deaths changed following lockdown from its pre-lockdown trend. This analysis showed that, prior to implementing lockdown policies, the trend of lockdown countries was towards having lower excess deaths than countries that didn’t implement lockdowns. However, after lockdown those trends were reversed so that lockdown countries started to have progressively worse excess deaths compared to no-lockdown countries.
A review of efficacy and safety data for the COVID-19 vaccines by three scientists has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Vaccines and comes to the disturbing conclusion that for every three deaths the vaccines prevent, two people die from an adverse reaction, while another four suffer serious side effects. The authors conclude: “This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy.”
Here is the abstract:
Background: COVID-19 vaccines have had expedited reviews without sufficient safety data. We wanted to compare risks and benefits.
Method: We calculated the number needed to vaccinate (NNTV) from a large Israeli field study to prevent one death. We accessed the Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) database of the European Medicines Agency and of the Dutch National Register (lareb.nl) to extract the number of cases reporting severe side effects and the number of cases with fatal side effects.
Result: The NNTV is between 200–700 to prevent one case of COVID-19 for the mRNA vaccine marketed by Pfizer, while the NNTV to prevent one death is between 9,000 and 50,000 (95% confidence interval), with 16,000 as a point estimate. The number of cases experiencing adverse reactions has been reported to be 700 per 100,000 vaccinations. Currently, we see 16 serious side effects per 100,000 vaccinations, and the number of fatal side effects is at 4.11 per 100,000 vaccinations. For three deaths prevented by vaccination, we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination.
Conclusions: This lack of clear benefit should cause governments to rethink their vaccination policy.
The authors note this conclusion is based on the reported adverse reactions, whereas the true number of adverse reactions may be considerably more.
Finally, we note that from experience with reporting side effects from other drugs, only a small fraction of side effects is reported to adverse events databases. The median underreporting can be as high as 95%. Given this fact and the high number of serious side effects already reported, the current political trend to vaccinate children who are at very low risk of suffering from COVID-19 in the first place must be reconsidered.
They note that the “risks and benefits” of the vaccines are “on the same order of magnitude” and suggest: “Perhaps it might be necessary to dampen the enthusiasm by sober facts?”
Amid much pressure from travel industry leaders, the Government has added a handful of countries to its quarantine-free “Green List”. However, all but one of these countries have also been added to the “Green Watchlist”, meaning they are “at risk” of being pushed back onto the “Amber List”, making it difficult for Brits to confidently book holidays abroad. Sky News has more.
Spain’s Balearic Islands, Malta, Madeira, and some islands in the Caribbean – including Barbados – have been added to England’s travel Green List, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced.
The Balearic Islands are made up of Ibiza, Menorca, Majorca and Formentera.
The move means those heading to some popular holiday hotspots will not have to quarantine on their return following the latest review of the travel traffic light system.
However, all of the new additions to the quarantine-free travel list, with the exception of Malta, will also be added to the Government’s Green Watchlist, the Department for Transport said.
The “Watchlist” will also include Jerusalem and Israel.
It means these countries “are at risk of moving from Green to Amber”, the Department said, noting that “passengers are urged to take extra care when thinking about travelling to Green Watchlist countries”.
The changes come into effect at 4am on Wednesday, June 30th.
Six countries, including Tunisia and Haiti, have been added to the Government’s “Red List”. People returning to Britain from these countries must quarantine for 10 days in a Government-approved hotel – and pay £1,750 for the privilege. Meanwhile, Scotland has added 16 countries to its own Green List, with seven having been added to Northern Ireland’s.
We’re publishing an original article today by an academic economist writing under the name of John William O’Sullivan setting out the case for the defence of the Prime Minister. Inevitably, it begins with a bit of throat clearing in which the author shares his reservations about Boris.
I am as hardcore a lockdown sceptic as they come. I was early to the game, and I question quite literally everything about the Government response – from face masks to lockdowns to vaccines. Nor am I fan of Boris. I am pro-Brexit, but I suspected that Boris was probably more clown than effective leader – more Beppe Grillo than Winston Churchill.
When he was nominated, I had concerns not just about his public persona, but about his private life. I know that this is unfashionable in Britain, but it should not be. In our professional lives we all know that if someone’s private life is a car crash, this is usually reflected in their professional competencies. Based on this simple and obvious wisdom, the taboo in Britain about questioning public officials based on their private lives – which, so far as I can tell, is purely a post-Profumo phenomenon – should be re-examined. It seems to me that the refurbishment scandal hanging over Boris and his newly minted wife confirms this impression.
But having got that out of the way, he then comes to the nub of the argument.
So, why would I defend old Boris? For the simple reason that the revelations that have come from Dominic Cummings speak volumes. Prior to these revelations I bought into the predominant narrative: that Boris had been a sceptic but then he was hospitalised for COVID-19 and the experience left him lobotomised and compliant. But this view is no longer tenable.
Cummings’ accusations are credible because they come from a hostile source. Everything that he pumps into the media ecosystem is designed to harm Boris. These accusations have been confirmed by others involved. They meet, as the ancient historians say, the flipside of the ‘criteria of embarrassment’.
Yet the accusations paint a picture of a committed sceptic and social libertarian fighting against a mob of technocrats. Cummings, himself being a mediocre technocrat, cannot see that his accusations play in Boris’s favour – but they do. Boris’s Cabinet – a hot mess of career Tories, stuffed shirts, and closet authoritarians – appear to have bullied him into becoming the ‘lockdown-zealot Boris’ that we have all come to know and hate.
Earlier this week, it was reported that children as young as five are having panic attacks over meeting their friends following almost 15 months of heavy Government restrictions on socialising. Now, data has shown that the use of antidepressants among British children has reached an all-time high over the past year of repeated lockdowns, with many children having been prescribed drugs because waiting times to see health professionals were too long. The Telegraphhas the story.
More than 27,000 children were prescribed antidepressants last year, the figures show, with numbers peaking during the first lockdown, and two-thirds of cases involving girls.
Overall, the figure was 40% higher than five years ago, when 19,739 children were prescribed such drugs.
Experts said growing numbers of children were being medicated because waiting lists for help from psychologists and psychiatrists were too long.
Earlier this week, the Telegraph revealed waits of up to four years in some parts of the country, amid warnings that 1.5 million children will need mental health treatment as a direct result of the pandemic [that is, lockdowns].
Experts said many children were suffering behavioural problems fuelled by lockdowns, social distancing and fear of infection, with many now anxious about everyday social activities…
The investigation by the Pharmaceutical Journal reveals that overall, the number of prescriptions of antidepressants to children rose by 26% between April 2015 and April 2020, from 19,739 to 24,957. The peak month was March 2020, when 27,757 prescriptions were issued – two-thirds of them to girls…
NHS figures show a 28% rise in children being referred to mental health services between April and December 2020, amounting to 80,000 more cases.
The number in need of urgent or emergency crisis care, including checks to see if children were so unwell they were putting themselves at risk, rose by 18%, compared with 2019…
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says children should only be given antidepressants alongside talking therapies, following assessment by a mental health specialist.
But earlier this year a survey of 32 mental health trusts with children’s services found that one in three had children waiting at least a year for their first appointment.
The longest wait, in South London, amounted to 1,497 days – more than four years, with children in South Yorkshire waiting 872 days.
The average waiting time was 58 days, across the country, the survey by ITV News found in March.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is set to add a warning to the Covid vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said there is a “likely link” between them and cases of heart inflammation, particularly in children and young adults. The MailOnlinehas the story.
The CDC made the announcement Wednesday during a presentation.
The Covid Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group discussed nearly 500 reports of heart inflammation, known as myocarditis, in vaccinated adults under the age of 30.
The group of doctors said the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis following vaccination with the mRNA-based shots in adolescents and young adults is notably higher after the second dose and in males
It comes as the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) is set to meet this week to assess the possibility of a link between the heart condition and the mRNA vaccines.
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use mRNA technology, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses the more traditional virus-based technology.
According to the presentation, there have been 484 preliminary reports of myocarditis or pericarditis in young people under age 30 as of June 11th.
So far, 323 have been confirmed by CDC and 148 are still under review.
In total, 309 patients were hospitalized, of which 295 were discharged and 79% have since recovered.
Nine patients are still hospitalized with two in intensive care units. There was no data available for five patients.
Males were much more likely to report heart inflammation after receiving a second dose than women.
As of June 11th, there were 9.1 per million reported cases of myocarditis/pericarditis in females ages 12-to-17 compared to 66.7 per million in males of that age group.
What’s more, rates among females ages 18-to-24 and ages 25-to-29 were 5.5 per million and 2.6 per million respectively.
Ang [among] males, rates were 56.3 per million for the 18-to-24 age group and 20.4 per million in the 25-to-29 group.
In Australia, the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is facing further criticism over its links to a variety of side effects. The vaccine will have been almost completely phased out of the country’s roll-out by October.
