"By the latter half of 2022 it seemed we had turned a corner on masks," writes Jill Evans. "Only a deviant minority persisted with wearing them. But as we enter a new year, this return to sanity is under threat."
NHS mask mandates are arbitrary, depending more on where you happen to live than any actual science. Yet they don't seem to be going away, writes Paul Stevens.
A sharp drop in the number of diagnosed bacterial blood infections since the lockdown can only mean many are going unreported and untreated, leading to hundreds of avoidable deaths, writes Dr David Livermore.
Flu is back with a large and early surge, leading several Southern California hospitals to begin using overflow tents to cope with a rising number of patients with respiratory illness. What's driving it?
The Scottish Government has misrepresented its own mask guidance in a 'fact check' by falsely denying it now recognises masks are harmful, when the guidance clearly states it is balancing mask harms against Covid harms.
The Scottish Government has finally accepted that mask-wearing is harmful following a campaign that led to the end of the mask recommendation in care homes.
More than 13,300 NHS hospital beds – one in seven – were filled with patients fit for discharge but unable to leave each day last month, triple the pre-pandemic figure, as excess non-Covid deaths continue to climb.
A hospital refused to operate on a sex assault victim who requested single-sex accommodation, telling her it "does not share her beliefs".
At least five NHS trusts in England have brought back mask requirements due to Covid's autumn resurgence and some are also reimposing social distancing guidelines with threats of visitor bans to come.
The NHS is in a perpetual winter crisis, something that more than doubling the budget in the 2000s did nothing to change. With beds already 95% occupied, will Therese Coffey's plan to get us through the winter work?
