Covid-19

Wednesday

Ross Clark

What should we make of the WHO Covid report?

Should we believe the conclusions of the World Health Organization (WHO) report into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which, as expected, dismissed the possibility of a laboratory accident while giving credence to the theory that the virus was imported via frozen foods? The first thing to note is that the report does not even claim to be independent — it is billed as a ‘joint WHO-China study’. It deserves to be read as such: as the product of an undemocratic government that has every incentive to deflect any responsibility for a pandemic that has, to date, been blamed for 2.7 million deaths globally. The report puts forward four hypotheses: that the

Tuesday

Kate Andrews

Can we see the vaccine effect?

Britain’s Covid data is moving in the right direction. Today’s update from the Office for National Statistics confirms this on one of the most critical measures: excess deaths. For the second consecutive week, deaths in England and Wales are below the five-year average. In the latest week ending 19 March, there were 10,311 registered deaths — 676 fewer deaths than the week before and down 8 per cent on the average. The good news doesn’t stop there. Not only are deaths down (more than 90 per cent below the peak of the latest wave) but the vaccine factor is also showing its effect. According to the ONS’s latest antibody survey, 55

Monday

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s vaccine problem

On the day that people are finally allowed to gather in groups of six outside, tennis games get underway and wild swimmers take to Instagram en masse, Boris Johnson attempted to land a message of caution with the nation. Speaking at today’s press conference, the Prime Minister spoke of the need to ‘proceed with caution’ as the country takes a ‘small step to freedom today’.  The nerves in government point to a problem that will only grow as the vaccination programme continues at pace The PM pointed to Covid cases rising across the Channel as a cause for concern that shows the need to ‘continue flat out to build the immunity

Robert Jackman

Covid virtue-signalling has infected our TV dramas

Not for the first time in its history, Eastenders managed to make a bit of a stir last week. In a break from the more harrowing stuff, viewers were treated to the sight of the ever-sprightly Patrick Trueman waltzing into the Minute Mart to jubilantly announce he’d received his second Covid vaccine. ‘Good for you! I’m due my first one later today,’ replied the shop-keeper, before dismissing the objections of a vaccine hesitant customer (called Karen, of all things). As you can imagine, the scene went down like a cup of cold sick with conspiratorially-minded types online. But you don’t have to believe odd things about Bill Gates to ask

Sunday

William Atkinson

Zoomers like me don’t realise how lucky we are

For millennials like me, talkin’ ’bout our generation usually involves complaining. We Generation Zs – or zoomers – can’t seem to catch a break. Even before the pandemic, we were on track to be the first generation worse off than our parents since the Great Depression. It takes us twenty-somethings six times as long to save for a deposit as forty years ago. Having been told by Tony Blair a university education was essential, we leave, saddled with debt, to confront an over-stuffed and unwelcoming graduate market. After spending 2020 locked up against a disease that has a limited impact on young people, we face unemployment and decades of higher

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: ‘every confidence’ future lockdowns can be avoided, says Dowden

Oliver Dowden – We have ‘every confidence’ there will not be future lockdowns The Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden was in the hot seat this morning amid reports that a third wave of Covid-19 is engulfing much of continental Europe. Many of the UK’s close neighbours, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, are re-introducing or extending measures to combat the so-called ‘Kent variant’ of the disease. Andrew Marr sought to get reassurance from Dowden that the government would not end up plunging England back into a fourth nationwide lockdown: OD: [Our] aim… is to make sure this is irreversible… You can’t rule things out, but we have every confidence that we

Friday

Steerpike

France accuses Britain of vaccine ‘blackmail’

In some ways you have to admire the sheer shamelessness of the French government. To spend the start of the year slagging off the AstraZeneca vaccine before threatening the seize those very same jabs showed a degree of brazenness that excelled even the usual French standards. But to accuse the UK of blackmailing Paris and her European neighbours must be the peak of Gallic gall.  The French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to a radio show this week in which he criticised the UK’s vaccine programme. He told listeners: ‘You can’t be playing like this, a bit of blackmail, just because [the UK] hurried to get people vaccinated with a first shot.’

Professor Karol Sikora

Are we ready for Britain’s looming cancer crisis?

Cancer, cardiac and countless other patients are crying out for help – but are ministers listening?  Over the last year, politicians have been adopting untried and untested policies, the consequences of which none of us can yet fully grasp. The main aim, of course, of these extraordinary lockdown measures has been to suppress Covid-19 in order to reduce pressure on our hospitals. That has been the metric on which Government approval has been judged. Whether or not you agree with every restriction, it is clear that this focus has sucked the oxygen away from other pressing health issues. Covid-19 required a response unlike anything we have seen in modern times.

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

At last, the Lib Dems are behaving like liberals

Last night in the House of Commons, MPs voted to give the government six more months of emergency powers by a tally of 484 to 76. Simple maths will tell you that the Tories could not have achieved this on their own; Starmer whipped the parliamentary Labour party to vote the measure through. It makes one wonder why — or even if — we have an official opposition at all any longer. The only party that voted as a bloc against the extension of emergency powers was the Liberal Democrats. This followed up on some fiery performances by Ed Davey in the media in the build-up to the vote, asking

Ryan Shorthouse

Kids will thank us for shortening the school summer holidays

Oh for a normal summer – so close now, but Covid remains capricious, a wave across Europe threatening to wash it all away. But just think: for some schoolchildren, and their parents, the normality of the long six-week summer break may not be such an appealing prospect. Sure, the middle-classes are able to pack it with enriching activities – exciting new skills, friendships and memories. But, for kids in families with stretched budgets, it can be isolating, impoverishing, boring. And, as quite a substantial body of evidence now shows, very bad for their emotional and cognitive development – some studies even conclude that the majority of the attainment gap between

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Does the data support renewing Covid emergency powers?

Last night MPs voted by 484 to 76 to renew the Coronavirus Act, which grants the state emergency powers to further control – and shut down – most parts of society. The Liberal Democrats voted against the extension, along with 35 Conservative MPs who rebelled and voted against the government, citing as their main concern the widening gap between these unprecedented powers and the danger Covid-19 presents in the UK. The latest iteration of the bill has been renewed until September – three months after the last date in Boris Johnson’s roadmap – and includes the toughest restrictions on international travel yet. When the Prime Minister announced his roadmap out of lockdown last month,

Thursday

Dalibor Rohac

On vaccines, the EU is getting what it paid for

Remember when the EU was going to provide an antidote to the spectre of vaccine nationalism? While Italian authorities are raiding pharmaceutical plants for vaccines, the European Commission is pushing for measures to block vaccine exports to countries that do not ‘reciprocate’. Unfortunately, European authorities have it exactly backward. Instead of seeking to expand the existing supply, their ham-fisted policies risk having the opposite effect. The ongoing war on AstraZeneca is bound to make every pharmaceutical firm think twice before signing a contract with the EU. And with vaccine production chains spanning across numerous jurisdictions, including non-members of the EU, export restrictions increase legal uncertainty and can disrupt supplies further.

Dr Mark Toshner

What will it take to tackle long Covid?

With just under 500,000 patients admitted to hospitals in Britain since the start of the pandemic, we need to talk about ‘long Covid’. Why? Because while the vaccine rollout is undoubtedly saving many lives, there is going to be a forbidding secondary impact from this virus on the nation’s health, the scale of which is only just becoming apparent.  What does ‘long Covid’ conjure in your mind? For many, it has become synonymous with fatigue and brain fog, symptoms which are fairly common. But what is less well known is that the impact of Covid-19 on patients can extend far beyond these symptoms alone. Alongside some of the mental health problems from the pandemic, this presents a

Kristina Murkett

Why can’t other politicians say sorry like Angela Merkel?

Angela Merkel did something remarkable this week: she said sorry. Having announced an Easter lockdown in Germany, the Chancellor partly reversed her decision. ‘This mistake is my mistake alone,’ she said, urging ‘all citizens to forgive’ her. Was this a particularly groundbreaking speech? Perhaps not. But one thing is clear: it is exceptionally rare to hear a politician admit blame and take responsibility so explicitly, unconditionally and openly. And when it does happen, it is more often than not from a woman. Last summer, Nicola Sturgeon apologised to pupils over the controversial exam results in a similar fashion to Merkel: ‘Despite our best intentions, I do acknowledge that we did

Constantin Eckner

Merkel’s blundering lockdown U-turn

During her 16 years in office, Angela Merkel has produced a couple of memorable sentences that will be imprinted into her legacy. She added a few more on Wednesday, when she announced that the government rescinds plans of a radical Easter shutdown, saying: ‘This mistake is my mistake alone.’ Merkel’s CDU is rapidly losing the support of voters — their approval rating has dropped 9 per cent to just 26 within a week It is quite remarkable to see a leader taking the full blame for what has been perceived as a hasty and impetuous decision. Merkel and Germany’s 16 state premiers had agreed on a radical lockdown over the Easter

Wednesday

Ross Clark

Is AstraZeneca’s Covid jab effective against the South African variant?

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been under attack ever since the results of its phase three trials were announced in December. When the results of US trials were released this week showing 79 per cent efficacy against symptomatic disease and 100 per cent protection from serious cases of Covid 19 – and failing to show up any serious side-effects – it seemed to help bolster its reputation.  Yet some of that was undone by subsequent accusations by the US Data and Safety Monitoring Board that AstraZeneca may have included out of date data in its trial results. The company has been asked to come back and present new calculations, using data gathered from its

Michael Nazir-Ali

Boris, ‘greed’ and the moral case for capitalism

I, for one, was not surprised by the Prime Minister’s remark to his parliamentary colleagues about greed fuelling the race to develop a vaccination for Coronavirus. I well remember some years ago, when he and I were both on the Any Questions panel, he said to me in an audible aside:  ‘Bishop, greed is good isn’t it because it makes us rich?’  I replied quickly to say something like you would expect me to say no, and the reason is that it makes a few people rich but it impoverishes many. Greed also causes some to fall into debt and even crime, because of the desire to ‘get rich quick’. Greed

Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Should we vaccinate kids against Covid?

Children could start getting Covid vaccines over the summer as part of the government’s herd immunity strategy. As Katy Balls reported last month, the current thinking in government is that vaccinating the majority of the population is the best way to stop the virus in its tracks. But where does this leave parents like me who have concerns about giving their children the jab? NHS England’s chief executive Simon Stevens has already mooted the idea of combining the flu and Covid vaccinations into one dose. And streamlining the two vaccinations makes perfect sense for adults. But it could put parents in a difficult position.  All this leads to the question of whether

Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Boris is right: ‘greed’ did give us the Covid vaccine

Boris Johnson might have started back-pedalling furiously. He might have tried to dismiss it as an off-the-cuff comment. And the spin doctor might have preferred it to have remained private. Even so, the Prime Minister was surely right when he told MPs last night that ‘greed’ and ‘capitalism’ gave us the Covid-19 vaccine. And rather than backing away from the remarks, the PM should be doubling down on them. He was spot on. Free enterprise and the multinational corporation are getting us out of this mess, and we need to talk about that a lot more than we do. The pioneering MRNA technology used by BioNTech and Moderna was funded by

Tuesday

Constantin Eckner

Merkel declares a ‘new pandemic’ as Germany locks down again

A year on from the onset of the Covid crisis, Angela Merkel had grim news for Germans this morning: our country is in the midst of a ‘new pandemic’. ‘The British mutation has become dominant,’ she warned, as she announced a strict new lockdown, which will shut almost all shops and churches over Easter.  The new lockdown rules were thrashed out in a tetchy 12-hour meeting between the chancellor and Germany’s state premiers. It used to be EU summits that prevented Merkel from catching some sleep. Not any longer. The leaders struggled to find common ground on an approach to contain the spread of coronavirus, amidst a worrying spike in infections which has seen cases