Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero and The Road to Southend Pier.
Just how damaging has lockdown been to children’s education? An Oxford University study has tried to quantify it by analysing data from Dutch schoolchildren — who, unlike in Britain where exams were cancelled, took tests shortly before and shortly after the first lockdown last spring. The level of parental education was a big predictor of
Should we be concerned about the latest React study, which claims that the fall-off in new infections began to plateau from the middle of March? The latest instalment of the monthly study, led by Imperial College, tested a randomised sample of 140,000 volunteers between 11 and 30 March, each of whom was given a PCR
A decade ago, Europe clambered out of the 2008/09 financial crisis only to fall into the sovereign debt crisis of 2010. As the global economy rebounded, Greece, Italy and Spain all had to be bailed out by the ECB as investors lost faith in their ability to carry on servicing their loans. Deep economic cuts
It was the great British scientific triumph: an example of how big pharma can work altruistically for the good of the world, by making a vaccine available at cost price. But is the writing now on the wall for the AstraZeneca vaccine? This afternoon the European Medicines Agency (EMA) ruled that blood clots can be
Could we really see another peak in Covid-19 hospitalisations as bad as January once society reopens in June? That was the story widely reported this morning, based on the latest modelling from SPI-M, the government’s advisory committee on modelling for scientific emergencies. The study caught attention not least because back in January very few people
Over half the adult population has been vaccinated, new infections and deaths have plummeted to their lowest level since last September — and the government chooses this point to launch a programme to test every adult for Covid twice a week. The Prime Minister is due to announce this afternoon that lateral flow testing kits will
I guess the authors of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities didn’t agree to the job for a quiet life. Even so, the sheer bitterness of the volley directed at them by the grievance industry must have taken them aback. The reaction from the left has been straight out of the Marxist playbook: don’t
Should we vaccinate children against Covid-19? The question is going to be increasingly asked following positive results from a US trial of the Pfizer vaccine in 12 to 15-year-olds. The trial found the vaccine to have a 100 per cent efficacy in preventing symptomatic illness — higher than on older age groups. It was, however,
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
Get ahead with vaccination and you can open up your country sooner. It seems logical, but it is not quite how things are working in Britain, where in spite of this week’s relaxation our lockdown restrictions remain among the toughest in the world. This applies even less in Chile. On 29 March, 6.53 million of
To most of us, cryptocurrencies remain an esoteric world, beloved by nerds and incomprehensible to the rest of us. Does Visa’s announcement this week that it will now process payments directly in a cryptocurrency called USDCoin change that, and hasten us to a day when we will all have cryptocurrency accounts which we use to
The story of Covid has been one of government repeatedly ruling things out – and then coming back several weeks later and introducing them nonetheless. It happened with lockdown, compulsory wearing of masks, and now it looks as if it might be happening with vaccine passports. Remember vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi telling us of vaccine
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
‘Unloved’ is an adjective often applied to British shares in recent years. A more appropriate description might be ‘abandoned, with half a dozen kids and the rent unpaid’. Since referendum day in June 2016 the FTSE100 index has grown by 10 per cent. Over the same period the Hang Seng is up 42 per cent, the DAX
Covid deaths fell to 17 on Sunday, the lowest daily figure since 28 September and no higher than the levels being recorded throughout much of last summer. Deaths are down over 40 per cent on the week, hospitalisations down 21 per cent. Yet the better the news on vaccinations and serious illness, the longer the
The hesitancy of many European countries to use the AstraZeneca vaccine (between bouts of complaining the company hasn’t delivered enough doses) has been widely reported. Less discussed is the delay in US authorities approving the vaccine for use there. But with the reporting of results from a US trial, that should now be a formality.
There is a big, big hole in Ursula von der Leyen’s strategy of threatening to ban exports of the Pfizer vaccine to Britain unless Britain hands over shots of UK-made AstraZeneca vaccine to make up for a shortfall in EU-made supplies. Well, several holes perhaps – not least that EU member states have done their
The UK vaccination programme has been such a success to date that until yesterday evening it seemed a formality that the government would achieve its target of offering all adults at least a first dose of a Covid vaccine by July. Indeed, on Monday it looked as if this date might be brought forwards when
Should the Bank of England be jacking up interest rates whenever the housing market starts to run away with itself? That is what the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has in effect just been asked to do by Jacinda Ardern’s government: to take into account a ‘sustainable housing market’ when fixing its monetary policy. If
Far from subsiding, as it seemed to be doing last week, the European war over the AstraZeneca vaccine has intensified. Over the past few weeks, EU leaders have swung from accusing the company – and Britain – of hoarding the vaccine and failing to supply it to EU countries, to claiming that it is ineffective,