Ross Clark

Ross Clark

Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. His books include Not Zero, The Road to Southend Pier, and Far From EUtopia: Why Europe is failing and Britain could do better

The mystery over Covid infection numbers

This morning’s so-called ‘React study’ — an attempt by Imperial College to estimate the prevalence of current Covid-19 infection in Britain — has aroused much interest thanks to its suggestion of a sharp fall in the R number. Its central estimate for R is 1.06, but it applies a range of between 0.74 to 1.46,

How can we be sure local lockdowns are working?

So, the numbers of new Covid infections in the UK failed to register a fourth consecutive fall and instead rose to a new record of 7,143. This does not mean that the disease is spreading as rapidly as it did in the spring when far fewer tests were being undertaken, but the rise has nevertheless

Is the second wave slowing?

New confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been rising now since early July — steadily at first and then sharply since early September. But is there any sign of an increase in deaths?    The latest weekly figures from the Office for National Statistics for deaths in England and Wales, released this morning, do record an

Quantifying the cost of lockdown

We have had plenty of anecdotes about people failing to be diagnosed with serious diseases during lockdown. This is thanks to either to hospitals cancelling appointments, GP surgeries stopping face-to-face meetings or people picking up the message that they should protect the NHS by trying not to use it.  It seems clear that the rush to

Why the rise in Covid cases could soon flatten off

The tighter Covid restrictions introduced this week, along with larger fines for people who gather in groups of more than six or fail to self-isolate, followed a press presentation in which Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty produced a graph showing new infections doubling every seven days until mid-October, when there would be 50,000

Belgium shows the problem with Boris’s Covid strategy

If there is one country which has influenced the government’s toughening of Covid restrictions over the past fortnight it is Belgium. It was Sophie Wilmes’ government which, faced with a resurgence of Covid cases in late July, came up with the idea of placing a limit on the size of social gatherings – five rather

Could we see Covid anti-virals before a vaccine?

In a strategy that now appears to be one of outright suppression, the government has put huge stock in the approval of a vaccine before too long. But could the answer turn out to be not a vaccine but an anti-viral drug? Research by a team from Bristol University and published in the journal Science

There is no Covid consensus

Today, 32 scientists, economists and other academics have written to the Prime Minister demanding a change in policy on Covid-19, saying that attempting to suppress the virus is ‘increasingly infeasible’. They have instead demanded that vulnerable groups should be protected from the disease while younger people should be allowed to get on with their lives.  Many

Five questions for Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance

The chief medical officer, professor Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, made a statement this morning on the latest data surrounding Covid-19, laying the groundwork for new restrictions that the government is expected to announce tomorrow. It wasn’t a press conference with questions, so they could not be challenged on what they

The growing evidence for T cell Covid immunity

Back in May I wrote about a study by La Jolla Institute for Immunology, which raised the possibility that exposure to coronaviruses which cause the common cold could offer some degree of immunity to Covid-19. Scientists involved in the research had discovered a reaction to Sars-CoV-2 – the virus which causes Covid-19 – in the

Rise in cases not (yet) affecting the over-70s

Perhaps the most reliable test of Covid-19 levels is carried out by the Office for National Statistics, which every week releases the results of random samples. The results, just published, show a striking divergence in age. Another significant rise amongst the young but, importantly, almost no rise amongst the over-70s who are those who made

How Extinction Rebellion shot itself in the foot

It was easy to criticise Westminster for caving into Extinction Rebellion’s demands for a ‘citizen’s assembly’ on climate change when it agreed to convene just such a body at the end of last year. By appeasing the group’s law-breaking, so the argument went, parliament was emboldening XR and other direct action groups to block streets, spraypaint buildings,

What do 111 calls tell us about the second wave?

Should we be looking at confirmed cases of Covid-19 to give us a guide as to how the epidemic is progressing – or at the number of people reporting symptoms? Over the past few months attempts to track the virus have been hampered by a very inconvenient fact: the number of tests being performed has

Ross Clark

Germany shows it isn’t a mistake to reopen schools

A week after schools returned, the government was fretting about a new surge in recorded cases – and found itself moved to introduce new rules limiting us meeting with no more than five other people at a time. The timing seems remarkable. So was it a big mistake to reopen schools? Should we have kept

Europe’s ‘second wave’ has fizzled out

Has the Covid ‘second wave’ already run out of steam? On 9 July, just when Britain was reopening the hospitality sector and other businesses, the World Health Organisation announced that the pandemic was ‘accelerating’. Much of the coverage in Britain also implies that we are possibly in the early stages of a second wave. But

We may be closer to herd immunity than previously thought

Are we a lot closer to achieving herd immunity with Covid-19 than has been made out? It is a question which has been asked many times, not least because the disease has a tendency to fizzle out in communities where around a fifth of people have been infected – as has been observed in London,

Ross Clark

Government jobs don’t have to be in the capital

Boris Johnson has put a huge amount of stock in persuading reluctant civil servants to return to their desks in Whitehall. His campaign this week to get more people back to the office was tinged with the suggestion that those who were slow to return might be in danger of losing their jobs. This divided

What is behind the increase of non-Covid related deaths?

The latest data on weekly deaths in England and Wales, published today by the Office of National Statistics, show what could be the beginning of a disturbing trend. From mid-June to mid-July, the number of excess deaths has been running at below the five-year average. But for the second week running, that has reversed: in

Most lockdown pupils are ‘three months behind’

As schools return to full in-person teaching, a survey reveals just how far behind pupils are in their education. The National Foundation for Education Research polled 3,000 head teachers and other senior staff across 2,200 schools to ask how their pupils’ education has been affected. The replies reveal not just how far behind children have