Vaccines

Nicola Sturgeon wants to extend vaccine passports in Scotland, and today her government released a 70-page document purporting to show evidence. The snag? There’s not a shred of evidence to show that her vaccine passports are having any effect. The document, entitled Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine certificationww: evidence paper update makes a very bold claim: that Scotland’s choice is more vaccine passports or restrictions. To suppress the virus further we are now faced with a choice. This is to limit social contacts and the risk of infection by limiting social contacts by closing venues, limiting group sizes and advising people not to meet each other.

Nicola Sturgeon is considering extending vaccine passports to Scotland’s cinemas, theatres and pubs. ‘We are also considering whether an expansion of the scheme to cover more settings would be justified and prudent given the current state of the pandemic,’ the First Minister said yesterday: she’ll decide next Tuesday. As she mulls, what data will she have to go on? Her deputy, John Swinney, conceded earlier this month that the government doesn’t have much in the way of evidence: the data is ‘impossible to segment,’ he says. Yet he told The Spectator at an event this morning that he still believed vaccine passports had a ‘role to play’ — pointing to an increased uptake of the vaccine in under-thirties.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended that Covid booster jabs be offered to people in their forties, after they became available to the over-fifties earlier this year. But, as recently as August, the World Health Organisation opposed booster jabs. It said in a statement:  ‘In the context of ongoing global vaccine supply constraints, administration of booster doses will exacerbate inequities by driving up demand and consuming scarce supply.

Are vaccine passports being used in other countries in an attempt to cut Covid infections – or to try and boost vaccine take up by curtailing the social lives of those who refuse? The latest change in policy in Austria would appear to confirm that for them, it’s the latter. From today, access to restaurants, bars and any event with more than 25 guests will be limited to people who can prove they have been fully vaccinated, that they have previously recovered from Covid or that they have had one jab and a negative PCR test. In four weeks’ time, only the double-jabbed and those who can show they have recovered from Covid will be allowed in. Austria, like many EU countries, has had a vaccine passport scheme for several months.

There were plenty of lessons for Democrats to learn from the shock victory of Republican Glenn Youngkin in Tuesday night's gubernatorial election in Virginia. Perhaps the most important is that Terry McAuliffe should have focused more on local issues instead of nationalizing the race. Youngkin was able to tap into the ire of local parents protesting their school boards on a litany issues, including critical race theory and transgender bathroom policies. An often overlooked point in debates about critical race theory (and whether or not it is being taught in Virginia schools) is that the parent movement started in response to pandemic-related school closures and the shifting standards of teacher's unions and school boards for reopening.

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. It’s one of those places where you see lawn signs proclaiming “In this house, we believe in science.” Naturally, our Democratic leaders have consistently ignored science over the last year, at least when it comes to COVID mitigation. Here in Montgomery County, our return to normalcy is currently being held hostage in exchange for near-universal vaccination of our least at-risk residents. If you believe that local governments are in a hurry to surrender “emergency” powers, I have a bridge over the Potomac to sell you. Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, has dropped our indoor mask mandate. But we still have a locally mandated one in place. Our county leaders reckon that they know better.

If I wanted to persuade my fellow Americans to eat more cheese, I would begin by launching a campaign to ban cheese. This might start with the argument cheese clogs arteries or lowers IQ. I’d find some doctors willing to testify that cheese inhibits testosterone, and some other doctors to insist it fouls up estrogen.  Then I would move on to the damage cheese does to the climate: too many cows, goats, sheep — methane, don’t you know. Greenhouse gases. Deforestation brought to you by cheddar. 'Cheese kills!' might serve as a motto. Next, I would sort out the cheese-producing states that would have to be melted into submission, perhaps with the promise of extravagant subsidies.

In a move that as important as any in the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Emily Lawson is returning to run the Covid vaccination programme. Lawson headed up NHS England's vaccination team during the rollout, and after its success, she was moved to take charge of the new Number 10 delivery unit. The hope was that she would bring the rollout mindset to public services more broadly. The delivery unit, modelled on its Blair era predecessor, is meant to ensure that the government actually does what it says it is going to do. Such is its importance that Lawson addressed the first meeting of the newly reshuffled Cabinet. The fact that she is now going back to the rollout shows how worried ministers are about the booster programme.

If we have learned anything over the last few months it is that emergencies, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. The ruling elites have been as shifty and duplicitous about what justifies enacting emergency powers as the FBI has been about what warrants investigating angry parents at school board meetings (and before them, Trump campaign operatives for their Russian 'collusion’.) One feature of all these police-state excursions into unbridled power never changes — vagueness. It is so much easier to move the goal posts when there are no lines drawn on the field. The COVID-19 pandemic served as the all-encompassing key to unlocking 'emergency powers’ for politicians and unelected government bureaucrats.

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, first responders were the toast of the town. Most of us appreciated that while we binge-watched Tiger King in our sweatpants and attempted to make sourdough bread from scratch, not everyone was lazily locking down. Nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals were on the frontlines of the fight, taking on a virus the world knew little about. This sacrifice did not go unnoticed. Americans proudly stuck signs on their front lawns that read 'thank you first responders!’ McDonald’s gave out free 'thank you meals’ to those who were helping fight COVID-19. Dr Anthony Fauci wasn’t the only one who made the TIME 100 List last year. The magazine also dubbed healthcare workers 2020’s 'Guardians of the Year’.