Scientists: WHO wrong to dismiss theory that COVID came from lab
An open letter to Science magazine will put pressure on WHO to explain further why it came to the conclusion it did
Ross Clark
Ross Clark is a leader writer and columnist who has written for The Spectator for three decades. He writes on Substack, at Ross on Why?
Monday
Saturday
Study: AstraZeneca vaccine highly effective in India
From our UK edition
Does the Indian variant of Sars-CoV-2, B1.617.2, have the capacity to escape vaccines? Is it really more transmissible than the Kent variant, and by how much? Those are the urgent questions which government scientific advisers are going to have to try to answer over the next week or two – and the answers will have
Friday
Could the Indian variant slow unlocking?
From our UK edition
So is the ‘irreversible’ lifting of lockdown really irreversible after all? There is a grim echo of what happened last year in the sudden panic over the Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that he ‘rules nothing out’, following a meeting of the Sage committee over how to respond to the variant.
Thursday
Will our vaccines stop the Indian variant?
From our UK edition
As we have often found with Covid-19, no sooner does a path seem to emerge out of the woods than the trees close in again. On Monday, the Prime Minister confirmed that the further relaxation of lockdown rules – including the reopening of indoor hospitality – would go ahead as planned next week. Daily totals
Why stamp duty should be lowered for good
From our UK edition
Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty holiday has been credited with reviving the property market and blamed for stoking house price inflation, but what has been its effect on the public purse? Remarkably, far from reducing receipts it has actually modestly increased them. In the first quarter of 2021 the public coffers swallowed one per cent more
Tuesday
Were fears of a third wave overblown?
From our UK edition
So, the third wave is officially no more. New modelling by SPI-M, the government’s committee on modelling for pandemics, has, at a stroke, eradicated the predicted surge in new infections, hospital admissions and deaths which it had pencilled in for the autumn or winter as a result of lockdown being eased. Previous modelling published in
Monday
Are Meghan’s Covid claims correct?
From our UK edition
When you are on the side of global enlightenment, the standards of proof required for your assertions tend to be somewhat lower. This perhaps explains why Meghan Markle’s comments during an event called the Global Citizen’s Vax Live concert were so widely reported yet so little challenged by the usual army of self-appointed ‘fact-checkers’ who swoop
The furlough scheme is holding back the jobs market
From our UK edition
Last week the Bank of England increased its forecast for economic growth in 2021 from 5 to 7.25 per cent. Now comes more evidence of an economic recovery that is gathering pace, in spite of many lockdown measures still being in place. A UK report on jobs compiled by KPMG and REC, which uses data
Friday
Boris shouldn’t take the red wall vote for granted
From our UK edition
There are two popular reactions to the Hartlepool by-election, which one you favour depending largely on your political tribe. The first holds that the white working class has reacted against a woke, metropolitan Labour party and its knee-taking leader, Keir Starmer. The second holds that the town’s racist and xenophobic population are still fearful that
Thursday
The dangers of buying a ‘doer-upper’
From our UK edition
Is there any television programme as cruel as Grand Designs? At least Jeux Sans Frontieres only offered 15 minutes of humiliation at a time. Grand Designs, by contrast, offers a lifetime’s worth, often with bankruptcy and divorce thrown in. But none have come quite such a cropper as Edward Short who, in 2008, paid £1
Wednesday
The ‘Covid deaths’ that are not caused by Covid
From our UK edition
Registered Covid deaths fell to just one on Monday, leading many to comment that the epidemic in Britain is effectively over. One day’s statistics don’t mean an awful lot, especially over a bank holiday, but what about the wider picture? Over the UK as a whole, there have been 90 deaths over the past seven
Thursday
Will 95 per cent mortgages really help first-time buyers?
From our UK edition
Did we end up learning anything from the 2008/09 financial crisis? If we did, we seem to have forgotten it pretty quickly again, to judge by the re-emergence of the 95 per cent mortgage. Numerous deals have been launched over the past week, with interest rates of around four per cent – the result of the Chancellor’s
Thursday
What does the government’s green target mean for your money?
From our UK edition
As if Covid hadn’t caused a big enough disruption to the economy and investors, along comes another shocker: the government’s announcement of an even-tighter target for reducing carbon emissions. Britain has now been put on a legally-binding commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 78 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035. What does it mean for
Wednesday
Boris should heed Blair’s advice on the Covid vaccine data
From our UK edition
We’ve known from the data from phase three trials that the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines have good efficacy against symptomatic cases of Covid-19. The data also hinted at near 100 per cent efficacy against serious illness, although the limited numbers of participants made it hard to be sure. This morning, however, comes real world data
Monday
How worried should we be about the Indian variant?
From our UK edition
The Prime Minister has cancelled his trip to India, due to happen next week, though travellers coming from the country are yet to be told to quarantine for two weeks. But the fact India is yet to be put on the red list has caused some surprise given the surge in cases of Covid-19 — up from 12,000
Thursday
How much of a threat is the South African variant?
From our UK edition
For residents of six London boroughs, as well as those in Smethwick in the West Midlands, the partial relaxation of lockdown rules this week hasn’t quite gone according to plan. They’ve had a day out in the sun, alright, but not necessarily sitting enjoying food and drinks in a pub garden – more likely they
Britain is closing its trade gap with the EU
From our UK edition
So it was just a blip after all. Remember those huge headlines last month revealing that exports to the EU had plunged by 41 per cent in January, leading frustrated remainers to bleat: we told you so? ‘Brexit – the unfolding disaster’ tweeted Lord Adonis for one, along with a graph showing the sharp fall in
Wednesday
James Dyson isn’t a Brexit hypocrite
From our UK edition
He backed Brexit for a wheeze – and then, when he realised that it was actually going to happen and the implications for his business sank in, he fled to Singapore. That, very simply, is the Remainer case against Sir James Dyson. But how does it stand up against reality now that Brexit has happened?
Monday
The impact of lockdown on education
From our UK edition
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
Friday
Show us the money
Why society needs cash
