Coronavirus

Thursday

The Spectator

It’s time for NHS GPs to stop hiding behind their telephones

Nye Bevan famously said that he was only able to persuade family doctors to support the creation of the NHS because he ‘stuffed their mouths with gold’. But at least he obtained good service from them — including home visits. Until Tony Blair awarded GPs hefty pay rises while allowing them simultaneously to opt out of night-time and weekend work, they were responsible for their patients’ care 24 hours a day, seven days a week — with practices often pooling resources to provide continuous cover. But the role of GPs has become increasingly unclear: do patients have a right to be seen in person? It was revealed this week that

The Spectator

Letters: The agony of the forgotten Australians

A glimmer of hope Sir: After the debacle of the West’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was comforting to read two of the articles in last week’s Spectator (28 August). The first was Rod Liddle’s explanation as to how we got there in the first place (‘I blame Tony Blair’) and the second was John Casey’s piece about Ahmad Massoud and the mention of his late father, the messianic Ahmad Shah Massoud (‘Fatherland’). Very often out of a dire situation something positive can appear. It may be that the arrival of Ahmad Massoud as the leader of the National Resistance Front, the potential he has of being the head of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories aren’t in party mood

Nearly two years on from the general election and 11 years since the Tories took office, they remain comfortably and consistently ahead in the polls. This is remarkable. In September 2008, when Labour was in power, it was almost 20 points behind the Conservative party. Eighteen years before that, when the Tories were in power, they regularly trailed by double digits. You might think this Tory lead, and the poor numbers for the leader of the opposition — Keir Starmer’s latest approval rating is minus 39 — would have led to Tory triumphalism. However, when Tory MPs return to parliament next week, they will do so in a strikingly subdued

Tuesday

Ross Clark

Can schools return without disruption?

A lot of people won’t want to take much notice of Mary Bousted, joint-general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), who warns today that schools face significant disruption by the end of September as Covid-prevention measures have to be reintroduced. It was the NEU, after all, which not only opposed the return of schools after the first lockdown, but simultaneously advised its members not to take part in online lessons either. The NEU has often given the impression of being motivated first and foremost by a desire to obstruct the government’s plans. Sir Patrick Vallance’s original verdict on the virus – that it is not possible to stop it

Annabel Denham

On child vaccination, parents should have the choice

On Saturday, the Health Secretary made his most bullish comments on child vaccination so far. Writing in the Times, Sajid Javid argued that offering all teenagers the jab will ‘solidify our wall of protection,’ offering a stronger defence against Covid and new strains. In doing so, Javid has intensified the debate on whether over-12s ought to be vaccinated. Earlier this month, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised that jabs should be offered to 16 and 17-year olds, bringing the UK into line with countries such as Sweden. The JCVI is now investigating whether the jab could be offered to all 12-15 year olds, as in the US and several other

Sunday

Ross Clark

The NHS blood tube shortage should concern us

One of the great lessons from the early stages of the pandemic was the need to shorten supply chains and make them more robust. This was especially true for medical supplies. Just-in-time supply chains have been developed over the years to increase efficiency, but had never been tested in a global crisis when demand for certain medical products is high and supply is weak. The government ended up paying huge sums for PPE which, in some cases, was not even suitable for use. The shortage raises eyebrows because a plastic tube is, after all, a plastic tube It seems the lesson has not entirely been learned. There is now a shortage of

Sunday

Paul Hunter

New Zealand’s zero Covid strategy is becoming unsustainable

New Zealand has done remarkably well over the past 18 months at protecting its citizens from the worst of the Covid pandemic – better than almost any other country in the world. Only 26 people have died of Covid in the country, after it has aggressively locked down at the first sign of a case and closed off its borders to the rest of the world. But as we have recently learned in Afghanistan, an exit strategy can easily undermine all your previous achievements. New Zealand is now in a very difficult situation. It is currently facing its first outbreak of the Delta variant, but only a small proportion of

Saturday

Pratik Jakhar

China’s zero Covid strategy is being undermined by mahjong

Mao Zedong once said that the game of mahjong should not be underestimated, because: ‘If you know how to play it, you’ll have a better understanding of the relationship between chance and necessity. There’s philosophy in mahjong. It’s also dialectical… even if you have the worst hand, as long as you are strategic and methodical, the inferior will become superior; weakness will become strength.’ He even claimed the tile-based game was one of China’s three ‘great contributions’ to the world. Ironically, mahjong was outlawed under his rule. The early communists viewed it as an unnecessary distraction for the masses, and disliked its links to gambling and capitalism. It was not

Thursday

Ross Clark

How are the vaccines affected by the Delta variant?

Has the emergence of the Delta, or Indian, variant reduced the effectiveness of Covid vaccines and if so by how much? The fear that the Delta variant might be partially escaping our vaccines has often been expressed in recent weeks, especially given that highly-vaccinated countries such as Israel and parts of the US have suffered new peaks of infection since the Delta variant came to dominate. But there has been a lack of real-world data to prove whether or not there is any grounding to these fears. Today, however, the Oxford University Covid 19 Infection Survey published a study which seeks to answer this question. It compared the results of

Friday

James Forsyth

How China tried to suppress the lab leak investigation

The lead figure in the World Health Organisation’s work on the origins of Covid-19 has given a remarkable interview to Danish TV. Peter Ben Embarek has revealed just how much political pressure the investigation came under and made clear that he thinks the lab leak hypothesis should not, pace the official report, be dismissed as extremely unlikely. Embarek told TV2 ‘Until 48 hours before we finished the whole mission, we still had no agreement that we would talk about the laboratory part in the report, so there was a discussion right up to the end about whether to include it or not.’ He said that, ‘initially, they [the Chinese] didn’t

Thursday

James Forsyth

When will exams get back to normal?

It wouldn’t be credible to say that this year’s A-Levels grades are comparable with 2019’s: almost 45 per cent of entries got an A or A* compared to 25 per cent two years ago. But, as I say in the magazine this week, the problem is that you can’t simply snap back to normal next year. Many of those who got their grades this year won’t go to university until next year. This — and the fact that the education of those in the year below has been disrupted too — means it wouldn’t be fair for exams to return to normal next year. That would leave the class of 2022 competing for

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Why the government was right to drop vaccine passports

12 Sept 2021: Health Secretary Sajid Javid has announced that the government is shelving its plans to introduce mandatory domestic vaccine passports (details here). Below is Lionel Shriver’s column from August 2021, in which she argues vaccine passports were always a bad tool for tackling Covid-19. Despite having mocked app-happy Albion in my last column, I finally downloaded the NHS app. (Lest I seem a raging hypocrite, the institutional app is quite distinct from the Track-and-Trace Covid one, possession of which marks you as insane.) I found the app’s elaborate security features for registration bitterly comical. I had to photograph my passport, then record a video of myself speaking four prescribed numbers

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Liberté, égalité, vacciné: France’s Covid passport revolt is just beginning

Montpellier Three weeks ago, 100,000 demonstrators turned out on the streets of France to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s hastily passed law to require vaccination passports to get on a train, eat at a restaurant or visit a shopping centre. A week later, the number had more than doubled. Last Saturday, it doubled again. One police union estimated that close to 500,000 had turned out, although as usual the Interior Ministry claimed a much lower number. Enormous demonstrations were staged not just in Paris but in more than 150 cities and towns across France, as well as in the overseas territories of Guadeloupe and Réunion. All this in the middle of

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Cameron’s cash, A-grades abound and Tower Bridge won’t budge

Home With less frightening domestic data on the coronavirus pandemic to ponder, subjects such as the rivalry between Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, and Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, found time for discussion. The seven-day average of coronavirus cases detected by tests remained below 30,000. In the seven days up to the beginning of the week, 637 people had died with coronavirus, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 130,281. (In the previous week deaths had numbered 524.) In a week, numbers remaining in hospital fell from 5,943 to 5,631. Three quarters of adults had received two doses of vaccine, but numbers crept

Charles Moore Charles Moore

What ministers won’t admit about A-levels

The tale of A-levels shows how ministers can sometimes find themselves in a position when it is simply too dangerous to admit something that is true. To the exterior eye, it is obvious that the temporary abolition of exams and its replacement by teacher assessment has produced grade inflation. This year’s A-level cohort has not suddenly got a third better than its pre-Covid equivalent. You or I can point that out, but if Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, says it, he thereby implies that he has presided over a change which devalues the exam, seriously weakening the basis of admissions to university. He will also be accused of disparaging pupils

Matt Quinton

The great holiday Covid test rip-off

I holidayed in Malta last month with my partner, having chosen it because it was on the ‘green list’. Foolishly, I assumed this would mean we could waltz back to the UK without any hassle. I was wrong. We needed a test before departing Malta. Within a few minutes of looking on the Malta airport website, I found a provider, headed to their test centre, and €30 later, was given the all clear. But that wasn’t all. To complete my pre-flight passenger form, I needed a ‘Day 2’ test for when I was home. For this, the UK government has a website pointing holidaymakers towards a slew of private firms

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Why China’s vaccine diplomacy is running into difficulties

Tear gas and rubber bullets hold off the protestors marching to Government House in Bangkok. They’re looking for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, who they blame for Thailand’s Covid plight. As Covid cases continue to rise in Thailand, the protestors have three demands: the resignation of Prayut, more funding for the country’s Covid response, and for the country to stop using the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine. Back when Sinovac first landed in the country in February the shipment was welcomed by Prayut, who proclaimed it ‘a historic day’. But six months down the line hundreds of healthcare workers are still being infected with coronavirus despite having received two shots of Sinovac. A

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The problems posed by booster shots

It is already known that there will be a campaign of booster shots in the UK this autumn to boost immunity among the over-50s. But it now looks like the government is planning one for autumn 2022 as well. Steven Swinford reports in the Times today that the UK has ordered 35 million doses from Pfizer for next year. The number of doses ordered suggests that the government wants to have the option in 2022 of giving a booster shot to everyone in clinical groups 1-9: the over-50s. Swinford reports that the government was prompted to act, in part, by the fact that the EU has already placed an order

Monday

Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s Covid passports are causing intergenerational warfare

The protest movement against Emmanuel Macron’s Covid passport, which comes into full effect today, continues to grow in France. On Saturday over 200,000 men, women and children took to the streets, more than twice the number that demonstrated when the protests began on July 17. As a veteran of the Paris protests, I’ve found one of the most interesting aspects to be the reactions of passers-by as the cortège files through the streets of the capital. Some clap, some look on in contempt, others shout words of encouragement and a few hurl terms of abuse. There’s no doubt the Covid passport has divided the people, and while the protest movement

Sunday

Paul Hunter

Will Covid turn into the common cold?

Many experts and modellers thought that the 19 July reopening would be a disaster. So far, that has not been the case. Daily case numbers actually started falling within days after 19 July, although that was far too soon to have been caused by anything to do with ‘freedom day’. The question now is how the pandemic will play out for the rest of this year and the next? In trying to understand this, we need to understand some important things about the biology of coronaviruses and their interaction with their hosts: us. Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid, is not going away. Like other coronaviruses, it will likely infect