coronavirus
Steven Pinker: The inside story of my Covid ‘bio bet’
Betting men Sir: The bet between Martin Rees and me that Matt Ridley recounts pits two kinds of scruples of…
The column you don’t want to read
Curiously unobserved about last month’s US election: how astonishing it was that the candidates’ policy positions during the pandemic played…
Wuhan wager: the $400 ‘bio bet’ that predicted the pandemic
At the end of this month, one of the world’s most renowned scientists will send $400 to a charity to…
The ‘experts’ who enabled RFK Jr’s rise
The nomination of husky-voiced, musclebound Robert F. Kennedy Jr – who once dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park…
How would we handle an avian flu pandemic?
Concerns have been raised in recent months after an outbreak of avian flu caused by the virus H5N1 was detected…
Wuhan clan: we finally know the identity of the scientists in the lab linked to Covid
We finally know the identity of the scientists in the lab linked to Covid
Covid and the politics of panic
It is 15 months since Sweden’s Coronavirus Commission presented its final report. The 770-page document analysed how the country handled…
Who gets to decide what is ‘harmful’?
Three years ago this week marked my first misgivings about the government’s Covid lockdown. Sure, I was late to that…
How science became politicised
Here’s a paradox. Over the past two-and-a-half years, a cadre of senior politicians and their ‘expert’ advisers across the world…
Portrait of the week: Hosepipe bans, England’s women win the Euros and a strike over dragons
Home BP reported quarterly profits of £6.9 billion, its biggest for 14 years, after oil and gas prices rose steeply.…
Has the lab leak theory really been disproved?
The BBC carried a story this week with the headline ‘Covid origin studies say evidence points to Wuhan market’. Bizarrely…
Why I won’t have a Covid booster
In the news recently, we’ve heard from multiple Britons who’ve lost family members or sacrificed their own health to Covid’s…
Portrait of the week: Scottish independence, striking lawyers and the end of Roe vs Wade
Home Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said that military spending had to increase. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, reacted to…
Is there a new Covid wave – and do we need to worry?
Is Covid back on the rise? The ONS survey shows increasing prevalence in England and Northern Ireland, with ‘uncertain’ results…
The truth about Britain’s Covid deaths
There has been a considerable hoo-hah in the press about the recent World Health Organisation report estimating Covid-related deaths internationally…
From snowball fights to delivering birthday cards: Britain’s 136,000 lockdown penalty charges
The lockdown penalty charges keep coming
The Shanghai lockdown is testing the limits of the CCP’s control
China’s lockdown protestors cannot be silenced
China may be facing its greatest Covid crisis yet
China appears not to have defeated Covid after all
Should we worry about the BA.2 Omicron variant?
When the Omicron variant (now categorised as BA.1) swept across the world at the end of last year it was…
Why C.S. Lewis was right about war
Well, at least Covid is over. No sooner had Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine than the UK’s Covid advisory…
Covid is rising again. Should we worry?
For some time now, Covid has been rising in Scotland – there are now more Scots in hospital with Covid…
Sage admits its models were 'at variance to reality'. But why?
The Sage committee was set up as a pool of experts on tap to advise government. During the pandemic, it mutated…
The return of Actual Badness
In the spring of 2020, I advanced an abnormally hopeful proposition: that one blessing that might arise from a pandemic…
Portrait of the week: Storms rage, Covid curbs end and Russia’s ‘renewed invasion’
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced, in the House of Commons, sanctions against Russia after its ‘renewed invasion’ of…
The tyranny of Trudeau
Early in the corona era the historian David Starkey gave some thoughts on Covid. ‘We’ve got a Chinese virus,’ he…
