coronavirus

How would we handle an avian flu pandemic?

20 July 2024 9:00 am

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

24 June 2023 9:00 am

We finally know the identity of the scientists in the lab linked to Covid

Covid and the politics of panic

3 June 2023 9:00 am

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’?

13 May 2023 9:00 am

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

3 September 2022 9:00 am

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

6 August 2022 9:00 am

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?

28 July 2022 1:19 am

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

23 July 2022 9:00 am

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

2 July 2022 9:00 am

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?

12 June 2022 7:32 pm

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

14 May 2022 9:00 am

There has been a considerable hoo-hah in the press about the recent World Health Organisation report estimating Covid-related deaths internationally…

The Shanghai lockdown is testing the limits of the CCP’s control

23 April 2022 9:00 am

China’s lockdown protestors cannot be silenced

China may be facing its greatest Covid crisis yet

26 March 2022 9:00 am

China appears not to have defeated Covid after all

Should we worry about the BA.2 Omicron variant?

20 March 2022 8:53 pm

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

12 March 2022 9:00 am

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?

11 March 2022 11:50 pm

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?

5 March 2022 6:00 pm

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

5 March 2022 9:00 am

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’

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced, in the House of Commons, sanctions against Russia after its ‘renewed invasion’ of…

The tyranny of Trudeau

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Early in the corona era the historian David Starkey gave some thoughts on Covid. ‘We’ve got a Chinese virus,’ he…

Breathe easy: how respiratory viruses evolve to become milder

26 February 2022 9:00 am

How respiratory viruses evolve to become milder

Abolishing Covid restrictions now is bold, brave – and necessary

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Shortly after Covid emerged, our civil liberties were suspended. The government took control of when and for how long we…

Ending restrictions won't save Boris

22 February 2022 4:37 am

Boris Johnson certainly managed to rally the troops on their first day back from recess this afternoon as he told…

How do Russian and Ukrainian military forces measure up?

19 February 2022 9:00 am

Facing the music Police in New Zealand played Barry Manilow records to truck drivers in an attempt to persuade them…