covid-19
Neil Ferguson wasn’t a lockdown fanatic
Is the Covid inquiry running out of steam? Today, it saw one of Covid’s biggest stars take the ‘witness stand’:…
Pouria Hadjibagheri and the UK’s abandoned open data revolution
With a new year comes the New Year’s Honours and I’m struck to see an MBE given to Pouria Hadjibagheri. He’s the…
The danger of learning too much from Covid
When Ray Bradbury was asked if his dystopian vision in Fahrenheit 451 would become a reality, he replied: ‘I don’t…
Macron's vaccine culture war
When French prime minister Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran held a press conference last week, they outlined the timetable…
Five lockdown questions the cabinet must ask
The cabinet will meet this afternoon, with more restrictions and even a new lockdown on the agenda. But have ministers…
Is the EU heading for a booster crisis?
The Omicron variant spreads far more quickly. It infects far more people. And it is already rampant around the world,…
Johnson is imperilled. So why are his enemies helping him?
It’s a topsy turvy world when your friends and allies do you all kinds of damage and then your enemies…
Boris Johnson is becoming a risk to his own Covid rules
‘It feels like a tipping point. Trust in Boris is collapsing. It could be fatal’. So spoke a senior Tory,…
Will the public take Plan B seriously?
After holding strong for two weeks, fears over the Omicron variant look set to change the government’s course on Covid…
Omicron: cause for hope?
It will be weeks before we know just how worried we should be about Omicron — but the first indications seem…
Why there is more Omicron than we know
Yesterday the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced it had identified another 26 Omicron cases, and the total number of…
Do masks really halve the risk of Covid? A note on the evidence
‘Most of the trouble in life comes from misunderstanding’ as Willy Loman said in Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece An Inspector Calls.…
The Omicron variant: what we know so far
Will the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19, be the black swan that pulls the world back —…
What explains Germany's vaccine scepticism?
By the end of winter, Germans will be ‘vaccinated, recovered or dead,’ according to the country’s health minister Jens Spahn.…
Should Covid booster jabs be rolled out to the over-40s?
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended that Covid booster jabs be offered to people in their forties,…
The trouble with Austria's vaccine passport plan
Are vaccine passports being used in other countries in an attempt to cut Covid infections – or to try and…
My pro-vaxxer friends are changing their tune
My pro-vaxxer friends have been a lot nicer to me since they started testing positive for Covid. I’m calling my…
Did Covid first emerge at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
The net around the Wuhan Institute of Virology continues to tighten. A letter from Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director of the…
Tories scrap mandatory vaccine passports
On BBC One’s Andrew Marr show Sajid Javid confirmed that plans for domestic vaccine passports in England were on the…
Do vaccines pose a risk to young boys?
Should we be vaccinating children against Covid-19? While some countries have been enthusiastically administering vaccines to under-18s — greatly contributing…
Help! I've got 'schlong Covid'
One of the difficulties with having difficulties in your gentleman’s area is describing it to your doctor. Saying ‘I’ve got…
Should Britain brace itself for a major flu outbreak this winter?
Could flu be a bigger problem than Covid this winter? Professor Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on…
The Tunisian paradox
‘We swore to defend the constitution,’ shouted the deputy speaker of the Tunisian parliament, to which a young soldier retorted,…
Zero-Covid is wishful thinking if Australia wants to rejoin the world
As former Australian foreign minister and High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer wrote in last week’s magazine, almost all…
Why I’m thanking God, my immune system and garlic
‘Contact a GP if you’re worried about symptoms four weeks after having Covid.’ That was the NHS quote on the…
