covid-19
The intense pleasures of lockdown
I used to live in Mogadishu for months at a time, cooped up in compounds behind fortified walls. Venturing on…
A death, live-streamed: my husband’s Skype funeral
The strange experience of my husband’s Skype funeral
Dear Mary: is it OK to drop by to see a friend’s garden during the pandemic?
Q. I own a small, somewhat shabby and antiquated but well-located flat in central London which I have been happy…
A short guide to justifying re-lockdown
Fear is gripping the American public health and media establishments: they are losing control. States are belatedly (and far too…
Dominic Cummings has a human shield: Boris Johnson
The rule of modern politics, let’s call it Trump’s first law, is that if you are being attacked for apparently…
What's more disturbing: Cummings' behaviour - or the mob pursuing him?
The Dominic Cummings story is deeply disturbing. No, not the fact that Cummings and his wife, Mary Wakefield, took what…
Why Dominic Cummings' departure may only be a 'matter of time'
Dominic Cummings’s role in government no longer looks sustainable, as members of the cabinet and Tory MPs turn against him…
Switzerland is now an enemy of the rich
Gstaad The staff are back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The…
Taiwan's balancing act is becoming ever more precarious
After a landslide victory in January’s election, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen was re-inaugurated on Wednesday at a scaled-down ceremony in…
Do the experts believe in the R number?
The R-number has been declared the most important metric in monitoring Covid in Britain. For young children to return to school…
My positive antibody test is an ‘immunity passport’ in all but name
I wouldn’t say I felt I had joined a master race when my coronavirus ‘immunity passport’ arrived this week. But…
Covid's knock-on effect on child deaths
The daily death toll has been a constant backdrop to the Covid-19 crisis. Would we ever have entered lockdown, would…
Why we’ll all be fleeing to Nigeria
I keep thinking what I’ll do when we regain our liberty — and I picture that beer at the end…
Ten reasons to end the lockdown now
Writing in this magazine a month ago, I applauded the government’s stated aim of trying to follow the science in…
Has Trump finally decided to dump Saudi?
In a dramatic move even by his own mercurial standards, Donald Trump has authorised the withdrawal of two Patriot missile…
Can we rely on a V-shaped recovery?
Can the UK expect a V-shape recovery? The Bank of England has this morning published data revealing very deep V,…
Is it 'speculation' to say the UK has the most deaths in Europe?
It’s a grim news week for the government with Dominic Raab announcing in Tuesday’s press conference that the UK coronavirus death toll…
A German court has plunged the eurozone into fresh crisis
An epidemic has been raging across the continent. The economy is in lockdown, and GDP is in freefall. But, hey,…
Our toothless response to China is embarrassing
If you have been troubled by the government’s failure to get tough on the country responsible for our present malaise,…
Sweden tames its ‘R number’ without lockdown
Sweden has been the world’s Covid-19 outlier, pursuing social distancing but rejecting mandatory lockdown. Schools, bars and restaurants are open…
The problem with immunity passports
Could we see ‘immunity passports’ in Britain? Ministers are reportedly discussing them as a route out of lockdown. According to today’s…
I’m imposing a one-woman trade embargo on China
Without making any efforts in that direction, I now know all about a certain telecom firm’s future business plans. My…
Ten lessons we've learned from the lockdown so far
Yep, the end is in sight, courtesy of other countries organising the practicalities for the return to some sort of…
Our impatience will end the lockdown
At the farm shop this morning there was a chap panic-buying a large metal and plaster flamingo. It was the…
Chinese diplomat's Covid-19 PR exercise backfires
As countries around the world try to work out a way to live with coronavirus, there’s a growing hostility towards…
