covid-19

The intense pleasures of lockdown

6 June 2020 9:00 am

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

6 June 2020 9:00 am

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?

6 June 2020 9:00 am

Q. I own a small, somewhat shabby and antiquated but well-located flat in central London which I have been happy…

re-lockdown

A short guide to justifying re-lockdown

25 May 2020 9:37 pm

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

25 May 2020 4:11 am

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?

25 May 2020 1:00 am

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'

24 May 2020 8:45 pm

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

23 May 2020 9:00 am

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

22 May 2020 10:44 pm

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?

17 May 2020 3:27 am

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

16 May 2020 10:00 pm

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

16 May 2020 8:55 pm

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

9 May 2020 9:00 am

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

9 May 2020 3:30 am

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?

8 May 2020 7:39 pm

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?

8 May 2020 12:01 am

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?

6 May 2020 10:08 pm

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

5 May 2020 10:33 pm

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

5 May 2020 6:20 pm

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

4 May 2020 11:43 pm

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

4 May 2020 9:01 pm

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

2 May 2020 9:00 am

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

26 April 2020 1:55 am

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

25 April 2020 10:26 pm

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

25 April 2020 7:41 pm

As countries around the world try to work out a way to live with coronavirus, there’s a growing hostility towards…