covid-19
Prepare for China's nationalist turn
In recent days, it has been striking how many people in Westminster and Whitehall now think the lab leak theory…
Has Covid accelerated the cashless society?
Time is, I fear, running out. Running out, that is, to avoid handing to a small number of multinational corporations…
France is paying a heavy price for Macron's vaccine catastrophe
The United States is growing at such a blistering pace the Federal Reserve may have to raise interest rates. In…
Covid deaths in context
What would have been your overall chances of dying in the first 19 weeks of 2021 compared with recent years?…
Is the daily drip of Covid statistics still helpful?
It is hard to remember a time when the daily drip of Covid statistics was not part of our lives.…
'I was treated like a traitor': An interview with WHO whistleblower Francesco Zambon
Francesco Zambon is calling the World Health Organisation (WHO) to account. Zambon, who was based at the WHO’s Venice bureau,…
Dominic Cummings’s explosive claim about the Bank of England
Amidst all the explosive claims made by Dominic Cummings during today’sselect committee hearing, one towards the beginning of the seven-hour…
The rise of vaccine virtue-signalling
I’ve bemoaned the ‘no Tories please’ line on dating profiles many a time. Closed-minded and over-used, it’s a banal way…
What will Cummings say?
As the government puts the final touches to its social distancing review and Foreign Office ministers ponder the best response…
Has India's second Covid wave peaked?
While the Indian variant continues to dominate the headlines, India itself seems to have dropped out of the news a…
Inflation is the biggest threat to Boris
The vaccines are rolling out. Lockdown is easing, the EU has been forgotten about, and the Labour party has returned…
Does getting Covid-19 protect you against reinfection?
How well does prior exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus protect you against reinfection? It has been a hotly-debated subject since…
Can Boris keep his roadmap on track?
Boris Johnson’s favourite phrase since he released his roadmap out of lockdown has been ‘cautious but irreversible’. These are the…
Could the Indian variant slow unlocking?
So is the ‘irreversible’ lifting of lockdown really irreversible after all? There is a grim echo of what happened last…
Were fears of a third wave overblown?
So, the third wave is officially no more. New modelling by SPI-M, the government’s committee on modelling for pandemics, has,…
Did I catch Covid from a naked-rumped tomb bat?
Laikipia Until I promised to slaughter a fat-tailed sheep with a goat thrown in for a feast, the farm cowhands…
Does the UK's 'green list' for travel make sense?
International travel is back on the menu, in theory. From 17 May the ‘stay in the UK’ restrictions are lifting…
Merkel is right to reject Biden's vaccine patent plan
She handed the vaccine procurement process over to the European Union. She didn’t invest much in new production. And she…
Why we should worry about the post-Covid exodus of older workers
Concerns around unemployment during the pandemic have, understandably, been focused on younger people. Last year it was under-24 year olds…
How Tory MPs plan to clip Cummings' wings
On 26 May, Dominic Cummings will give evidence to MPs grouped on the health and science super committee, chaired by…
Vaccine passports for mass events might be the worst of all worlds
Are vaccine passports in our future? The ‘Covid-status certification’ review is underway, carved out of the Prime Minister’s roadmap and…
How concerned should we be by the Indian variant?
In recent weeks there has been a lot of new-found optimism in Britain with regards to Covid: case numbers, hospitalisations…
Are plans to abandon the office premature?
To what extent will our pandemic lifestyles stick? With ‘work from home’ guidance in place for the best part of…
Does anyone doubt Boris's leaked 'bodies' comment?
Of course Boris Johnson raged, King Lear-like, that he was prepared to ‘let the bodies pile high in their thousands’…
'Collective' shines a light on Romania's deadly corruption problem
A gripping Romanian documentary has made history as the country’s first film ever to be nominated for an Oscar in…
