pandemic
Masks in schools: how convincing is the government's evidence?
Why has the government changed its mind and asked children to wear masks in school? When Plan B was announced…
Boris Johnson rejects lockdown (again)
Boris Johnson latest Covid press conference was slightly confusing. The Prime Minister spent nearly an hour saying nothing particularly new.…
The problem with 'vaccine equity'
‘A stain on our soul’. That was how Gordon Brown, in his latest missive on the subject, described the failure…
The churches must stay open
Hooray for Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who used the one day of the year when his pronouncements are amplified by the…
Sage modellers start to accept that Omicron is milder
Public health officials in Britain and South Africa were on different planets for about a fortnight. While those in South Africa…
Is Omicron now falling in South Africa?
Man makes Covid predictionsand God laughs. Yet with the stakes this high in Britain, every bit of real-world data is…
Omicron is now Britain’s dominant Covid strain
If you test positive for Covid now in Britain, the odds are that it’s Omicron: it’s now the dominant strain…
America is a nation divided
New York Imagine a European country today in which a newspaper in its most populous city launches a mendacious project…
Should we be scared of the Omicron variant?
Why is the government so scared of the Omicron variant? So far, most of the evidence we have for transmissibility…
Boris takes his colleagues for fools
Is Boris Johnson really deploying a ‘diversionary tactic’ in announcing vaccine passports on the day he has had to perform…
What’s the evidence for England’s vaccine passports?
The Prime Minister has just announced Plan B. Working from home has been all but mandated and large venues —…
Omicron: cause for hope?
It will be weeks before we know just how worried we should be about Omicron — but the first indications seem…
After a lifetime in nightclubs, now I party at home
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, and it’s about time, too. Good restaurants and elegant nightclubs are…
Unless Omicron changes everything, Covid is on the way out
There are good reasons to be concerned about the Omicron variant. For starters, this strain has 50 mutations, twice as…
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.…
Satire misfires: Our Country Friends, by Gary Shteyngart, reviewed
It is, as you’ve possibly noticed, a tricky time for old-school American liberals, now caught between increasingly extreme versions of…
The vaccine cheer is gone
I am 45, which means I’ve now had my third Covid vaccine. The experience of getting that injection crystallises a…
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…
Why did we decide that Covid was over?
Look, I don’t know much epidemiology. Can’t pretend to. So what follows is, necessarily, a personal finger to the wind.…
No. 10 moves to kickstart the booster campaign
In a move that as important as any in the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Emily Lawson is returning to run the…
Why Covid means the big state is back
History suggests that when the state expands in a crisis, it doesn’t go back to its pre-crisis level once the…
China and the WHO are given an easy ride in the Covid blame game
Are you ready to relive 2020? That’s what Adam Tooze is offering as he tells the story of Covid-19 through…
Javid avoids Tory Covid powers fightback – for now
Tory MPs were not happy when Sajid Javid unveiled the Covid winter plan in the Commons this afternoon. They’re dissatisfied…
Why isn't the vaccine UK approved for 12- to 15-year-olds?
This afternoon, the JCVI has essentially passed the buck on vaccinating 12- to 15-year-olds. It has declared that the health benefits…
A volte face over what caused the pandemic needs explaining
Sir Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust, writes that ‘the last year has been an eye-opener for me.…
