Day: 4 September 2021

A summary of all the most interesting stories that have appeared about politicians’ efforts to control the virus — and other acts of hubris and folly – not just in Britain, but around the world.

Evidence suggests misdelivering a Covid vaccine directly into the blood may be a cause of blood clots. Yet official guidance does not make any effort to avoid this. Why?

We're publishing an original piece today by Dr. Rachel Nicoll, a post-doc medical researcher, about the enduring problem of chronic disease. Why has so little progress been made in finding cures for these conditions?

by Dr. Rachel Nicoll The developed world doesn’t just have to cope with a Covid pandemic – we also have a pandemic of chronic disease (defined as a condition which is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects and for which there is no cure). A rough rule of thumb is to treat a condition as chronic if it lasts longer than three months; in 2012 this amounted to around 15 million sufferers in the U.K. and will be higher now. Examples of chronic conditions include Type 2 diabetes (T2D), obesity, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune conditions, dementia, lung disease, cancer... the list is endless. Not only have many of these patients been effectively abandoned during the Covid crisis, with appointments cancelled, scans postponed and patients dying at home because they are discouraged from going to hospital, but if they do contract Covid they are likely to fare worse. All the chronic conditions listed above are Covid risk factors, making patients more susceptible to severe Covid and death. Furthermore, many of them are risk factors for other chronic conditions: T2D for cardiovascular disease, obesity for T2D, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia, musculoskeletal disorders, mental health disorders and many more. Why is there still no cure for chronic diseases? By ‘cure’, I am not referring to medical management through drugs that have to be ...

There's a good piece in the Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer, asking at what point Australia will have to stop calling itself as a liberal democracy and acknowledge that it has become a police state.

We're publishing an original piece on the Daily Sceptic today by investigative journalist Jacinta Taylor about the aftermath of the Panorama investigation into biosecurity lapses at the Lighthouse lab in Milton Keynes.

The Government risks forcing some care homes to close by insisting that unvaccinated staff must be sacked, warns Unison in a plea to ministers to drop its plans. "Bullying people can never be the right approach."

The definition of 'large venue' continues to widen under the Government's plans to introduce vaccine passports, with unvaccinated Brits set to be barred from football matches, concerts and business conferences.

The Government has shifted the public's behaviour by copying the wartime propaganda strategy from WWII when dealing with Covid, argues Dr. Colin Alexander in an upcoming talk that will look at the communication of fear.

A summary of all the most interesting stories that have appeared about politicians’ efforts to control the virus — and other acts of hubris and folly – not just in Britain, but around the world.