Science friction
DO you ever get the feeling some of the Government’s coronavirus advisers are living in a parallel universe?
To hear these gloombuckets solemnly intoning dire warnings of a third wave, you’d think the statistical evidence for extending lockdown was overwhelming.
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Instead, Covid deaths are at the lowest levels since the pandemic hit our shores, and hospitalisations remain low.
Even hotspots for the Indian variant show signs of having passed the peak.
We’re all for reasonable caution but in a global pandemic, lockdown enthusiasts will always be able to find SOME cause for potential alarm.
As Sir John Bell, on the Government’s vaccine taskforce, says: “If we scamper down a rabbit hole every time we see a new variant, we are going to spend a long time huddled away.”
So far, the PM appears to be holding course for unlocking on June 21.
It’s telling that his two top scientists, Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, have yet to join the doommongers’ chorus, while his Health Secretary was also buoyant yesterday.
Announcing that three in four adults had now received at least one vaccine dose, Matt Hancock said the key had been positivity, a can-do culture, and — please note, Dominic Cummings — focusing on how to fix problems rather than obsessing about who to blame.
We don’t know about the scientists but that sounds like a winning formula to us.
Catch up, PM
TWO bruising encounters with Marcus Rashford over free school meals ought to have taught the Government that scrimping on funding for kids is an insane own goal.
The resignation by schools catch-up tsar Sir Kevan Collins proves it has not.
What choice did Sir Kevan have but to walk?
Only £1.4billion was stumped up to help pupils recover from pandemic disruption, a tenth of the cash he argued was needed.
His other recommended reforms, such as longer school days, have been hoofed into the long grass.
So much for Boris Johnson’s claim in March that repairing the life chances of kids whose education has suffered in lockdown would be his “biggest priority”.
The Prime Minister has to strongarm the Treasury into an urgent rethink.
The future prospects of a generation of children cannot be abandoned to become another casualty of Covid.
Pint of no return
FROM loo rolls to our liberty, Brits have endured no end of deprivations over the past 15 months with grit and humour.
But there is one shortage the national spirit cannot stomach: the lack of a pint of beer in our newly reopened pubs, especially now the sunshine is here.
Landlords and brewers must rise to the occasion and keep the kegs rolling.
