Following a recommendation from the Danish Epidemic Commission, the government had decided that COVID-19 “should no longer be categorized as a socially critical disease” after January 31st, 2022.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
COVID-19
Two factors contribute to the decline in the consolidated budget deficit: the tapering of pandemic-related stimulus spending and the gradual return of economic activity to pre-pandemic normal.
Sven R. Larson —
The considerable uptick observed, according to the security authorities, was not caused by an increase in extreme-Left or extreme-Right activity, but by an increasingly tense social climate which—amid the COVID-19 pandemic—has taken hold of German society.
Robert Semonsen —
From Stockholm to Paris to Barcelona to Helsinki, EU governments braced themselves as citizens—singing anthems, waving national flags, and shouting slogans—gathered in the main squares and marched along the major thoroughfares to express their dissatisfaction with the current order.
Robert Semonsen —
The new law, the brainchild of the center-right ÖVP and the Greens and opposed by the FPÖ, allows citizens’ vaccination status to be checked by police. Fines for infractions will range from €600 to €3600.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
The fact that a Western, formally democratic European country is being upbraided—however gently—by the human rights group, is something Europeans are rather unused to.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
Shortly after some 3,000 people gathered in front of the National Assembly last Wednesday in Sofia, tempers flared, and demonstrators—comprised heavily of supporters of the irredentist-nationalist Revival party—clashed with police and stormed towards the parliament, coming just several meters away from the main entrance.
Robert Semonsen —
During a weekend interview, Thomas Haldenwang, the president of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, called anti-lockdown protesters, vaccine skeptics, and so-called ‘lateral thinkers,’ “enemies of the state” who “fundamentally reject the democratic state.”
Robert Semonsen —
In an editorial piece titled “We Failed,” Ekstra Bladet, a traditionally center-left Danish tabloid newspaper, confessed that the publication—along with the wider mainstream liberal press—hadn’t been “vigilant enough” in questioning narratives put forward by government authorities.
Robert Semonsen —
Monsignor Cirulli justifies these extreme measures by relying on the words of Pope Francis, who sees vaccination as an “act of love.” The deliberate obstruction of the distribution of the sacraments to the faithful in times of peril, however, raises questions. The bishop has attracted a lot of criticism for this decision, which for the moment remains purely local.
Hélène de Lauzun —
The CCP is little more than an international crime syndicate with political affectations. Knowing what is going on in China is dependent on sifting through their official lies, deflections, and ‘dezinformatsiya.’ The fact is, we just don’t know what unleashed monster they’re running from in Xi’an. All we know is that the CCP is lying about it.
Benjamin Harnwell —
Reporting on the link between palm oil and cancer is just one example of how the mainstream media avoids fair and balanced reporting, and squelches moderate voices. Some media, besides pushing an ideological agenda, try to make money by stirring up fear.
Pieter Cleppe —
I promised myself that I would ignore the global panic that has taken the world over (one might say it has ‘gone viral’) and substituted itself for every other known psycho-pathology. But the U-turn by the international commentariat was too much of a gift to satire to be missed.
James Bogle —
Liberté d’inexpression: nouvelles formes de la censure contemporaine
by Anne-Sophie Chazaud
Paris: Editions de l’Artilleur, 2020
Hélène de Lauzun —
Never has libertarianism, a notoriously loud creed, been so hushed in its concern for liberty.
Harrison Pitt —
The Pandemic shall mutate into oblivion sometime relatively soon. When it does, we will all be left with the aftermath. Wrecked economies, shuttered businesses, and life opportunities lost are only a small part of it all. Worse still are the questions that may be asked. When the rulership had us put on our masks, they took off theirs. The experience of the past two years make plain a reality only a few saw before: the modern citizen has only those rights his rulers deign to give him, and these may be taken away at any time. In a word, the myth of democracy is dead.
Charles A. Coulombe —
While the risk of spread to humans is low, when it does break out, the impact can be lethal. As of October last year, the World Health Organization had confirmed 863 cases of H5N1 in people, 456 of whom died, around the world since 2003.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
“Following a French Government decision, on 28/12/2021, unless they hold French residency, British citizens are now considered third country citizens and can no longer transit France by road to reach their country of residence in the EU,” a statement on the Eurotunnel website warned.
Bridget Ryder —
The challenge before us is to decide whether we believe in a universe created by a loving God who called us into being and who has destined us for eternal Communion with Himself, or whether we think we can only be ‘free’ by making ourselves like God and imposing our will on our body and the world?
Gabriele Kuby —
“Blanket booster programmes are likely to prolong the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than ending it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. He reasoned that until vaccination reached around the world, the virus would only have more opportunity to spread and mutate. “No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” Tedros added.
Bridget Ryder —
The choice for tougher measures for unvaccinated people a few days before Christmas will have a direct impact on the presidential campaign, as it invites the candidates to take a stand on this particularly divisive issue.
Hélène de Lauzun —
It seems that both the architects of the Brave New World and the serfs who live in it actually fear the state of nature found in the Rousseauian paradise. In fact, we have a profound aversion to nature. Rather than acting like animals, we feel a kind of queasiness not only when we witness the more animal-side of human life, but even when we witness animals acting like animals.
Sebastian Morello —
Widely ignored by the establishment press, the annual Party Congress of Germany’s Social Democratic Party—which is the Federal Health Minister’s party—has been funded by Pfizer, which is projected to rake in €32 billion this year through sales of its COVID-19 vaccine.
Robert Semonsen —
It is hoped that Novavax’s protein-based, and thus more traditional, vaccine could persuade holdouts who worry about the current mRNA vaccine’s safety profile to take the plunge. It would add a fifth vaccine to the EU’s arsenal, next to those of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
EU leaders discussed their response to a pandemic situation that’s quickly evolving. “Urgent administration of booster shots” and “overcoming vaccine hesitancy,” which also entails “addressing disinformation,” remained primary goals, though it was agreed to “take forward the implementation of COVID-19 therapeutics via joint procurement.”
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
Researchers involved in both studies pointed out that their findings are in line with the established science of vaccination—naturally acquired antibodies provide the widest breath of immunity and repeated vaccination with a particular strain of a virus can decrease immunity to other variants.
Bridget Ryder —
About 44,000 Austrians gathered at the capital’s Heldenplatz once more last Saturday to protest their government’s measures to combat the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
Cardinal Müller, former bishop of Regensburg, has condemned globalist financial elites, calling them individuals who view the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic as a window of opportunity to “implement their agenda.”
Robert Semonsen —
What galvanized the protestors ranged from resistance to masking, objection to the controversial COVID Safety Ticket (CST), which allows only those in the vaccinated, testing negative, or newly recovered categories to enter most public spaces, to the specter of mandatory vaccination–for now, limited to those in care and health services.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
Pascal Arimont, Belgian MEP, said that a petrol bomb was thrown under his children’s bedroom windows while the family was at home.
Tristan Vanheuckelom —
The closer one gets to the source of policy, the less explicitly things are expressed, so I did not expect to find so direct a formulation in print. All the same, it is now worth digging into what is really intended by this conceptual guiding light of ‘resilience.’
Carlos Perona Calvete —
Pre-pandemic, I flew at least one long-haul flight a month and regularly clocked 150,000 air miles annually for the previous twenty years. It was novel for my wife to see me ‘in a flap’ over simple things like checking in online and fretting over the contents of my bags.
Roger Watson —
“I am here because I am against forced vaccinations. I am for human rights, and the violation of human rights should be stopped,” one demonstrator said. “We are protecting our children,” said another.
Robert Semonsen —
The case—in which a court in Wallonia declared a regional government’s COVID pass to be illegal—could set a precedent for the legality of COVID passes across Belgium.
Robert Semonsen —
European Union Commission chief Ursula von der Leyden’s said on Wednesday that it was time to “think about mandatory vaccination.” In her personal opinion, “it is understandable and appropriate to lead this discussion now.”
Bridget Ryder —
Bullying a part of the population into undergoing a certain medical procedure is a poor precedent, given the dystopian applications of the instrument that one can imagine.
Pieter Cleppe —
On Monday, Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn said all Germans will be “vaccinated, cured or dead” by the end of this winter. Currently, about one-third of Germans—67.5%—are unvaccinated, at a time when the country is experiencing the ‘fourth wave’ of the pandemic, with record-high levels of COVID cases. “Probably by the end of this winter […]
Often referred to as “the most vaccinated place on earth,” the British-owned territory, which is situated on the southernmost tip of the Iberian peninsula, has witnessed the number of COVID-19 cases consistently rise throughout the fall months, leaving many questioning the vaccine’s efficacy in preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
Political and military leaders in Austria have called for massive protests against the government’s new anti-COVID lockdown measures.
Speaking on the lockdown, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) said that measures will be enforced by police on an “unprecedented scale.” Those who break the rules risk fines of up to 1,450 euros.
Official figures from the Spanish government have revealed that in 2020, year one of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 4,000 people took their own lives—the highest number recorded since records began in 1906.
There are numerous instances of international organizations, such as the OECD and the WHO, not asking for—and in some cases even suppressing—input from those with different opinions. Is this “cancel culture” among multilaterals?
Pieter Cleppe —
“There is a sufficient reason to believe that such person is not suitable for the position”, the Latvian government wrote.
We are a deeply superstitious people. Unfortunately, there are those who have taken full advantage of this over the past two years to effect massive economic- and power-shifts, none of which have been to the benefit of civil liberties, families, or small businesses.
Sebastian Morello —
Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” With its new measures, Italy— and, for that matter, the many other European governments pursuing a similar path—is sacrificing a lot of liberty in exchange for hardly any extra safety.
Pieter Cleppe —
New rules could ease travel for vaccinated people, but a colour-coded system would limit trips to and from areas with high levels of infections.
When healthcare becomes a part of politics, directly gifted by the State, rather than associated with the State’s duties in an indirect way, it necessarily becomes part of the State’s governmental repertoire. This is a problem.
Sebastian Morello —
When the COVID-19 pandemic first broke out, the WHO amazed many by brazenly prioritizing the Chinese Communist Party’s political interests over the health of the world’s population.
Benjamin Harnwell —
The idea of an “authoritarian personality” is not a myth. It just so happens to exist primarily in those who wish to diagnose it in others.
Niall McCrae, M.L.R. Smith —