UK: Absurd new Covid rules that prove the Left just love to boss everyone else around

Like many, I am delighted that the Government has decided not to impose further Covid restrictions — at least until next year.

This welcome late Christmas present not only means that people in England can enjoy New Year's Eve, it also means that many restaurants, pubs, theatres and shops will now be saved from closure.

But not everyone shares my relief. Instead, arguing furiously for ever-tougher restrictions — even in the face of the demonstrably milder threat from the Omicron variant — are Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford.

They continue to display breathtaking political opportunism and a shocking refusal to prioritise people's livelihoods. Meanwhile, their allies indulge in endless handwringing, fury, virtue-signalling and political point-scoring. I've had enough of it all.

As a former Labour MP who was a member of the party for 34 years, it pains me to say this, but parts of the Left love bossing everyone else around.

Gloomy

Restricting personal freedom is the itch the Left loves to scratch whenever it can. Lockdowns and the baffling array of contradictory rules and guidelines have provided the perfect pretext for this.

Yes, the state has a role to play in life. But there is a vast and widening gulf between sensible citizens with jobs, businesses and responsibilities, who willingly accept restrictions while longing for the day when they are lifted — and those who constantly demand further curbs, howling with self-righteous fury and predicting disaster when they are loosened.

In England, these Leftist doom-mongers, including Corbynista Labour MPs, party activists and a ragbag of socialists, vent their spleen online and in some cases in the broadcast media. But in Scotland and Wales, Sturgeon and Drakeford's Left-wing governments (respectively SNP and Labour) actually wield the power to act on their urges.

So despite the encouraging data on Omicron, they have once again been trying to make political capital by upending people's lives more disruptively than Westminster, bringing in draconian new restrictions and decimating livelihoods.

In Scotland, large public events have been cancelled, one-metre social distancing has been imposed in pubs, restaurants, gyms, theatres and museums, and table service is now mandated anywhere alcohol is served. Nightclubs are closed and the New Year's party is effectively cancelled.

I live in Glasgow South, in the constituency I represented for Labour. The streets around me are gloomy and empty as they have been for so much of the past two years. Restaurant and business-owners are facing a second bleak midwinter.

This is not because Scotland's Covid cases are higher than in England — in fact, they are lower — but because of Sturgeon's relentless virtue-signalling which plays a huge role in all her decisions.

With impeccable political cynicism, she always insists on imposing tougher Covid restrictions than the Prime Minister is prepared to inflict.

During much of the pandemic, her press conferences were scheduled slightly before Boris Johnson's, making it seem as if she was acting against Covid with greater urgency. Now, in contrast, she is on the back foot as the Prime Minister appears to have been vindicated by his own policy decisions.

Wales's Labour government, under Drakeford, is similarly cynical. The latest rules in Wales are truly absurd. In a policy decision reminiscent of a Monty Python sketch, Welsh people are currently permitted to go to the pub — but can be fined £60 for going to work.

Like most of the hard Left, Drakeford — a self-professed acolyte of Jeremy Corbyn — is an instinctive authoritarian who clearly enjoys wielding the power to restrict ordinary people's freedoms.

So why does the Left have this sinister authoritarian urge? Part of the answer rests in how they see the role of the state.

Most on the Left believe the state should play an extensive role in people's lives. Many are also convinced it should own and run key industries and services — and take a lot of your income in taxes to do so.

Traditional liberals, in contrast, believe that the state should step back wherever possible and allow people to live their lives as much as possible without intrusion.

Rage

Covid has crystallised this distinction. The role of the individual has been shrunk, the role of the state expanded.

But history offers ample proof of why this is a dangerous move — and the trend takes no account of individual agency.

As John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, noted this week, the English have in fact been 'pretty responsible' in their response to the spread of the Omicron variant, regardless of the lack of restrictions.

Yet on social media in particular, prominent Left-wing voices are furious at the Government's 'recklessness'.

And what precisely sparks this rage? It is the belief that they are better people, that they care more, and if you don't subscribe to their view then you are just some 'evil Tory'.

Famously, Harold Wilson once said: 'The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.' But that was a dangerously simplistic judgment.

Labour, like any serious political party, should leave the crusading to the Middle Ages and instead dedicate itself to taking practical steps to improve people's lives.

But many on the Left believe in this dangerously messianic vision, and that they are thus better people than those on the centre-right.

The pandemic has given them the perfect outlet to demonstrate this goodness. Their alleged 'fears' about the impact of loosening restrictions or their noisily expressed anger about people not wearing masks both work to bolster their self-importance.

Heroic

Anyone who fails to demand tougher rules is, in contrast, heartless and uncaring. And because the arguments against further lockdowns and restrictions often rest on the grievous effects on the economy, Labour claims that the Tories only care about profits and money.

But who suffers when businesses collapse and jobs are lost? Ordinary workers. The Labour Party too often forgets this because its power base is in the public sector — funded, of course, by the taxpayer's ever-expanding largesse.

Aside from the heroic NHS staff, many public sector employees have worked at home on full pay for much of Covid. It's hardly surprising that so many of them are in favour of further lockdowns.

The Labour Party seems to have forgotten that the public accounts are not some bottomless resource. Instead, when the economy declines, so do the tax revenues that keep public services going.

The Left must learn to abandon the ludicrous idea that people can't be trusted to make their own judgments about how to live their lives.

Two years into this pandemic, Sturgeon and Drakeford should be giving their citizens the facts and figures, and then trusting them to behave sensibly. It is now time British people were allowed to think for themselves.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10351509/Ex-Labour-MP-TOM-HARRIS-laments-urge-control-thats-destroying-livelihoods.html

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FDA approves first pill to treat COVID after Pfizer's oral medication reduced hospitalizations by 88%

U.S. health regulators on Wednesday authorized the first pill against COVID-19, a Pfizer drug that Americans will be able to take at home to head off the worst effects of the virus.

The Food and Drug Administration issued emergency authorization for Pfizer's Paxlovid, a pill that is available by prescription only and should be initiated as soon as possible after diagnosis of COVID-19 and within five days of symptom onset.

The long-awaited milestone comes as U.S. cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all rising and health officials warn of a tsunami of new infections from the Omicron variant that could overwhelm hospitals.

'Today's authorization introduces the first treatment for COVID-19 that is in the form of a pill that is taken orally — a major step forward in the fight against this global pandemic,' said Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in a statement.

'This authorization provides a new tool to combat COVID-19 at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and promises to make antiviral treatment more accessible to patients who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19.'

The drug, Paxlovid, is a faster, cheaper way to treat early COVID-19 infections, though initial supplies will be extremely limited. All of the previously authorized drugs against the disease require an IV or an injection.

An antiviral pill from Merck also is expected to soon win authorization. But Pfizer's drug is all but certain to be the preferred option because of its mild side effects and superior effectiveness, including a nearly 90 percent reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.

'The efficacy is high, the side effects are low and it's oral. It checks all the boxes,' said Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic. 'You´re looking at a 90 percent decreased risk of hospitalization and death in a high-risk group - that´s stunning.'

The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer's drug for adults and children ages 12 and older with a positive COVID-19 test and early symptoms who face the highest risks of hospitalization.

That includes older people and those with conditions like obesity and heart disease. Children eligible for the drug must weigh at least 88 pounds.

The pills from both Pfizer and Merck are expected to be effective against omicron because they don´t target the spike protein where most of the variant´s worrisome mutations reside.

Pfizer currently has 180,000 treatment courses available worldwide, with roughly 60,000 to 70,000 allocated to the U.S. Federal health officials are expected to ration early shipments to the hardest hit parts of the country. Pfizer said the small supply is due to the manufacturing time - currently about nine months. The company says it can halve production time next year.

The U.S. government has agreed to purchase enough Paxlovid to treat 10 million people. Pfizer says it's on track to produce 80 million courses globally next year, under contracts with the U.K., Australia and other nations.

Health experts agree that vaccination remains the best way to protect against COVID-19. But with roughly 40 million American adults still unvaccinated, effective drugs will be critical to blunting the current and future waves of infection.

The U.S. is now reporting more than 140,000 new infections daily and federal officials warn that the omicron variant could send case counts soaring. Omicron has already whipped across the country to become the dominant strain, federal officials confirmed earlier this week.

Against that backdrop, experts warn that Paxlovid's initial impact could be limited.

For more than a year, biotech-engineered antibody drugs have been the go-to treatments for COVID-19. But they are expensive, hard to produce and require an injection or infusion, typically given at a hospital or clinic. Also, laboratory testing suggests the two leading antibody drugs used in the U.S. aren't effective against Omicron.

Pfizer´s pill comes with its own challenges.

Patients will need a positive COVID-19 test to get a prescription. And Paxlovid has only proven effective if given within five days of symptoms appearing. With testing supplies stretched, experts worry it may be unrealistic for patients to self-diagnose, get tested, see a physician and pick up a prescription within that narrow window.

'If you go outside that window of time I fully expect the effectiveness of this drug is going to fall,' said Andrew Pekosz, a Johns Hopkins University virologist.

The FDA based its decision on company results from a 2,250-patient trial that showed the pill cut hospitalizations and deaths by 89 percent when given to people with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 within three days of symptoms.

Less than 1 percent of patients taking the drug were hospitalized and none died at the end of the 30-day study period, compared with 6.5 percent of patients hospitalized in the group getting a dummy pill, which included nine deaths.

Pfizer´s drug is part of a decades-old family of antiviral drugs known as protease inhibitors, which revolutionized the treatment of HIV and hepatitis C. The drugs block a key enzyme which viruses need to multiply in the human body.

The U.S. will pay about $500 for each course of Pfizer's treatment, which consists of three pills taken twice a day for five days. Two of the pills are Paxlovid and the third is a different antiviral that helps boost levels of the main drug in the body.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10337029/FDA-approves-pill-treat-COVID.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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