Families prioritise holidays over kids* Opik calls out Government tyranny* despicable France* Pfizer drops EUA in India
The Digital Digest
By Oliver May
COVID jabs are set to be offered to children aged five to 11 on a non-urgent basis – because some families cannot go on holiday to the places they want.
The Daily Mail has reported that “families planning half-term holidays next week have complained that the lack of jabs for under-12s in this country has limited their options for flying to certain other countries in Europe”.
Former head of health and job stats at the Office for Nations Statistics, Jamie Jenkins, has questioned the move, saying: “As a football coach of eight to nine-year-olds with most having Covid and no difference in performance, what’s the health emergency?”
And retired consultant surgeon Anthony Hinton added: “Please do not give a Covid vaccine to a child just so you can go on holiday. Countries around the world are dropping unscientific and unethical vaccine passports. Travel will soon be back to normal. A holiday can be rebooked but your child can never be unvaccinated. Think hard.”
FORMER Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik has called on the UK Government to outline exactly why it plans to remove our civil liberties.
The Government says it is welcoming comments on its Online Harms bill by March 8, which threatens to remove existing rights such as free speech, making it dependent on Government policy.
Speaking on GB News this evening, Opik said: “It’s not paranoia. We currently have a Government which is on the ropes, which is looking for something to do to defend itself. What I'm really concerned about is we cannot pretend to be a democracy if we think we can give up human rights on the basis of some greater good in order to protect ourselves.
“In simple terms I can say it in a 10-second sentence: It’s OK to offend people. In an environment which is free you have the right to offend people because the cancel culture seems to be in such a situation now where offending people is going to be banned.
“Jimmy Carr was very controversial in what he said whether you like his joke or not recently. But when it comes down to it all of us have to ask ourselves this question: In a free country, in a world where we have actually got the right to be free should Jimmy Carr have been allowed to make that joke about the Holocaust or not. I say he should have been allowed to and then people can choose to buy tickets to his events or not.
“We’re about to make a fatal mistake as a society if we let the Government do this. We’re about to allow the Government to change the idea of fundamental human rights into ‘as long as it doesn't contradict Government policy’.
“My challenge to the Government is this: justify why it’s right to take away civil liberties in the name of a policy. Put the data down and explain why we as the people who pay your salary can’t decide yes or no.”
FRANCE told police to spray protestors fighting for their freedom from mandates with tear gas today. This included children enjoying a drink at a street cafe with their families.
There is even video footage of police breaking car windows and forcing the occupants to leave their vehicles.
Freedom protests have been taking place in Paris, Canberra in Australia and continuing in Canada, against governments Covid restrictions, including vaccine passports.
PFIZER has withdrawn an application for emergency-use authorisation of its Covid-19 vaccine in India after failing to meet the drug regulator's demand for a local safety and immunogenicity study, according to Reuters.
The decision means the vaccine will not be available for sale in the world’s two most populous countries, India and China, in the near future. Both countries are running their immunisation campaigns using other products.
The drug regulator said on its website its experts did not recommend the vaccine because of side effects reported abroad were still being investigated. It also said Pfizer had not proposed any plan to generate safety and immunogenicity data in India.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
IF you like Chicken Tikka Masala but never eat Korma or, say, Vindaloo, are you “Anti-Curry”?