Viral panic
OUR MPs may be losing their marbles over Omicron. The rest of us need to keep calm.
Yes, the super-catchy variant is rife in London, Westminster in particular.
Hundreds of thousands a day are reportedly being infected nationwide.
Government scientific advisers are issuing blood-curdling warnings, again, about the NHS being overwhelmed.
There is overblown talk of life-or-death decisions on desolate wards emptied of afflicted staff.
Of new nationwide closures and a furlough.
And politicians themselves are falling like nine-pins.
But hang on. What are their symptoms?
Where they exist at all they seem extremely mild.
A major study in South Africa, where Omicron erupted, rates it a third less severe than the original virus and FAR less than Delta.
All the fear here seems wildly disproportionate.
Yesterday’s job news, with unemployment back down to just 4.2 per cent, was superb.
Are we really going to trash that by closing our economy for what, for the vast majority, may be a sniffle?
In Windsor, Her Majesty — like our hardy Jabs Army recruits on the booster frontline — is made of sterner stuff.
Let’s remain serene, like the Queen.
A new evil
IT is truly hard to bear.
Less than a fortnight after the horrific case of little Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, two more “parents” are convicted of torturing and killing a toddler in near-identical circumstances.
The sadistic cruelty of Savannah Brockhill and her girlfriend Frankie Smith towards Smith’s tiny daughter Star defies belief.
But so does the abject failure, yet again, of social services.
As with Arthur, they complacently swallowed the couple’s excuses for the child’s injuries.
They even falsely dismissed Star’s worried family as homophobes making malicious complaints against the lesbian pair.
Woke ideology trumped the safeguarding of a child.
Self-styled “psycho” Brockhill must never be freed.
The officials who left her and Smith to it must pay with their jobs.
It is a national disgrace that so many child murders can be laid at social workers’ doors.
Is it the dismal calibre of recruits? Lack of training?
Let us remember this, too: It is no coincidence these murders happened in lockdown, with vulnerable kids at home, away from teachers or nursery staff who might otherwise report their injuries.
Shutting society down has hideous side-effects.
It is time those who casually demand such curbs realised it.
Weight escape
MOST of us bemoan our Covid era flab.
But have you ever considered it could protect you from a falling tree?
If not, Colin Newbury’s miracle escape may prove an eye-opener.
A Sycamore nearly crushed him.
Lucky he was carrying so much timber himself.
