🔴NEW: A laboratory leak is now the more likely origin of Covid, MPs have heard, because after two years of searching an animal host has never been found

Read more: telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1…
Dr Alina Chan said there was also a risk that Covid-19 was an engineered virus.

"Right now it’s not safe for people who know about the origin of the pandemic to come forward. But we live in an era where there is so much information being stored that it will eventually come out"
Viscount Ridley said he also believed a lab leak was now the likely origin.

🗣️"After two years we still haven't found a single infected animal that could be the progenitor, and that’s incredibly surprising"
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1…
➡️“We need to find out so we can prevent the next pandemic," Lord Ridley said.

"We need to know whether we should be tightening up work in laboratories or whether we should be tightening up regulations related to wildlife markets.

"At the moment we are really not doing either"
💬“We also need to know to deter bad actors who are watching this episode and thinking that unleashing a pandemic is something they could get away with.

“The important thing is to stop doing these experiments that are risky”
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1…

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More from @Telegraph

17 Dec
❓Is omicron becoming the common cold?

Throughout the pandemic, scientists have hoped for a transmissible, trivial variant.

✍️Dr Chris Smith, a consultant virologist and lecturer at Cambridge University, investigates

Thread 🧵👇
telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…
📉So far, medics in South Africa estimate that the case fatality rate of their omicron outbreak is about 0.5% compared with 3% for Delta.

"Admittedly, it’s still early days...but these data do look very encouraging" writes Dr Smith Image
😷Is the virus, in the face of the measures with which we confront it, now adapting in a more benign direction?

"The answer is that it might be – and this is where history can help, because we have strong evidence that it’s happened before" Image
Read 8 tweets
17 Dec
The Liberal Democrats have pulled off an extraordinary victory in North Shropshire - read our full report telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/… Image
In her victory speech, Helen Morgan said: "Boris Johnson, the party is over".

Follow the latest news and reaction in our live blog 👇

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…
Has the PM cost the Tories the seat?

Layla Moran, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said: "The overriding sense is that many Conservative voters just don't like him."

Get the latest reaction in our live blog 👇

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…
Read 29 tweets
16 Dec
📈 Omicron is already causing record-breaking case numbers.

But extreme rises are likely to skew admissions and deaths figures to such a point that they may become largely useless in helping to drive policy, writes science editor @sarahknapton

Thread🧵👇
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1… Image
🦠 Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser for UKHSA, predicted that Britain will see around 1m infections a day by the end of the year.

Under modelling by the London School and Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, roughly half the country could be infected with omicron by the spring Image
📊 The January death rate is around 0.09%, according to ONS.

So on a day of one million infections, we would expect 908 of those people to die naturally over the next month, yet currently all would end up in the Covid data
Read 9 tweets
16 Dec
📊The Telegraph has obtained data from Oxford and Cambridge about how many offers they have made to every single school over the past five years

Thread 🧵
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1…
✏️You can now see how many Oxbridge offers pupils at every school in the UK - as well as international schools - have received each year between 2017 and 2021 Image
📉Our data reveal that some of the country’s most prestigious private schools are now seeing their Oxbridge offers decline sharply while the number of offers made to some state schools have soared
Read 8 tweets
15 Dec
⚠️Omicron could be a dangerous disease even if it is milder, because the variant is spreading more quickly, Professor Chris Whitty has said.

🔓This article is currently free to read
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1…
➡️In a press conference from Downing Street on Wednesday night, Professor Whitty, urged “really serious caution” over reports that omicron was leading to fewer hospitalisations than delta
🇿🇦His comments were made after the first major real-world data from South Africa suggested that the country’s omicron wave had led to 23% fewer hospitalisations than when the delta variant was dominant
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/1… Image
Read 4 tweets
15 Dec
🔴Boris Johnson is to update the country in a 5pm press conference.

The PM's official spokesman told today's lobby briefing that it would focus on the booster campaign, rather than any new restrictions.

Follow all the latest updates here👇
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
💉Boris Johnson says it is "absolutely vital" that every eligible adults gets boosted as soon as possible.

"The doubling rate in some regions is also under two days and we're also seeing hospitalisations up a third in London," he says
🔻Admissions are starting to come down in some of the more vulnerable age group where boosters have already been given out.

From Monday, Boris Johnson adds, 12-to-15-year-olds can book in for a second dose of their vaccine
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
Read 7 tweets

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