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Herd immunity is typically generated through vaccination, and while it could arise through widespread infection, “you don’t rely on the very deadly infectious agent to create an immune population,” says Akiko Iwasaki, a virologist at the Yale School of Medicine. And that seemed like the goal.

Vallance and others certainly made it sound like the government was deliberately aiming for 60 percent of the populace to fall ill. Keep calm and carry on … and get COVID-19.

He says that the actual goal is the same as that of other countries: flatten the curve by staggering the onset of infections. As a consequence, the nation may achieve herd immunity; it’s a side effect, not an aim.

The UK is now surpassing the apocalyptic tolls we fixated on just two weeks ago. The same tragedies are unfolding across our country

But the sense of distress with which the Italian scenario was reported and received in the UK is strangely absent. Missing too is the urgent need to understand why this is happening.

Not only did the UK have the experience of Italy play out before the virus hit its own shores, illustrating clearly the measures that needed to be taken, it had explicit warnings from Italians spelling out the pitfalls to be avoided.

MOSCOW — When President Vladimir Putin threw open the gates for Russians to propose changes to the country's constitution, the rewrite frenzy was on — particularly among nationalists, social conservatives, chauvinists and militants, who all dream of a Russia even more strident and militaristic.Russia is revamping its liberal Boris Yeltsin-era constitution, and citizens and organizations have put forward more than 700 suggested amendments — many with a distinctly anti-liberal bent

Vladimir Ryzhkov, a historian and opposition politician, said many of the amendments were “crazy proposals” mainly from people who opposed the liberal, humanist constitution of 1993.ADBut it’s a road map of where Russia has moved under Putin, who ordered the constitutional redo last month as part of an apparent plan to keep his grip on power after term limits force him out of the presidency in 2024

“There’s nothing new. Both proposals guarantee nothing. But it’s using propaganda to increase the support of these amendments,” Ryzhkov said.ADVoters will be given a yes-or-no vote on the full text of the new constitution. So if they like the state commitment to social payments, they will get every other amendment, too.

Starmer’s elevation is of deep importance on a number of levels. First, after years of appalling ineptitude and moral vacuity under Corbyn’s catastrophic leadership, Britain’s opposition will be led by a credible alternative prime minister whose competence, professionalism, and patriotism are unquestioned. The government can now be held to account.

Starmer, appearing on the BBC’s flagship political program, The Andrew Marr Show, broke with the Corbynite position, offering “constructive engagement” with the government. “We’ve all got a duty here to save lives and protect our country,” he said. A boring statement, but almost revolutionary after the Corbyn years.

The Queen is the only public figure able to personally link the current fight against the pandemic to the Second World War, the prior struggle that still defines the country, at least in its own perception. The message was well pitched, nodding to the young and old, frontline and staying-at-home. It cast her as a spiritual leader, more than merely figurative.

The Russian Revolution was a time of great upheaval but also great creativity.

The cost and effort of fighting in World War One took a huge toll on Russia and fuelled the rebellion against the tsar in early 1917. Boris Kustodiev's famous painting of a soldier with a rifle urged Russians to give money to the war effort.

In March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and State Duma deputies formed the Provisional Government. This poster is entitled "Memo of the people's victory". It shows a humbled tsar handing over power to revolutionary forces, symbolised by a soldier and a worker. In the background, you can see the Tauride Palace, where the State Duma met. Above it, a rising sun, symbolising freedom. It was a favourite symbol in posters of this period.

In Bristol, an English college town where the pubs are usually packed with students, there were fiery clashes between the police and protesters.

In Kassel, a German city known for its ambitious contemporary art festival, the police unleashed pepper spray and water cannons on anti-lockdown marchers.

From Spain and Denmark to Austria and Romania, frustrated people are lashing out at the restrictions on their daily lives.

With the rise of Momentum, what had been implicit in Blair and Brown’s politics — the parties’ identification with London and the university towns — became codified in the group’s support for a cultural politics that broke with Labour’s historical commitments to family, community, and nation

This politics consisted of enthusiastic support for Remain.  In the runup to the 2019 vote, the activists joined hands with the pro-Blair MPs to favor a second referendum, a “people’s vote,” which they assumed would repudiate the 2016 results

They championed “open borders,” immediate eligibility for migrants to Britain’s extensive social services, including its free National Health Services, and voting rights for migrants, regardless of their citizenship, in national elections. They extolled “diversity” and condemned supporters of Leave as bigots and xenophobes.  Patriotism itself was identified with xenophobia.

Buckingham Palace has announced the Bidens will visit Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle on June 13 after the president takes part in a G-7 summit in Cornwall, England, and ahead of his NATO meetings in Brussels and high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva. The White House says Biden will also meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson while in England.

Biden will be the 12th U.S. president Queen Elizabeth has met face-to-face.

While plenty of other foreign policy controversies will likely be front and center during Biden's first overseas trip as president, the meeting with the queen will bring one new twist that has not hung over previous ones between the monarch and presidents: It will be the first time since members of her family – Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex – moved to the United States.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain offered a first detailed glimpse of what a post-pandemic society in England might look like on Monday, announcing free twice-weekly coronavirus tests and Covid status certificates that would allow people with immunity into crowded nightclubs and sporting events.

“I will be going to the pub myself and cautiously but irreversibly raising a pint of beer to my lips,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference at 10 Downing Street, as he listed the next round of relaxed restrictions.

Trying to strike a balance between public health and personal liberties, he said Britain would design a system to certify the Covid status of anyone seeking to enter higher-risk settings.

The lifting of a wide range of coronavirus rules Monday coincided with a small but worrying spike in cases of a variant, first identified in India, that threatens a lockdown-lifting road map frequently described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “cautious but irreversible.”

In recent days the authorities have scrambled to ramp up testing and inoculation in parts of the country seeing a sharp rise in cases of the more transmissible variant.

The opposition Labour Party has accused Mr. Johnson of bringing on the trouble by delaying a decision to close borders to flights from India last month, while government scientific advisers have expressed their concerns about moving too fast to remove curbs.

In the final, darkest days of the deadliest year in U.S. history, the world received ominous news of a mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Scientists in the U.K. had identified a form of the virus that was spreading rapidly throughout the nation. Then, on January 4, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a lockdown that began almost immediately and will last until at least the middle of February.

he said in an address, noting that “our scientists have confirmed this new variant is between 50 and 70 percent more transmissible” than previous strains.

Each day, B.1.1.7 is being found in more people in more places, including all around the United States. Experts have raised dire warnings that a 70 percent more transmissible form of the virus would overwhelm already severely stretched medical systems. Daily deaths have already tripled in recent months, and the virus is killing more than 3,000 Americans every day. From a purely mathematical perspective, considering exponential growth, a significantly more transmissible strain could theoretically lead to tens of thousands of daily deaths, with hospital beds lining sidewalks and filling parking lots.

The correct response is the dispassionate application of the law. Not political persecution, but nor politically motivated leniency, either. We don't have to choose between unity and justice.

History teaches us the cost of well-meaning but shortsighted attempts to sacrifice justice for unity.

Russians learned this in the hardest possible way after the fall of the Soviet Union. As I discussed at length in my book, Winter Is Coming, they declined to root out the KGB security state in the interest of national harmony. It would be too traumatic, our leaders said, to expose the countless atrocities the Soviet security forces committed and to punish their authors.

Like a speeding car whose brake lines have been cut, the coronavirus variant first spotted in Britain is spreading at an alarming rate and isn’t responding to established ways of slowing the pandemic

Cases involving the variant are increasing 70 percent a week in Denmark, despite a strict lockdown

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday suggested for the first time that the variant may be more deadly than the original virus. Because it can spread more easily, it can also quickly overwhelm medical systems, turning previously survivable bouts with the virus into perilous ones if hospitals are full and medical care is limited.

The EU insisted it could allow Britain to retain its tariff- and quota-free access to its market only if the British government promised not to undercut its social, environmental, labour and state-aid rules.

The political declaration that was attached to the withdrawal treaty which Boris Johnson signed earlier this year duly declared that “the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field.”

Theresa May, had sought to respond to these concerns by proposing in July 2018 that Britain and the EU should follow a “common rulebook”,

PARIS — It should have been Europe’s finest hour. Battered by multiple waves of Covid-19, lockdowns and recession, the European Union had found a noble way to prove its raison d’être: by making the vaccine equally available to its 27 member states, rich or poor, small or powerful, through an unprecedented joint procurement initiative led by Brussels.

what better way to demonstrate that we are stronger together than by ensuring vaccination for all?

The real reason goes deeper. It lies in a risk-averse European culture marked, in several countries, by skepticism about vaccines. As a safeguard against public backlash, Europe’s leaders sought to secure as many guarantees as possible. Tellingly, one of the most difficult points in the negotiations with vaccine manufacturers was the degree of liability the bloc wanted them to accept if anything went wrong.

We're in the Brexit endgame -- or so Boris Johnson hopes.

By Thursday evening, the British Prime Minister intends to have done the seemingly impossible and passed a Brexit deal.But whether he is able to do that depends on a series of crucial votes by lawmakers on his Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB).

But the government's efforts to force it through in three days are proving controversial, and the bill could be picked apart and reshaped by lawmakers even if it succeeds in its initial vote on Tuesday.

Days after bowing out as Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow has described Brexit as the biggest mistake Britain has made since the second world war.

I don’t think it helps the UK. Brexit is the biggest mistake of this country after the war. I respect [the] prime minister, [Boris] Johnson, but Brexit doesn’t help us. It’s better to be part of the [EU] power bloc,

Bercow rejected the idea he had blocked Brexit, insisting “it was parliament” that had prevented Britain from leaving before now, “not me”.

In his new year message, the prime minister said he hoped the country would "move forward united" after it leaves the EU on 31 January.He vowed to govern "for everyone", not just those who backed him at the polls.

The Conservatives' resounding election victory on 12 December had "driven an electoral bulldozer" through the deadlock in Parliament, he said, and offered a way out of the "division, rancour and uncertainty" surrounding the Brexit debate since the 2016 referendum vote.

Ahead of what is traditionally the most difficult time of the year for the health service, Mr Johnson insisted it was his "top priority" and his ambition was to provide "state of the art" healthcare which remained free at the point of use."The loudest message I heard during the election campaign is that people expect us - expect me - to protect and improve the NHS."

If the United Kingdom is to survive, it will have to change fundamentally, so that Scotland does not secede and our regions can once again feel part of it.

Recent events are better understood as resulting from the power of competing nationalisms: Brexit nationalism, seeking national independence from Europe; Scottish nationalism; Welsh nationalism; and Irish and Ulster nationalisms. The risk is that “getting Brexit done” is leaving Britain undone and, by destabilising the careful balance between the Irish and British identities in Northern Ireland, threatening the very existence of the United Kingdom.

In this respect, last month’s election result seems less like an enthusiastic endorsement of any party than a plea for radical change. The old postwar social contract, based on times when manufacturing, making a product in which you had pride, and mining which kept the nation’s lights on, gave people dignity and respect, is seen as at breaking point, with each of its four pillars approaching collapse.