The growing evidence on vitamin D and Covid
Matt Ridley
My latest article for Spectator: The argument that vitamin D deficiency may contribute to more severe cases of Covid is gaining ground. It is now reaching the point where it is surprising that we are not hearing from leading medical officials and politicians that people should consider taking supplements to ensure they have sufficient vitamin […]
Matt Ridley
My article with MP David Davis for The Telegraph: Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College “stepped back” from the Sage group advising ministers when his lockdown-busting romantic trysts were exposed. Perhaps he should have been dropped for a more consequential misstep. Details of the model his team built to predict the epidemic are emerging and they […]
We know everything – and nothing – about Covid
Matt Ridley
It is data, not modelling, that we need now My article for The Spectator: We know everything about Sars-CoV-2 and nothing about it. We can read every one of the (on average) 29,903 letters in its genome and know exactly how its 15 genes are transcribed into instructions to make which proteins. But we cannot […]
Matt Ridley
There has long been evidence that a sufficiency of vitamin D protects against viruses My article for The Telegraph: A suggestive set of numbers was published online in April by a medical scientist in the Philippines, Dr Mark Alipio. Of 49 patients with mild symptoms of Covid-19 in three hospitals in southern Asian countries, only […]
The contenders – and challenges – in the race to cure Covid
Matt Ridley
There are reasons to be optimistic about the therapies being tested My article for The Spectator: A striking feature of Covid-19 is how medieval our response has had to be. Quarantine was the way people fought plagues in the distant past. We know by now that it will take many months to get a vaccine, […]
Matt Ridley
From Ebola to Covid-19, many of the deadliest viruses to emerge in recent years have the same animal source. My article for The Wall Street Journal: RaTG13 is the name, rank and serial number of an individual horseshoe bat of the species Rhinolophus affinis, or rather of a sample of its feces collected in 2013 […]
WHO must answer serious questions before it is trusted with leading a Covid-19 inquiry
Matt Ridley
My article for The Telegraph: When the pandemic passes, which it will, there will be a reckoning to determine who could have stopped it early and did not. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has suggested that it would have to be carried out by the World Health Organisation: “Obviously, after the crisis has abated I […]
As research progresses, the nature of our enemy is becoming ever clearer
Matt Ridley
My article for The Telegraph: ‘This pestilence was so powerful that it was transmitted to the healthy by contact with the sick” wrote Giovanni Boccaccio of the Black Death, in his preface to The Decameron. The trouble with the coronavirus is almost exactly the opposite – it is transmitted to the sick by contact with […]
Watch: Coronavirus and Lessons on Innovation with Yaron Brook
Matt Ridley
I spent an hour talking to philosophy expert, business expert and Ayn Rand Institute Chairman Yaron Brook about my upcoming book, and the painful yet important lessons that the epidemic is teaching us about innovation. Please check it out, and consider sharing and subscribing: To stay updated, follow me on Twitter @mattwridley and Facebook, or subscribe to my new […]
The curious age discrimination of coronavirus
Matt Ridley
Why does it affect the generations differently? My article for Spectator: The generational effect of the corona-virus is cunning and baffling. By often being so mild in the young and healthy it turns people into heedless carriers. By often being so lethal in the old and sick, it makes carriers into potential executioners of friends […]
