We have no way of knowing what the final outcome of the Covid–19 Pandemic will be for national economies, for the global economy. Nor do we know the likely impact on freedoms, including freedom of worship and freedom of movement which, until recently, we took for granted. Talk of “Exits” and even the accelerated testing […]
This article will consider the potential for political and public-health mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis, since confirmation of the first case in Ireland on 29/2/2020 to the time of writing 12/4/2020. I will begin with a brief outline of some of what is known about the Covid-19 virus, and what is known about Coronaviridae in […]
As a former Gaelscoil Principal, I am very aware of the challenges that families are confronted with as they try to meet rising educational costs while maintaining a good standard of healthy living for their children. This is a situation that is almost certainly going to get much more difficult in the coming months and […]
As of 17th April, 302 people have died from the virus in community care settings, which is 62% of all Covid-19 deaths, with 253 of those in nursing homes. Each day, we read on the news about how many cases and deaths there have been, how the curve is flattening, and whether we can ease […]
One of the most effective public service messages of the coronavirus pandemic must a musical number by Ugandan artists Bobi Wine and Nubian Li. The reggae-style “Corona Virus Alert” is so catchy it makes hand-washing and staying home seem like the coolest things to do. The latest stats on Uganda show that the country has […]
Last year Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Catholic woman accused of blasphemy against Islam, arrived to make a new life in Canada with her family. After being convicted and sentenced to death, she had languished in jail for ten years. Her lawyers received death threats. But Asia Bibi is far from being the only Pakistani Christian […]
Population density and the proportion of society that is elderly quickly emerged as significant factors in the spread of COVID-19. Social distancing has been widely used as an effective way to avoid transmission, but is complex to implement in a very densely populated city without draconian government action. More than 55 percent of the world’s population is thought to […]
With the Covid-19 pandemic dominating headlines, many important issues have been forgotten or shelved. One of those is the plight of Uyghurs and other persecuted minorities in Xinjiang in northwestern China. I’d like to clarify the often-conflicting reports on Xinjiang and drill down into the demographic statistics to give an accurate picture of the balance […]
The two most powerful tools that we have in the fight against Covid -19 are lockdown and testing. Locking the country down is extremely costly in human and financial terms. Each month of lockdown costs the state billions of Euro in direct welfare supports and each week of lockdown sends more and more businesses into […]
Covid-19 is raising new moral issues for us to consider. What once were unlikely dilemmas in moral philosophy textbooks are now matters of urgent practical concern. Two matters seem to stand out: what we owe poorer countries in the context of a lethal viral pandemic where life-saving resources are scarce, and what we owe our […]
In my last post I looked at the end of the coronavirus and how the world will react in the light of China’s lies, threats and risky behaviour which has left so many people dead around the world and so much of the world’s economy in free-fall. Today I want to briefly discuss another impact […]
The World Health Organization is being criticised for being too close to China, one of his major funders. Director-General Tedros Adhanom has been loud in his praise of China’s management of the epidemic and has failed (in the eyes of his critics) to point out its shortcomings. In a blistering article in Foreign Policy, a […]