It was a eerie sight. The lone figure of the Vicar of Christ on earth standing under a canopy in the rain-drenched esplanade of St. Peter’s Basillica in Rome addressing the world, Urbi et orbi.
While the New Federalist has decried the lack of member states “sharing” infected patients, most people realise that would make the situation worse. Had member states like Germany not restricted the movement of Italians, deaths would have reached far higher levels by now.
For weeks now, with the coronavirus crisis ongoing, many countries have implemented travel bans, and airlines around the world have found themselves grounded in unprecedented numbers. While this is obviously a disaster for the economy, it does present a unique opportunity: could this be scientists’ chance to prove or disprove man-made climate change? To answer […]
A GP surgery in South Wales is apologising for asking some patients ‘to complete a “do not resuscitate” form in case their conditions deteriorated due to coronavirus’; the letter from Llynfi Surgery in Maesteg ‘said that indicating they would not want to be resuscitated had “several benefits”’, informing them that ‘people with life-limiting illnesses who […]
If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then that seems to be most true of the recent TCD and NUI senate elections, where all six incumbents were comfortably re-elected, even though some interesting characters ran them close. Ruth Coppinger, the former Solidarity-PBP TD, was one such character, who missed out by a head on NUI’s […]
The past month has seen a deluge of coronavirus statistics and analysis, with some of us left scratching our heads as the complexities of what the world is facing continues to confound all and sundry. Much of the Irish media, for instance, has spent the past week congratulating people on avoiding a sudden spike in […]
Good news, if you are a migrant living illegally in Ireland who wants to claim the new and improved €350 a week social welfare payment as a result of Coronavirus: The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection wishes to confirm that there are no plans in place to share data we receive as part […]
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, in Ireland, with the Coronavirus and yesterday’s jobs figures and the nurses and the doctors getting sick for lack of personal protective equipment, and the people waiting weeks on a test and another week for results….. here comes a truly monumental problem just to make things […]
The health situation in Italy is dire. Tragically, over 11,600 people have died and over 101,000 people have caught coronavirus, giving it some of the highest numbers of cases outside of China. The question is, what caused this to be the case? While the reasons are clearly complex and multi-faceted, the well-meaning—but ultimately misguided—advice from […]
A Kerry politician has told the Dáil that he “would have thanked the Chinese [government] as well if they’d have kept their virus”. At a special sitting of the Dáil during the coronavirus pandemic, Danny Healy-Rae TD seemed to take issue with the actions of the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who thanked the Chinese Premier this […]
Our family were at a wedding a few months ago and a friend pointed out how loving and inclusive our children were with each other, and how they were so protective of their brother, Fiach. Although I brushed off the compliment it made me brim up with pride. She was right, my kids are fantastic […]
Thank God for Malaysia.