Why are there not more young people speaking out against lockdown? This is a question I asked myself recently, not because I am madly, rabidly against lockdown, but because I am more than a little concerned about the lack of say my generation has had in the past year about lockdown and what it means […]
To be prophetic is a gift granted to the few: that rare ability, not to “go with the flow” or just blandly accept the status quo, but to look perspicaciously at the present and to offer one’s careful judgement. However contrarian the prophet may appear to his contemporaries, ultimately he is speaking for their long-term good. When […]
If you have not read yesterday’s blockbuster Vanity Fair report about the US investigation into the lab-leak theory, and you have some free time today, go and read it. If you do not have free time, let us try to walk you through the big news. We should begin with the not-quite-a-smoking-gun. “U.S. government virologists […]
Why is a widely used, clinically trialled and out of patent drug now suddenly considered “controversial” by the media? Youtube now explicitly forbids mention of the same drug – ivermectin – in its “community guidelines”, which have become a sort of continually-shifting technocratic blacklist that you have to abide with to stay out of the […]
It feels like a very long time ago now, but it is worth remembering, and reminding ourselves, that the original point of lockdowns was to reduce social contacts between people, and limit opportunities for Coronavirus to spread amongst the population. The success of lockdowns was supposed to be measured in scientific terms – the flatness […]
A stupendous success, says Stephen Donnelly: Mandatory hotel quarantining has worked effectively Health Minister Stephen Donnelly says. He tells the Seanad that 4,616 people have entered hotel quarantine here, 178 tested positive for Covid-19 and 59 cases associated with variants of concern were detected. — Mícheál Lehane (@MichealLehane) May 31, 2021 178 cases of Covid, […]
Look at the headline on this RTE News story from yesterday: RTE’s headline claims that Professor Luke O’Neill has said that it “might be time to slow down the re-opening”. There is only one problem, and that is as follows: O’Neill said nothing of the sort. What did he say? Well, you have to dig […]
Statistics released this morning by the Central Statistics Office show that the number of registered deaths in the state in 2020 was 31,765. That represents an increase of 631 or just over 2% year on year. The number of deaths with Covid as an “underlying cause” was 1,672, the CSO said. The number of registered deaths […]
Tim wrote yesterday about the wider media hypocrisy around the lab-leak story (the idea that the Coronavirus was accidentally released from a science laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than occurring naturally in a wet market) but this particular element of the global about-face on the idea is worth some dedicated discussion: “Facebook will no longer […]
Unbelievable. And yet, entirely in character: Soc Dems @RoisinShortall says she has “serious concerns” about Govt’s proposed extension of emergency Covid powers and says extension should only be six weeks. pic.twitter.com/jZzsbYepg5 — David Murphy (@davidmurphyRTE) May 25, 2021 As of today, the Social Democrats will vote against any extension of the lockdown powers. On one […]
“Caution must be the watchword here”, we heard on RTE Radio One yesterday morning, as the nation’s beleaguered leader took to the airwaves with RTE’s own Claire Byrne to discuss, amongst other things, the great national re-opening plan. Reading that opening paragraph, you might think that it was the Taoiseach who told Claire Byrne that […]
About three weeks ago, we reported on a lengthy report and investigation by US Science writer Nicholas Wade, which suggested that the preponderance of the evidence suggests that Covid 19 did not, as scientists have suggested for nearly two years, transmit naturally from bat to human being. Instead, his work suggested, the evidence seems stronger […]