The Irish Council for Civil Liberties is not as uniformly committed to civil liberties as its name suggests. For example, it is, actually, firmly in favour of restricting your civil liberty to speak your mind on a range of controversial subjects with so-called “hate speech” laws. It does not think, for example, that somebody should […]
Several health experts have proposed a “herd immunity” strategy for managing the coronavirus pandemic. This would involve allowing the virus to spread in a controlled way so as to achieve population immunity — even though this may expose vulnerable members of the community to an increased risk of infection. While Australia has managed so far […]
Data from several studies indicates that surfaces remain unsafe for longer periods, with the implication that refrigerated plastic food packaging could carry a greater amount of Coronavirus than other surfaces. Broadly speaking, Western health authorities, as well as the mainstream media, have supplied a rather straightforward public health message on dealing with potential sources of […]
Prior to the cancellation of the Leaving Cert exams, a clear and unmistakeable picture of the educational inequalities that continue to exist within our state were brought sharply into focus. The geographical disparities in terms of broadband access and the resource inequalities that thousands of students endure have been laid bare. Some schools had the […]
There has been a noticeably greater opposition to the Covid lockdown in recent weeks. Alejo Sison claims that the state is “bent on turning us into just one more of the herd,” and having “segued into Leviathans” is intent on taking over civil society. Sison says that the state has dismissed the initiative of citizens […]
Kerry TD, Danny Healy-Rae has an interesting proposal for people who are failing to isolate after returning to Ireland from abroad. Last week, it was revealed that over a third of passengers arriving Dublin Airport in a six-day period did not fill out a form confirming where they would be staying in Ireland – and […]
A new study published by researchers in the US warns that COVID-19 could lead to an unprecedented increase in ‘deaths of despair’ — a term used to describe deaths due to drug or alcohol abuse and suicide. The new report, from the Well Being Trust and researchers affiliated with the American Academy of Family Physicians, estimates […]
That’s all we need now, our old friends the Banks coming with the begging bowl. Which they will be, if things continue in this vein: Bank of Ireland slid into a loss in the first quarter as the Covid-19 crisis led to the group taking a €266 million loan impairment charge and racking up an additional […]
According to the HSE, all screening for Breast and Cervical Cancers was suspended because of the Coronavirus on March 30th. That’s five weeks ago. In Ireland, there are approximately 3,100 new cases of Breast cancer every single year. Using simple maths, therefore, you would expect there to be something like 62 new cases of Breast […]
Statistical evidence has played a central role in our society’s response to Covid-19. We gather and publish data on so many aspects of this epidemic – the number of deaths, the number of cases, the number of tests, the number of intensive care units available, the recovery rates among hospital admissions, the number of clusters […]
While Ireland plans to keep the ban on public religious ceremonies until July 20th, the Italian government has announced that celebrations in churches will resume from May 18th. After a long negotiation between the Bishops’ Conference (CEI) and State representatives, this week the approved protocol for public masses was presented in a joint briefing by […]
Chinese propaganda has launched an international offensive of fake news to counter “enormous evidence” that the virus came from a Wuhan laboratory. On March 17, 2020, Bitter Winter told the story of how a paper on the virus responsible for COVID-19 by two respected Chinese scientists, Dr. Botao Xiao from South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, and Dr. […]