There aren’t enough superlatives in the world to express our gratitude for the courage of healthcare professionals who are putting their lives on the line to save others during the Covid-19 pandemic. Doctors are coming out of retirement to work on the frontlines, and nurses and other medics are coming home to fight the good […]
If you’ve only been reading the Irish media, there’s a very good chance you won’t be aware of the mounting row in Brussels over whether or not the EU should issue so-called “Eurobonds” to help countries like Italy (and Ireland, indeed) get through the Covid-19 crisis. There has been some coverage, but not a vast […]
The Netherlands has been forced to recall hundreds of thousands of protective face masks imported from China after they were found to be defective. The health ministry has recalled 600,000 masks because they failed to meet quality standards. Dutch authorities received 1.3 million face masks from China on March 21 and distributed hundreds of thousands […]
To be honest, after four abortive attempts at an opening paragraph for this story, and given the subject matter, it’s probably best to skip all the messing around and get right into the action: https://twitter.com/fintanwarfield/status/1243612777748594698 A confession: when Senator Warfield (that’s him on the right in the photo) sent that tweet on Friday, my fear […]
A senior Republican politician from Texas sparked a media firestorm this week after suggesting that older people should consider sacrificing their lives for the economy in the face of the coronavirus crisis. Dan Patrick, a former radio talk show host who is now Lieutenant Governor of Texas, made the comments on Monday night while talking to […]
People over 60 are more affected by the coronavirus and most deaths have been of people over 70. With this background, a new study on perceptions of the elderly in the UK makes interesting reading. Attitudes to ageing are overwhelmingly negative, according to a new study by the Centre for Ageing Better, with older people subject to […]
One of the myths being fostered during the virus crisis is that Ireland is pluckily standing on its own two feet, making all of the key decisions regarding protections, and with the economic resources to see us through. The truth is rather different. We are still dependent for some of the protections on items manufactured […]
Italians are sharing the good news story of a 101-year-old who has been discharged from hospital after recovering from the coronavirus COVID-19. The Local.it reports that the man, from Rimini “is back at home with his family on Friday after beating the infection”. The man, identified only as “Mr. P” by authorities, was born during […]
The World Health Organisation has been left deeply embarrassed after a television interview in which Dr Bruce Aylward, who was the co-lead of WHO’s COVID-19 mission to China, refused to acknowledge any questions he was asked about Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Dr Aylward first says he cannot hear the question when asked “Will […]
Italy isn’t singing on the balconies anymore. As time in quarantine goes slowly on, marked by the ticking of our family clock, we are receiving fewer and fewer coronavirus jokes, funny videos, invitations to sing or clap our hands or whatever our fellow countrymen’s fantasy suggested in the first quarantine days. There is very little […]
What kind of mentality observes the global lockdown and horrifying death toll from the Coronavirus and acts as if the real problem is that there might not be enough abortions? At a time when heroic men and women on the frontline are making enormous sacrifices to save lives, abortion supporters are fretting that COVID-19 might be preventing […]
Mary Mallon was born in Cookstown, county Tyrone in 1869. She emigrated to America in 1884 or 1885 and became a cook in New York. While working in Mamaroneck in 1900 she seems to have infected a number of people with typhoid. The same happened when she left that position and went to work as […]