Regular readers will be familiar with Dr. Michael Mina, the Harvard expert on antigen testing who pronounced himself feeling “sorry for Ireland” a few weeks back, after listening to Stephen Donnelly play down the benefits of antigen testing on the radio. Dr. Mina paid a visit to Dublin yesterday, presumably to see for himself the […]
Ten days ago, panicked by scenes of revelry in Dublin’s South William Street area, the Chief Medical Officer, Tony Holohan, sent the tweet heard around the country: Drove into Dublin City Centre to collect someone from work at 815 PM. Absolutely shocked at scenes in South Great George’s St, Exchequer St, South William St area. […]
We’re not supposed to call it the “Indian variant”, any more, obviously, in case that makes ordinary people feel suspicious of Indian-looking people they see on the street (who comes up with this stuff, exactly?). But we are all supposed to be absolutely terrified of it. It is more transmissible, and it is on the […]
In February, 12 large Canadian companies joined forces to trial mass rapid testing in their workplaces as a potential route to the reopening of their business. In March, 5,000 people attended an indoor concert in Barcelona with the help of rapid antigen tests and only two infections were traced to the event. Universities in the […]
This week has seen extraordinary and unsettling scenes across Dublin city, as Gardaí drew batons to clear young drinkers off South William Street, and clamped down on other parts of the city. Apparently groups of young people were forced to leave St Stephen’s Green and other areas, so they all drifted down to South William […]
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 […]
There were chaotic scenes on South William Street in Dublin city centre last night as large crowds of mostly young people gathered to socialise at the beginning of a sunny bank holiday weekend. RTÉ reported that a number of people were arrested and missiles were thrown at Gardai after a number of public order incidents […]
Leo Varadkar has called his own lockdown “absolutely bonkers”, “draconian” and a “curtailment of people’s freedom” – but says he doesn’t plan to end it any time soon. Ben Scallan reacts. #gript
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 […]