Contrary to what many scholars expected back in January 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic did not become China’s Chernobyl moment. Instead, more than a year later, the world has fallen into a collective amnesia that is familiar to Chinese citizens. As Kai Strittmatter pointed out in his book We Have Been Harmonized (2020), although the Chinese government’s cover […]
The Financial Times has an interesting piece this week by Ruchir Sharma on the now-familiar theme of how Covid has made the world’s most wealthy people even wealthier. Sharma has spent two decades tracking the fortunes of billionaires, concerned that rising inequality would lead to political instability. He argues that the colossal $9tn – that’s 9 […]
Begun, the wailing and grinding of teeth has, amongst Ireland’s political class. Who the villain is depends on whether you are in Government, or opposition. If you are in Government, the villain is Aer Lingus, as one Limerick Fine Gael TD took to social media yesterday to assert: Devastating decision by @AerLingus to close cabin […]
4,941. And rising. This number can only increase or, at best, stay the same. It can never go down. Of all the innovations that governments and media around the world have come up with, seemingly independently of each other, during the ongoing Covid period, perhaps the most insidious is the daily running total of deaths. […]
Every time we report one of these polls, the comments on Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms are the same: “fake poll”, or “they didn’t poll me”, or words to that effect. And that is understandable, nobody likes to be in the minority, or feel the country is against them. Least of all, […]
What effect did Covid-19 have on the number of weddings that took place in Ireland last year compared with 2019? As you can imagine, a very big effect. In fact, the figure halved, but the reduction in the amount of Catholic weddings was bigger than in the number of civil weddings. Why might that have […]
A woman was transferred from mandatory hotel quarantine to hospital last night (FRI) suffering chest pains due to stress. Cindy Connolly travelled to Dublin from the UK to care for her 79 year old father who was released from hospital earlier this week after suffering an adverse reaction to Pfizer’s Covid 19 vaccine. She got […]
How times change. A week ago, the US Government’s official advice was that children would have to wear masks this summer while engaging in outdoor activities, like playing soccer. There was something of a backlash to that, and now the messaging has changed. And changed quite dramatically, too: Just a few hours ago, the Centers […]
In case you missed it, yesterday morning Ireland was graced with a rather remarkable interview between the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, and Newstalk’s veteran presenter, Pat Kenny, about Antigen testing. Remarkable, for a couple of reasons. Remarkable firstly, because it is the first time in quite a while that an Irish broadcaster has seriously […]
A group of MIT researchers have published their findings on how the science on the effectiveness of masks is analysed by mask-critics, and they found that mask-critics were well informed and engaged deeply with the published data. They reported that: “Far from ignoring scientific evidence to argue for individual freedom, anti-maskers often engage deeply with […]
A protest outside the Cork city offices of RTÉ claimed that RTÉ had “betrayed” its duty as a public broadcaster because it engaged in “biased and one-sided reporting” of the Covid19 lockdown. The event was organised by the Independent Campaign for Truth & Proper Healthcare which held several anti-lockdown demonstrations in Cork previously. Speaking for the […]
Gript has learnt that the Irish Prison Service (IPS) may force staff who refuse COVID-19 vaccinations to take unpaid leave. Minutes of a recent meeting, pictured below, state that this is due to a decision by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) that it would be “unsafe” for those staff to attend work. The minutes […]