Two places, two very different situations, and it’s worth talking about. First, Ireland: Nphet recommendations ahead of today’s cabinet meeting: 🔸Older people asked to limit time outdoors, avoid congregated settings. 🔸Family gatherings reduced to six per house indoors, 15 outdoors. 🔸People asked to work from home if they can. https://t.co/4kGSr0MRkQ — Philip Ryan (@Philip_Ryan) August […]
What do we learn from comparing the response and experience of different countries to Covid? Nothing useful I would argue. Perhaps when it’s all over we can start comparing and asking who made the best decisions, but this is not over; we aren’t even at half time. Which countries’ leaders have made the best decisions? […]
A grassroots group calling itself “Health Freedom Ireland” has raised over 22 thousand euros in less than a day as part of a campaign it is waging against the “mandatory” wearing of facemasks, as required by the Government in a number of locations. Health Freedom Ireland’s fundraiser was written by barrister Tracey O’Mahony (who has […]
Bernard-Henri Lévy believes that our response is diminishing our humanity. Earlier this year the coronavirus pandemic caught Bernard-Henri Lévy, France’s rock-star public intellectual, overseas. He had been reporting on the plight of Lesbos, the Aegean island crowded with refugees from Syria, and then of Bangladesh, which was attempting to cope not only with Covid-19 but […]
A major survey which tracked public opinion about Covid-19 across 6 countries has found that people think coronavirus is far more widespread, and more deadly, than official figures show. Consultancy Kekst CNC asked 1,000 people in each country what percentage of people in that country they thought had been infected with Covid-19 – and what percentage […]
New Zealand is an island nation of about 5 million people. It is a western liberal democracy with public infrastructure and an advanced market economy. Like Ireland, New Zealand sits just off the coast of another larger island (admittedly about 4,000km off the coast, but we live in a globalised world) with which it is […]
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“Regional lockdown” is the buzzword in the media this morning, in response to the new outbreak of Coronavirus, which seems to be centered on meat factories in the eastern midlands: HEALTH OFFICIALS HAVE said they cannot rule out a regional lockdown in Kildare, Laois and Offaly after a significant rise in the number of confirmed […]
It’s sort of easy to forget, at this stage of the Coronavirus nightmare, that the purpose of the vast array of restrictions that we have all been living under for the past few months was very clearly articulated at the time of their introduction: To “flatten the curve”. Not to eradicate the virus, but to […]
There are different ways in which people choose to interpret the Covid-19 pandemic. Is it simply another epidemiological “event” – one that was an inevitable eventuality of our globalized world? Or is it a pandemic which we signally failed to anticipate because of ‘bias’ in our thinking and policy making – the kind of bias […]
Ireland has been slower than most other EU countries to re-open its borders to inward travel. A certain narrative is taking root, endorsed by prominent voices in the scientific community as well as in Dáil Éireann, to the effect that we should spare no effort in keeping Ireland “Covid-free.” This narrative has radicalized our thinking around […]