Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín TD has stated that “one of the most frustrating aspects of the Covid-19 Crisis is the fact that the government is only using a fraction of the available capacity to fight the virus”. He also said that despite the scale of the crisis in health and the economy, the HSE undertaken […]
A few days ago, Dr Michael Ryan of WHO singled out Sweden for praise for its handling of the covid19 crisis. This is significant because Sweden was being pilloried as arrogant at best, irresponsible at worst for its refusal to join most of rest of the world in state enforced lockdown. Sweden’s extensive testing regime […]
Back in the far-off days of pre-lockdown the mantra that was repeated to us in order to secure our compliance in one of the biggest voluntary surrenders of civil liberties in history was “flatten the curve”. The idea behind it was that we need to ensure that the infection spreads more slowly than it would […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the best and the worst in us; it has also shone a light on our contradictions. Coming up with a vaccine may be the solution; but that’s still several months away, too long to wait out in a lockdown as many countries have been for almost two months now, with […]
A month and a half ago I wrote that Ireland was not getting to zero anytime soon and that the exit strategy for the coronavirus pandemic in Ireland was not clear at all. Despite the government announcing a Roadmap for reopening society and business, and many hailing it is a providing light at the end […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed startling failures of leadership across much of the Western world but could the increasingly harmful strategies abopted by various Western nations be redirected to achieve a sustainable response? It is perhaps time to accept that the proverbial horse has bolted, with the near certainty that tens of thousands having […]
James Annan is a climate scientist involved in climate prediction, who has made a number of well-known bets against people who disagree with him around climate predictions. In March, he and his associate Julia Hargreaves were looking at the pandemic modelling and predictions that the government in the UK were relying on. Even though it […]
Tesla founder and entrepreneur Elon Musk has described the continuation of the Covid-19 lockdown as “fascist” in an earnings conference call for the business. He added that many small businesses would not survive the restrictions. Mr Musk the lockdowns amounted to “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes”. “To say that they cannot leave their house […]
At midnight tonight New Zealand’s strict lockdown of 33 days will be slightly eased. As you can imagine, I cannot wait. We will be able to get a few takeout coffees, the children will be able to see their grandparents again and, most importantly, some people can head back to work and some businesses can […]
The dawn of mandatory vaccinations does seem to be upon us, but before that happens, perhaps we should take pause and ask: are we really willing to give up so much freedom from state-intrusion over a disease that appears to be as misunderstood as it is over-hyped?
Anne McCloskey is a retired GP and is also an Aontú councillor on Derry City and Strabane District Council, highlights her concerns about the current situation. I suppose it was the sight of our Bishop Donal Mc Keown, furtively going at dawn to bless the graves of the faithful departed in Derry’s main cemetery on […]
One of the most shocking elements of the global response to Covid-19 has been the involuntary confinement of entire populations to their homes – barring certain exceptional activities such as essential shopping, exercise, and medical attention. Lockdown measures of this sort are usually associated with wartime, and should not be taken lightly, not only because […]