So the “Irish” Mail on Sunday, yet again, have a British royal photo on its front page. Can they not put an Irish photo? They really are gone past a joke using “Irish” in their title. And I have nothing against the English before anyone says so! I find it amazing they persist with this tactic of always using British photos on their front page. By the way I’m not going to keep writing this in future! Just want to point it out!
Formerly known as @ireland.com
Agreed. Why anyone in Ireland would see the need to purchase a foreign paper is beyond me. If you are British, living in Ireland, that makes sense, otherwise it is unnecessary.
Saoirse Flynn
I stopped buying the Mail about 2 years ago. They have changed a lot since they were launched here a few years ago. They had an editor for a long time Hamilton I think was is name. He left them a few months ago, I think he knew the trouble they were in and got out before things got too bad.
They were putting far too much UK stories in the paper for my liking. As the previous commenter wrote, if you are British living in Ireland then buying the likes of the Mail now is fine, but when you pay a high price for an Irish paper you would expect most of it to be written by Irish people.
As far as I know they left off quite a few people last year in their Irish office so that in itself was only going to lessen the Irish content in it. I’m not sure if they are going to make any meaningful effort to change things, this requires investment which seems the exact opposite of what they are doing the last 2 years.
The Sunday Independent has many flaws but at least you can be guaranteed that most of the articles written are by Irish writers and hence Irish people can relate to them. Unlike the Mail now that seem to have so many English writers in their paper. We’re Irish not British!
Alan
The Irish Mail on Sunday & the Irish Daily Mail are in big trouble, but so are some other papers. Both papers remind me of the ill-fated Times Ireland edition. I could never understand how the Times decided to launch an Irish version when paper sales are declining across the board. As the weeks progressed, the Times Ireland had less and less Irish material and eventually the bosses in London just pulled the plug on it. I can see the same happening with the Irish Mail on Sunday and Irish Daily Mail titles, what the sales figures are when they do it only they know. Some UK papers are sold here with extremely low sales, for example the People and Star Sunday. I think both these papers might have 0% Irish material.
topsy
Never bought the rag.
Pat Hoctorr
When did you last see an ad for them on the TV?? Remember all the CD and DVD giveaways years ago?? Their UK bosses have given up on the Irish market. No resources whatsoever been put into it.
Sunday Independent, Sunday Business Post and Sunday Times way better papers.
Billy Hill
Kim Jong Un is dead, according to reports.
Poor Trump.
His country is falling apart, and then his 2nd favourite boyfriend/dictator dies…
WHAT HAS HE DONE TO DESERVE THIS?
Send him money.
QUICKLY!
That’ll cheer him up.
Matt Pilates
Dead? How could you tell?
Formerly known as @ireland.com
“Two weeks quarantine if travelling to the UK” – about six weeks too late. I hope that the same applies to people travelling from Britain to the north. Tasmania, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia close their borders to outsiders (people from other Australian states). It has worked, along with a quarantine for all international arrivals. Australia has a total of 81 dead and fewer than 50 new cases each day. You can see the numbers here: https://covid-19-au.com/
GiggidyGoo
Looks like there will be a queue to sue the HSE for the nursing home scandal of Covid-19.. The nursing homes themselves closed their doors to visitors early into the situation only to be forced to re-open by the ‘experts’, who then also saw fit to transfer hospital patients with symptoms into the nursing homes. Another boo boo?
Rosette of Sirius
I’ll tell you what it is Gigs…. It’s homicidal. If they get away with just being sued, they’ll be lucky.
That’s what happens when you spend years demanding there should be no border on the island of Ireland.
GiggidyGoo
Very simplistic there B9
SOQ
Its the same both ways gigs- southerners have no restrictions in the north but- what would they be travelling for? The only thing open is supermarkets so I very much doubt it is going to make much difference one way or another.
Personally I think the idea of clusters is flawed because if you don’t know how many asymptomatic people are or were infected in the first place- you are just chasing your tail.
GiggidyGoo
Boris is looking at it next week – 14 days isolation anyone entering the UK. Not sure about day trippers – maybe banning them altogether?
SOQ
I am not disagreeing with you there Formerly but just trying to take a walk around this thing and have a look at it from another angle.
We are in the middle of the biggest anthropological study ever under taken so it is worth asking what it is we are hoping to achieve. We all looked on in horror as Italy’s hospitals became overwhelmed and most governments rightly set in place measures to prevent that from happening in their own countries except, those measures were not consistent. Placing people under house arrest here in Ireland while allowing flights from hot spots with no checks for example.
But it did save lives, at least in the interim, but it won’t stop the virus from spreading, only slow it down. If it emerges that this thing has the same or less fatality rate as seasonal flu then it will be biggest over reaction of our lifetime- with all the subsequent economic and social damage not seen since the second world war.
And one other point, we are much further along the line of treatments than when this started. We know that ventilators were in most cases doing more harm than good and a lot more understanding of what it is doing to the body. And, that the amount of asymptomatic or mild was grossly underestimated. Now evidence is emerging that indoor spaces spread it much more than outdoor which would make sense.
So moving forward will probably be a more granular approach. We don’t know for certain that anti bodies mean immunity but it usually does so if that is the case then that subset of people are free to go. On the other hand, those we call vulnerable- elderly, immune compromised etc- need special care and protections. I don’t like the word cocooning myself.
f_lawless
I notice that many news outlets , including RTE, were yesterday running with doom and gloom headlines like “‘No evidence that recovering from Covid-19 gives people immunity, WHO says”.
But the WHO have since backtracked somewhat: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405
‘Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on “immunity passports”. The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify:
We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.’
Will this clarification be given the same level of media attention? I suspect not
SOQ
Well the media have being doing a doom and gloom panic op on this thing from the start- the way they report the stuff is so slanted. ‘X people died from coronavirus’ seems like an innocent statement except X people died WITH rather than from and, there is no such thing as ‘coronavirus’ in the first place. just CoVid-19 or- a whole bunch of viruses including CoVid-19 and the common cold, which are categorised as corona.
As for WHO- they have been scaremongering from day one after playing along with China’s initial cover up. The US states are opening up again and if the predicted spike does not happen- their credibility will be completely shot. Serious questions will need to be asked as what their real agenda actually is.
…really Broadsheet…this is downright dangerous commentary…how come this person gets a platform for this daily bile while others have their comments deleted on the flimsiest pretext…what indeed is the real agenda?
Newname
Broadsheet don’t respond to questions about their stance, they just happen to post articles and comments that cast doubt on lockdown.
I’ve asked a couple of times what they think should be done, nothing but tumbleweed.
They don’t have the confidence or honesty to come out and say what they believe in case they are proven wrong, so it is just a discreet editorial line, leaving room for later denial if required.
I am actually just here out of morbid curiosity at this point, I should really break the habit as I don’t want to give advertising clicks to this irresponsible dangerous crap.
GiggidyGoo
Just wondering, Newname, why you feel Broadsheet should be answerable to anyone here. Their place, their rules. We all fall foul of the naughty step sometimes for instance, but that’s up to us really. It’s a discussion forum basically.
Newname
Giggidy, you’re right, their place their rules, but they do have a public platform, which they are using to spread dangerous bull, contributing to an environment that spreads division and puts my loved ones at risk. So while of course they are not answerable to me, I reserve the right to be angry about it.
…what Newname said…I hate to see anyone censored but at least be consistent…people on here feel empowered to even take control of the language…
GiggidyGoo
But the likes of RTE and the Independent are also public platforms for disseminating information, some of which is incorrect, a lot of which is biased, and those won’t reply to you either. And your taxes have gone to keep them afloat.
What you’re getting here is a chance for your say – be that right or be that incorrect, and you have the opportunity to correct what you feel is incorrect. If Bodger had to answer everyone, he may as well shut up shop.
so the better way to approach it is to discount the views you don’t agree with with your own ones, backed up by links etc.
D
So unfortunately, I have to concur on avoiding the censorship. And really, I think you’ve misunderstood the lay of the land… the powers that be here are in agreement with casting doubt on the situation and interested in ‘assuaging your fears’. i.e. if there is censorship it won’t be in agreement with you.
In my opinion it’s better to have the ‘conspiracy theories’ out in the open.
Newname, one of the website staff seem to be of the opinion the ‘swiss doctor’, possibly ‘off-guardian’ and Gemma O’Doherty and co (vid) are worth listening to, and that the lockdowns are unconstitutional and not supported by the numbers they know are dying.
The reason I say it’s better to have all this out in the open is that at least you can have your say and try and convince them otherwise, so that for example, the ‘denialists’ do not cause harm to others outside this website with their views.
f_lawless
@D
“i.e. if there is censorship it won’t be in agreement with you.
In my opinion it’s better to have the ‘conspiracy theories’ out in the open. ”
Seem to be showing a lack of self-awareness there. First you state that the “powers that be” at Broadsheet are inclined to censor people who air opinions that the lockdown measures shouldn’t be questioned. But there’s no evidence for that. That in itself is akin to irrational conspiratorial thinking.
Then in the very next line you attempt to collectively smear, as “conspiracy theory” spreaders, those who would draw attention to the fact that there’s numerous qualified experts who don’t believe in the proportionality and strategic merits of the continued lockdown measures. The “swiss doctor” and “off-guardian” websites provide links directly to such expert opinion and to official data sources- but you probably know that anyway. I may be wrong , but I don’t think I’ve really seen Gemma O’Doherty mentioned here at all in the context of the virus (other than the recent court case which is newsworthy).
What’s wrong with adults having calm, reasoned debate about the situation while referencing credible expert opinion? Don’t you think we have the right to try to hold our authorities up to scrutiny?
D
> First you state that the “powers that be” at Broadsheet are inclined to censor people who air opinions that the lockdown measures shouldn’t be questioned
nowhere did I state that, I wrote that ‘if there is censorship’ as short hand for ‘if there is censorship it won’t be’ – i.e. future tense, hypothetical.
and I put ‘conspiracy theories’ in scare quotes as it was a lazy usage of the term.
> What’s wrong with adults having calm, reasoned debate about the situation while referencing credible expert opinion? Don’t you think we have the right to try to hold our authorities up to scrutiny?
nothing, however pasting articles from ‘experts’ that are now a month or so out of date, whose pet theories are contradicted with piles of bodies in makeshift morgues in various major cities is perhaps not very helpful any longer. And again I think you have misunderstood what I am saying about censorship, at least once these things are out in the open they can be disagreed with, lest they cause harm.
It is updated near daily basis and references virologists, epidemiologists, physicians, and other health care professionals at the very top of their respective fields. There is nothing conspiratorial about it and to dismiss it as such is lazy and downright arrogant. It was sent to me by a friend who has a PhD in microbiology himself btw but if he commented here, you’d probably want him banned too I suppose.
Now if you want to sit back and just swallow whatever bull poo the MSM decide to pump out on CoVid-19, that is your choice but, you do not have the right to demand other people are silenced just because YOU don’t like what they are saying.
D
where did I say I wanted anyone banned or censored?
alarming that you perceived my saying such, and am also alarmed that f_lawless came to the conclusion I said broadsheet were censoring already.
yes it was lazy and perhaps even arrogant to use ‘conspiracy theories’ to refer to that site and off-guardian, and I admitted to it already.
On reflection, I can’t honestly have made myself much clearer so I guess I will leave you both at it.
Nigel
First they were covering up the danger for China AND scaremongering at the same time, then they were spreading doom and gloom panic: it’s as if there isn’t a hidden agenda but a fallblle organisation reporting on a developing situation of unknown scope and potential while dealing with a very dodgy source of information.
‘there is no such thing as ‘coronavirus’ in the first place.’
Seriously, go take a running jump.
As for antibodies – nobody really knows yet. We can expect antibodies to provide immunity, but we don’t yet fully know how much. We’re in the middle of a pandemic. Uncertainlty is built in.
SOQ
Ok let me break this out a bit for you.
1. Current (conservative) estimates are the 50% of infections are asymptomatic.
2. All fatalities on the island of Ireland are currently being tested for CoVid-19.
3. If a deceased test positive then it is entered as cause of death- even if when alive they were completely asymptomatic.
4. For the media to then report such numbers as FROM rather than WITH is at best, a manipulation of the facts.
So let’s transfer that over to another scenario. Over 9000 people have tested WITH HIV+ but most of them will not die FROM HIV/AIDS. So- what reason would there be to enter the WITH as a cause of death? And if the media then stated that the death rate FROM HIV was 9000, they would be challenged- and rightly so. What is so different with CoVid-19?
There is no such thing as coronavirus in this context, only CoVid-19. To say someone died of ‘coronavirus’ means it could have been ANY of the coronaviruses, not just CoVid-19- the use of the word ‘coronavirus’ without the precursor of ‘novel’ means absolutely nothing.
WHO is ran by a committed Marxist called Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who was supported in his appointment by The Chinese Communist Party- fact.
On the 14th of January WHO tweeted “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus.” WHO must have known this was untrue because doctors in Wuhan were already reporting the complete opposite and yet, they towed the CCP line. Adhanom Ghebreyesus even visited China and praised them for their handling of the outbreak.
That action has caused thousands lives. You can label it ‘conspiracy’ if you want but I call it geo-politics.
Cian
4. For the media to then report such numbers as FROM rather than WITH is at best, a manipulation of the facts
But are they?
RTE today said: “The Department of Health has announced that a further 26 people who were diagnosed with Covid-19 in Ireland have died, with 23 of the cases laboratory confirmed.”
…over 1000 people are dead in Ireland who would otherwise be still alive due to a pandemic…to suggest otherwise is grossly insulting to people who cared…
Nigel
SOQ – you called it scaremongering AND downplayng it at the same time which just about sums up how muddled you are. Nobody is currently talking about anyone dying from or with any form of corononavirus other than Covid19.
Wow, were those thousands of lives lost ‘from’ or ‘with’ cornoavirus?
Donnchadh
SOQ: ‘If it emerges that this thing has the same or less fatality rate as seasonal flu then it will be biggest over reaction of our lifetime- with all the subsequent economic and social damage not seen since the second world war’
I think that’s too quick. First, the threat an infectious disease poses isn’t only determined by its IFR, but by other factors such as how quickly it spreads and how difficult it is to isolate people who are infected (e.g., how quickly they start showing symptoms).
Second, we have evidence from multiple locations that Covid-19 can overwhelm health services and lead to thousands of deaths in a very short space of time. Why this happens – whether it’s primarily down to local factors, and if so which ones – is crucial, but unfortunately that’s information we can arrive at only by observing these events as they happen. The problem each government faces is that there is a certain risk that the same thing could happen within their borders, and it is still too early to say with any confidence how bad things could get in such a case if the spread of the infection was not checked.
What might well emerge – in fact, what I expect to emerge – is that the responses of various governments were based on faulty data and misleading assumptions, and that with hindsight they had other (perhaps better) options than seemed available at the time. The problem is that those decisions have to be made in real time, without the benefit of information which has emerged since.
SOQ
Sorry Donnchadh- couple of lads round for dinner- I;ll come back to you tomorrow if you don’t mind?
Talk then.
Donnchadh
Not a bother.
SOQ
OK yes I agree, I was one of those calling for restrictions but we have moved on from that point and at no time did I argue for putting the country under house arrest. I am back to the modelling again because that is IMO where the problem lies.
With the exception of CoVid-19 patients, hospitals are lying empty and the newly built extra capacity never used. Now some say that is because of the lock down but in Britain from this morning, just like US states, that theory is about to be tested because people are defying government advice and starting to return to work.
Weasel Words Mickey Martin heralds the news that the pension age of 67 will be ‘scrapped’. That is of course, as follows in the report, will not be increased ‘this year’. So not exactly scrapped then, is it? Isn’t that quite ex-tr-a-or-din-a-r-y, Michilín?
George
Fools like you will kill us all. COVID 19 is nothing compared to what is coming.
Clampers Outside
Kim Jong-un is dead… supposedly.
Supposedly from a botched heart op….
All TBC at the mo.
GiggidyGoo
Trump probably has the eye on the daughter.
Matt Pilates
If Ireland issues immunity passports will 100s of 1000s of Brits claiming Irish heritage be allowed to apply for those too?
Lilly
What’s that about ageism and intimidation around Sean O’Rourke’s retirement? Is he suggesting he was put under pressure to hit the golf course.
So the “Irish” Mail on Sunday, yet again, have a British royal photo on its front page. Can they not put an Irish photo? They really are gone past a joke using “Irish” in their title. And I have nothing against the English before anyone says so! I find it amazing they persist with this tactic of always using British photos on their front page. By the way I’m not going to keep writing this in future! Just want to point it out!
Agreed. Why anyone in Ireland would see the need to purchase a foreign paper is beyond me. If you are British, living in Ireland, that makes sense, otherwise it is unnecessary.
I stopped buying the Mail about 2 years ago. They have changed a lot since they were launched here a few years ago. They had an editor for a long time Hamilton I think was is name. He left them a few months ago, I think he knew the trouble they were in and got out before things got too bad.
They were putting far too much UK stories in the paper for my liking. As the previous commenter wrote, if you are British living in Ireland then buying the likes of the Mail now is fine, but when you pay a high price for an Irish paper you would expect most of it to be written by Irish people.
As far as I know they left off quite a few people last year in their Irish office so that in itself was only going to lessen the Irish content in it. I’m not sure if they are going to make any meaningful effort to change things, this requires investment which seems the exact opposite of what they are doing the last 2 years.
The Sunday Independent has many flaws but at least you can be guaranteed that most of the articles written are by Irish writers and hence Irish people can relate to them. Unlike the Mail now that seem to have so many English writers in their paper. We’re Irish not British!
The Irish Mail on Sunday & the Irish Daily Mail are in big trouble, but so are some other papers. Both papers remind me of the ill-fated Times Ireland edition. I could never understand how the Times decided to launch an Irish version when paper sales are declining across the board. As the weeks progressed, the Times Ireland had less and less Irish material and eventually the bosses in London just pulled the plug on it. I can see the same happening with the Irish Mail on Sunday and Irish Daily Mail titles, what the sales figures are when they do it only they know. Some UK papers are sold here with extremely low sales, for example the People and Star Sunday. I think both these papers might have 0% Irish material.
Never bought the rag.
When did you last see an ad for them on the TV?? Remember all the CD and DVD giveaways years ago?? Their UK bosses have given up on the Irish market. No resources whatsoever been put into it.
Sunday Independent, Sunday Business Post and Sunday Times way better papers.
Kim Jong Un is dead, according to reports.
Poor Trump.
His country is falling apart, and then his 2nd favourite boyfriend/dictator dies…
WHAT HAS HE DONE TO DESERVE THIS?
Send him money.
QUICKLY!
That’ll cheer him up.
Dead? How could you tell?
“Two weeks quarantine if travelling to the UK” – about six weeks too late. I hope that the same applies to people travelling from Britain to the north. Tasmania, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia close their borders to outsiders (people from other Australian states). It has worked, along with a quarantine for all international arrivals. Australia has a total of 81 dead and fewer than 50 new cases each day. You can see the numbers here: https://covid-19-au.com/
Looks like there will be a queue to sue the HSE for the nursing home scandal of Covid-19.. The nursing homes themselves closed their doors to visitors early into the situation only to be forced to re-open by the ‘experts’, who then also saw fit to transfer hospital patients with symptoms into the nursing homes. Another boo boo?
I’ll tell you what it is Gigs…. It’s homicidal. If they get away with just being sued, they’ll be lucky.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/drug-used-to-manage-hospital-covid-19-withheld-from-nursing-homes-1.4238503
And the Boo Boo Boy allows people from Northern Ireland to travel as they wish throughout the Republic.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0425/1134822-garda-headquarters-restrictions/
That’s what happens when you spend years demanding there should be no border on the island of Ireland.
Very simplistic there B9
Its the same both ways gigs- southerners have no restrictions in the north but- what would they be travelling for? The only thing open is supermarkets so I very much doubt it is going to make much difference one way or another.
Personally I think the idea of clusters is flawed because if you don’t know how many asymptomatic people are or were infected in the first place- you are just chasing your tail.
Boris is looking at it next week – 14 days isolation anyone entering the UK. Not sure about day trippers – maybe banning them altogether?
I am not disagreeing with you there Formerly but just trying to take a walk around this thing and have a look at it from another angle.
We are in the middle of the biggest anthropological study ever under taken so it is worth asking what it is we are hoping to achieve. We all looked on in horror as Italy’s hospitals became overwhelmed and most governments rightly set in place measures to prevent that from happening in their own countries except, those measures were not consistent. Placing people under house arrest here in Ireland while allowing flights from hot spots with no checks for example.
But it did save lives, at least in the interim, but it won’t stop the virus from spreading, only slow it down. If it emerges that this thing has the same or less fatality rate as seasonal flu then it will be biggest over reaction of our lifetime- with all the subsequent economic and social damage not seen since the second world war.
And one other point, we are much further along the line of treatments than when this started. We know that ventilators were in most cases doing more harm than good and a lot more understanding of what it is doing to the body. And, that the amount of asymptomatic or mild was grossly underestimated. Now evidence is emerging that indoor spaces spread it much more than outdoor which would make sense.
So moving forward will probably be a more granular approach. We don’t know for certain that anti bodies mean immunity but it usually does so if that is the case then that subset of people are free to go. On the other hand, those we call vulnerable- elderly, immune compromised etc- need special care and protections. I don’t like the word cocooning myself.
I notice that many news outlets , including RTE, were yesterday running with doom and gloom headlines like “‘No evidence that recovering from Covid-19 gives people immunity, WHO says”.
But the WHO have since backtracked somewhat:
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1254160937805926405
‘Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on “immunity passports”. The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify:
We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.’
Will this clarification be given the same level of media attention? I suspect not
Well the media have being doing a doom and gloom panic op on this thing from the start- the way they report the stuff is so slanted. ‘X people died from coronavirus’ seems like an innocent statement except X people died WITH rather than from and, there is no such thing as ‘coronavirus’ in the first place. just CoVid-19 or- a whole bunch of viruses including CoVid-19 and the common cold, which are categorised as corona.
As for WHO- they have been scaremongering from day one after playing along with China’s initial cover up. The US states are opening up again and if the predicted spike does not happen- their credibility will be completely shot. Serious questions will need to be asked as what their real agenda actually is.
…really Broadsheet…this is downright dangerous commentary…how come this person gets a platform for this daily bile while others have their comments deleted on the flimsiest pretext…what indeed is the real agenda?
Broadsheet don’t respond to questions about their stance, they just happen to post articles and comments that cast doubt on lockdown.
I’ve asked a couple of times what they think should be done, nothing but tumbleweed.
They don’t have the confidence or honesty to come out and say what they believe in case they are proven wrong, so it is just a discreet editorial line, leaving room for later denial if required.
I am actually just here out of morbid curiosity at this point, I should really break the habit as I don’t want to give advertising clicks to this irresponsible dangerous crap.
Just wondering, Newname, why you feel Broadsheet should be answerable to anyone here. Their place, their rules. We all fall foul of the naughty step sometimes for instance, but that’s up to us really. It’s a discussion forum basically.
Giggidy, you’re right, their place their rules, but they do have a public platform, which they are using to spread dangerous bull, contributing to an environment that spreads division and puts my loved ones at risk. So while of course they are not answerable to me, I reserve the right to be angry about it.
…what Newname said…I hate to see anyone censored but at least be consistent…people on here feel empowered to even take control of the language…
But the likes of RTE and the Independent are also public platforms for disseminating information, some of which is incorrect, a lot of which is biased, and those won’t reply to you either. And your taxes have gone to keep them afloat.
What you’re getting here is a chance for your say – be that right or be that incorrect, and you have the opportunity to correct what you feel is incorrect. If Bodger had to answer everyone, he may as well shut up shop.
so the better way to approach it is to discount the views you don’t agree with with your own ones, backed up by links etc.
So unfortunately, I have to concur on avoiding the censorship. And really, I think you’ve misunderstood the lay of the land… the powers that be here are in agreement with casting doubt on the situation and interested in ‘assuaging your fears’. i.e. if there is censorship it won’t be in agreement with you.
In my opinion it’s better to have the ‘conspiracy theories’ out in the open.
Newname, one of the website staff seem to be of the opinion the ‘swiss doctor’, possibly ‘off-guardian’ and Gemma O’Doherty and co (vid) are worth listening to, and that the lockdowns are unconstitutional and not supported by the numbers they know are dying.
https://www.broadsheet.ie/2020/04/21/co-mingle/#comment-2189304
The reason I say it’s better to have all this out in the open is that at least you can have your say and try and convince them otherwise, so that for example, the ‘denialists’ do not cause harm to others outside this website with their views.
@D
“i.e. if there is censorship it won’t be in agreement with you.
In my opinion it’s better to have the ‘conspiracy theories’ out in the open. ”
Seem to be showing a lack of self-awareness there. First you state that the “powers that be” at Broadsheet are inclined to censor people who air opinions that the lockdown measures shouldn’t be questioned. But there’s no evidence for that. That in itself is akin to irrational conspiratorial thinking.
Then in the very next line you attempt to collectively smear, as “conspiracy theory” spreaders, those who would draw attention to the fact that there’s numerous qualified experts who don’t believe in the proportionality and strategic merits of the continued lockdown measures. The “swiss doctor” and “off-guardian” websites provide links directly to such expert opinion and to official data sources- but you probably know that anyway. I may be wrong , but I don’t think I’ve really seen Gemma O’Doherty mentioned here at all in the context of the virus (other than the recent court case which is newsworthy).
Maybe this a more palatable source to demonstrate that, over in the UK, there isn’t exactly a scientific consensus on the lockdown measures there.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/scientists-criticise-uk-government-over-following-the-science
What’s wrong with adults having calm, reasoned debate about the situation while referencing credible expert opinion? Don’t you think we have the right to try to hold our authorities up to scrutiny?
> First you state that the “powers that be” at Broadsheet are inclined to censor people who air opinions that the lockdown measures shouldn’t be questioned
nowhere did I state that, I wrote that ‘if there is censorship’ as short hand for ‘if there is censorship it won’t be’ – i.e. future tense, hypothetical.
and I put ‘conspiracy theories’ in scare quotes as it was a lazy usage of the term.
> What’s wrong with adults having calm, reasoned debate about the situation while referencing credible expert opinion? Don’t you think we have the right to try to hold our authorities up to scrutiny?
nothing, however pasting articles from ‘experts’ that are now a month or so out of date, whose pet theories are contradicted with piles of bodies in makeshift morgues in various major cities is perhaps not very helpful any longer. And again I think you have misunderstood what I am saying about censorship, at least once these things are out in the open they can be disagreed with, lest they cause harm.
Guardian article is good, ta.
D- the link you refer to is this https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
It is updated near daily basis and references virologists, epidemiologists, physicians, and other health care professionals at the very top of their respective fields. There is nothing conspiratorial about it and to dismiss it as such is lazy and downright arrogant. It was sent to me by a friend who has a PhD in microbiology himself btw but if he commented here, you’d probably want him banned too I suppose.
Now if you want to sit back and just swallow whatever bull poo the MSM decide to pump out on CoVid-19, that is your choice but, you do not have the right to demand other people are silenced just because YOU don’t like what they are saying.
where did I say I wanted anyone banned or censored?
alarming that you perceived my saying such, and am also alarmed that f_lawless came to the conclusion I said broadsheet were censoring already.
yes it was lazy and perhaps even arrogant to use ‘conspiracy theories’ to refer to that site and off-guardian, and I admitted to it already.
On reflection, I can’t honestly have made myself much clearer so I guess I will leave you both at it.
First they were covering up the danger for China AND scaremongering at the same time, then they were spreading doom and gloom panic: it’s as if there isn’t a hidden agenda but a fallblle organisation reporting on a developing situation of unknown scope and potential while dealing with a very dodgy source of information.
‘there is no such thing as ‘coronavirus’ in the first place.’
Seriously, go take a running jump.
As for antibodies – nobody really knows yet. We can expect antibodies to provide immunity, but we don’t yet fully know how much. We’re in the middle of a pandemic. Uncertainlty is built in.
Ok let me break this out a bit for you.
1. Current (conservative) estimates are the 50% of infections are asymptomatic.
2. All fatalities on the island of Ireland are currently being tested for CoVid-19.
3. If a deceased test positive then it is entered as cause of death- even if when alive they were completely asymptomatic.
4. For the media to then report such numbers as FROM rather than WITH is at best, a manipulation of the facts.
So let’s transfer that over to another scenario. Over 9000 people have tested WITH HIV+ but most of them will not die FROM HIV/AIDS. So- what reason would there be to enter the WITH as a cause of death? And if the media then stated that the death rate FROM HIV was 9000, they would be challenged- and rightly so. What is so different with CoVid-19?
There is no such thing as coronavirus in this context, only CoVid-19. To say someone died of ‘coronavirus’ means it could have been ANY of the coronaviruses, not just CoVid-19- the use of the word ‘coronavirus’ without the precursor of ‘novel’ means absolutely nothing.
WHO is ran by a committed Marxist called Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who was supported in his appointment by The Chinese Communist Party- fact.
On the 14th of January WHO tweeted “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus.” WHO must have known this was untrue because doctors in Wuhan were already reporting the complete opposite and yet, they towed the CCP line. Adhanom Ghebreyesus even visited China and praised them for their handling of the outbreak.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-health-organization-blame-pandemic-coronavirus/609820/
That action has caused thousands lives. You can label it ‘conspiracy’ if you want but I call it geo-politics.
4. For the media to then report such numbers as FROM rather than WITH is at best, a manipulation of the facts
But are they?
RTE today said: “The Department of Health has announced that a further 26 people who were diagnosed with Covid-19 in Ireland have died, with 23 of the cases laboratory confirmed.”
…over 1000 people are dead in Ireland who would otherwise be still alive due to a pandemic…to suggest otherwise is grossly insulting to people who cared…
SOQ – you called it scaremongering AND downplayng it at the same time which just about sums up how muddled you are. Nobody is currently talking about anyone dying from or with any form of corononavirus other than Covid19.
Wow, were those thousands of lives lost ‘from’ or ‘with’ cornoavirus?
SOQ: ‘If it emerges that this thing has the same or less fatality rate as seasonal flu then it will be biggest over reaction of our lifetime- with all the subsequent economic and social damage not seen since the second world war’
I think that’s too quick. First, the threat an infectious disease poses isn’t only determined by its IFR, but by other factors such as how quickly it spreads and how difficult it is to isolate people who are infected (e.g., how quickly they start showing symptoms).
Second, we have evidence from multiple locations that Covid-19 can overwhelm health services and lead to thousands of deaths in a very short space of time. Why this happens – whether it’s primarily down to local factors, and if so which ones – is crucial, but unfortunately that’s information we can arrive at only by observing these events as they happen. The problem each government faces is that there is a certain risk that the same thing could happen within their borders, and it is still too early to say with any confidence how bad things could get in such a case if the spread of the infection was not checked.
What might well emerge – in fact, what I expect to emerge – is that the responses of various governments were based on faulty data and misleading assumptions, and that with hindsight they had other (perhaps better) options than seemed available at the time. The problem is that those decisions have to be made in real time, without the benefit of information which has emerged since.
Sorry Donnchadh- couple of lads round for dinner- I;ll come back to you tomorrow if you don’t mind?
Talk then.
Not a bother.
OK yes I agree, I was one of those calling for restrictions but we have moved on from that point and at no time did I argue for putting the country under house arrest. I am back to the modelling again because that is IMO where the problem lies.
With the exception of CoVid-19 patients, hospitals are lying empty and the newly built extra capacity never used. Now some say that is because of the lock down but in Britain from this morning, just like US states, that theory is about to be tested because people are defying government advice and starting to return to work.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8260213/Coronavirus-UK-Roads-jam-packed-traffic-Tubes-look-busier.html
Weasel Words Mickey Martin heralds the news that the pension age of 67 will be ‘scrapped’. That is of course, as follows in the report, will not be increased ‘this year’. So not exactly scrapped then, is it? Isn’t that quite ex-tr-a-or-din-a-r-y, Michilín?
Fools like you will kill us all. COVID 19 is nothing compared to what is coming.
Kim Jong-un is dead… supposedly.
Supposedly from a botched heart op….
All TBC at the mo.
Trump probably has the eye on the daughter.
If Ireland issues immunity passports will 100s of 1000s of Brits claiming Irish heritage be allowed to apply for those too?
What’s that about ageism and intimidation around Sean O’Rourke’s retirement? Is he suggesting he was put under pressure to hit the golf course.