87 thoughts on “Sunday’s Papers

  1. f_lawless

    Interesting to contrast the Irish Times with the Daily Mail in their reporting of the latest major Covid-19 study which, like others before it ,concludes that the various lockdowns implemented have failed to alter the course of the course of the virus but instead ‘destroyed millions of livelihoods’.

    Both articles contain the following quotes:
    _____________________________________________________
    ‘ “The fact that reopening did not change the course of the pandemic is consistent with mentioned studies showing that initiation of full lockdowns did not alter the course of the pandemic,” the report says. ‘

    ‘ “Unlike rigorous testing of potential new drugs, lockdowns were administered with little consideration that they might not only cause economic devastation but potentially more deaths than Covid-19 itself.” the author claimed’
    _____________________________________________________

    But rather than ask the hard questions of our government, the Irish Times article attempts to let them off the hook by ending with this:
    _____________________________________________________
    ‘ Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Health Simon Harris, together with their Cabinet colleagues, had a huge call to make in March as the virus came over the hill. They went for lockdown, as there was no other realistic policy option open to them at the time.

    But if the data now shows that ending lockdowns has no real negative impact on infections rates, they should at least take note. ‘
    _____________________________________________________

    However in the Daily Mail article:
    ‘ (the author of the report) says that lockdowns had remained in place even as ‘our knowledge of the virus and lack of effectiveness of total lockdowns evolved’ “‘At the same time, millions of livelihoods were being destroyed by these lockdowns”, he says’ .

    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/reopening-economy-does-not-cause-coronavirus-spike-researchers-1.4260416

      1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

        The whole premise of the JP Morgan study is flawed. It is looking at the impact of ENDING the lockdowns. The lockdowns weren’t ended at a random time, they were eased when things improved. NZ did a proper lockdown, the UK did a crap one. Ireland needed to quarantine all international arrivals for 14 days. It worked in Australia, NZ and Israel. If you want to contrast Brazil and NZ, I look forward to seeing how it works out.

        1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

          “Author Marko Kolanovic, a trained physicist and a strategist for JP Morgan, said governments had been spooked by ‘flawed scientific papers’ into imposing lockdowns which were ‘inefficient or late’ and had little effect.”

          Wow, doing the lockdown too late has little effect. The lockdown wasn’t the problem, acting too slowly was, not getting it right was. That is why Dr. Michael Ryan from the WHO, said you have to act fast, you have to act before you have perfect information. NZ and Israel acted fast, Ireland and the UK didn’t. NZ is opening up with 21 deaths, Australia (population 25.5 million, multiple direct flights to/from China) has 102 deaths and is opening up, slowly.

          1. Clampers Outside

            +1 an evolving situation dependent on info available.

            I believe sincerely that no matter who would have been in govt the mistakes made would be similar and the outcome the same.

            It’s way to easy to point fingers after the fact.

            (And no, I’ve never voted FG or FF in my life)

          2. goldenbrown

            “The lockdown wasn’t the problem, acting too slowly was, not getting it right was”

            and I’ll tell you another one, you don’t have to have “PhD” tacked onto the back of your name to come to that conclusion either!

            we all knew full well what the right thing to do was the day info around that first +ve test dropped and the famous school ski trips were being argued over on Joe Duffyetc. we knew we had a problem because it was being shown nightly as it unfolded elsewhere for weeks prior on C4 News and the rest yet our biggest concerns were around the civil liberties and legalities of interfering with peoples travel arrangements. Our authorities made a major major mistake not sealing the country off even worse failing to forcibly quarantine inbound travellers.

            We had no disaster plan. Any substantial company I’ve ever worked in have a documented disaster recovery plan. If Ireland were a company the board would be fired long ago already.

            Now look at us.

        2. f_lawless

          I think what’s more flawed is your interpretation of what you read (or didn’t read)..
          From the article: “the report shows that many countries saw their infection rates fall rather than rise again when they ended their lockdowns – suggesting that the virus may have its own ‘dynamics’ which are ‘unrelated’ to the emergency measures”.

          Then there’s leading epidemiologist at Oxford University, Sunetra Gupta in a recent interview:

          “In almost every context we’ve seen the epidemic grow, turn around and die away — almost like clockwork. Different countries have had different lockdown policies, and yet what we’ve observed is almost a uniform pattern of behaviour which is highly consistent with the SIR model. To me that suggests that much of the driving force here was due to the build-up of immunity. I think that’s a more parsimonious explanation than one which requires in every country for lockdown (or various degrees of lockdown, including no lockdown) to have had the same effect”

          And, for example, there’s the recent study funded by UK government body, the “National Institute for Health Research” which studied 30 European countries and among their conclusions stated that “widespread closure of all non-essential businesses and stay-at-home policies do not appear to have had a significant effect on the number of Covid-19 cases across Europe”.

          https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/new-study-reveals-blueprint-for-getting-out-of-covid-19-lockdown

          1. jamesjoist

            That’s a strange statement , ‘ the virus may have it’s own dynamics which are unrelated to emergency measures ‘ . It seems to suggest that the virus has a volitional characteristic .

          2. Clampers Outside

            Volitional? Nah, I read that as it having a kind of life cycle of sorts… that’s what I got from it anyway.

          3. SOQ

            I think that may be a suggestion that it has a seasonal element to it? Or, possibility some thing to do with genetics?

  2. GiggidyGoo

    The Greens (Ryan in other words) want the office of Tanaiste? FFG won’t like that suggestion.

      1. George

        Yes they will. Rotating Taoiseach means not being Taoiseach half the time. During that time they will not want to be junior to Eamon Ryan.

        1. V'ness

          They’ll each give themselves a large decent Ministery and completely swarm the Greens

          The Greens will get whole time Tanaiste – with nothing else to do
          And a handful of juniors
          Like rural affairs ಠ﹏ಠ

      1. Nigel

        The odd thing is, after 9-11 a front page like that would have been hailed as the height of patriotism, even though arguably 9-11 was also the result of a Republican administration’s catastrophic failure. I suppose the shock of it and having an outsider culprit like Bin Laden overwhelmed any sort of domestic accountability, as opposed to this slow-motion tarin crash and Trump’s complete inability to suggest even the most rudimentary appearance of being a statesman or leader. One could argue that this front page IS the height of patriotism, just one stripped of jingoism and bloodlust.

    1. f_lawless

      It’s curious to see how NYT covered the the 2017-2018 flu season. Over 80,000 died – the highest flu death toll in over a decade at that time. “Over 80,000” in deaths is on a similar scale of human loss to “Close to 100,000”, I would have thought. But there’s no front page with names listed to be found. All I could find was this article:
      https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/health/flu-deaths-vaccine.html

      Absent is the emotive language such as “Incalculable loss” “They were not names on a list. They were us.” Instead, the cold academic language of statistical analysis.

      1. Nigel

        Why? This is a new global pandemic. The administration’s response has been astonishingly shambolic and bad. In fact there are are Trump-supporting factions pushing (often contradictory and nonsensical) claims about the pandemic to justify supporting his incompetence. Nobody claims the flu isn’t real, or is a bioweapon. There is overlap with anti-vaxxers, I suppose. The weird thing isn’t to get emotive about the unnecesary deaths Trump’s incompetence has caused, it’s weird not to.

        1. f_lawless

          I don’t know, I see a bit of a disconnect there. Loss of human life is loss of human life regardless of if a pandemic is new or not. Every year it’s estimated that up to 650,000 die from global flu pandemics. I’m not saying it’s weird in itself to get emotive about the deaths in the current pandemic, but if considered in the context that the media hasn’t got emotive about deaths in previous pandemics which have been comparable in number, yes I find it odd, disingenuous.

          1. Nigel

            There’s nothing odd about it when you relate the number of deaths in the US with Trump’s appalling response. The only disconnect is if you try to disconnect the deaths from Trump’s mismanagement. I’m sure if you could make the argument that the seasonal flu figures are as much a result of incompetence and mismanagement as of the flu itself, you could probably rile up a similarly emotive front page.

          2. f_lawless

            Seems like you’ve become so obsessed in your hatred for Trump that you’re unable to think objectively.. Is just Trump to blame, for example, for relatively poor population health, a for-profit healthcare culture that’s unequipped to respond adequately – PPE not produced in the US, etc.

          3. Nigel

            Really? I feel sickeningly justified in my conviction that only idiots and cynics and sociopaths would think it’s a good idea to have Trump in charge of a country in any sort of a crisis, though everything you refer to is also, of course, part of the the march to power of the modern right. If there is any objective case that the Trump administration hasn’t been awful and exacerbated the crisis I’ve yet to hear it. Excluding the performance of Trump from the facts of the situation is the opposite of objective.

        2. Who am I now

          f_lawless – just when I think you can’t be even more of a contrarian you come on here and troll this chap about the flu, fair fupping play, I don’t how you scrape the bottom of the barrel every week but yet somehow you always manage to plummet to ever more obscure depths

          it’s a special talent you have for this dredging

  3. bisted

    …how are the tests going on that wonderdrug that’s been touted on Broadsheet for months – oxymoronforquininne?

    1. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

      I’d question myself if i ever found myself agreeing with Ivan Yates…

          1. Paulus

            Genuine question here, not trying to be divisive:
            How does anyone decide which English team they’re going to follow?

            With music, I think it’s pretty clear, you listen to an artist any you either like them or you don’t. You read a book from an author you haven’t read before, like it, and resolve to read more of the same…or not. Following on from these exposures you become a fan or you don’t.

            Many people follow their local team, town, county whatever, for loyalty and familiarity reasons – which is perfectly understandable.
            And I can understand the pleasure in seeing any sport played well, but how does someone decide to follow a particular English soccer team, to the fanatical, to my mind, farcical exclusion of all others, and then have it become such a prominent part of their lives…to the point where some of you will even know who Ivan Yates supports.
            It’s always been a mystery to me.

          2. Bertie Theodore Alphege Blenkinsop

            I don’t get your point.
            I’m unfortunate enough to work in an office where Newstalk is played. Phil Thompson, ex-footballer turned pundit calls Ivan regularly and they discuss the merits of their teams, Thompson being Liverpool FC where he grew up and captained and Yates being Man City. You don’t need to be a football supporter to know Yates’ allegiance.

            Regarding supporting teams, my Grandad went to work in Liverpool in the 50’s and supported Liverpool, my Da followed them and now I do in turn. I think that’s how most kids get their allegiance although I’ve also heard that some kids now pick a player, like say Ronaldo and support the team he plays for.

          3. Clampers Outside

            My younger brother picked QPR because a good player for them at the time had our family surname….
            He’s seen them, or should I say, followed them, yo-yo through the rankings a few times, right down to Division 2 and back up to Premier over the past 20+ years… Does his head in, but he loves it.

            Bless :)

          4. Rosette of Sirius

            There were two reasons for me. Parents emigrated to Liverpool in the late 50s and returned home just before I was born in 1970. Sisters were born there and my mum had a couple of sisters there before they moved so as a family, we had a connection to the city. The second reason is, as a kid Steve Heighway was my favourite player – probablly because he was my Dad’s and that was that.

            Tho I was never a fanatical football supporter, I always followed the scores on saturdays and watched MOTD with my Dad. However, in my late teens, I realised the utter ridiculousness of the fanatical support one for British clubs – or any club and not just football.

            I enjoy most sports for what they are and am fairly ambivalent about an outcome save for our various national teams. That said, I have found myself getting a little excited at Liverpool’s prospects this season pre-C19.

    2. GiggidyGoo

      Might be more to do with the opening of racing, and the possibility of english hosses owners having to go into quarantine.

  4. Johnny

    Rather than constantly having link/cut and paste I set up at twitter ac “@DeadBeatDennis” to collate and keep in one spot articles/analysts reports/court news as Digicel grinds its way through the bankruptcy courts in NY.

    If important breaking news I will try post a comment and once a week provide comments/updates.I dont have any Irish subs and with exception Frank Connolly follow any Irish journalists, so I”m going miss some or most ‘irish’ reporting.

    The bankruptcy is fascinating and was totally avoidable,it involves greed, too much leverage, private jets and lots the Clintons.

    Most the major backstory is on the feed so I’m going discuss what MAY happen as Digicel works its way through bankruptcy.

    Reuters/Nasdaq and many other outlets have reported that China Mobile has been running a pencil over Digicel’s operations in the Pacific.

    Most what follows is from this excellent piece – China Mobile’s proposed purchase of Digicel Pacific will determine the bankruptcy proceedings and how its viewed by US/Australia.

    Australia for geopolitical reasons is following the bankruptcy very closely as is the US.

    The whole China thing could also simply be a red herring to generate some positive news for a company that was stripped of all its cash by Irelands richest man, part of which he parlayed into BFF status with the Clintons.

    One the objectives of the twitterAC as he’s stiffing mainly US bondholders is to get Digicel on the radar of Judicial Watch/Breibart,whch covered Dennis/Clintions before last election.

    Dennis future is now in the hands of the US Federal Judicial System.

    https://www.afr.com/companies/telecommunications/concern-as-china-targets-pacific-mobile-networks-20200513-p54sls

        1. Johnny

          DOB recently claimed that INM was his biggest mistake-so there’s a nice pic INM headquarters on Talbot Street.

          As usual I got the ‘name’ wrong its ‘DeadBeat Tennis” or @DennisDeadBeat as DeadBeatDennis was already taken by another deadbeat:)

          Reached out Breibart this morning will also try Tom at Judical Watch-buckle up this is going be a bumpy ride for Dennis.

          I’d happily do ‘write ups’ as posts but the insane outdated libel laws in Irl prevent me and I don’t want get JR/Sheet in any legal trouble so comments it is.

          If Dennis is looking for me he can find me easily enough exercising my first amendment right!

      1. Johnny

        I think theres a update on its way-they take forever and often after putting in hours of work it dispiriting when the trolls attack-I just found it hard to put that much work in and get attacked specially the overly ad homien stuff.
        Not I sound like a little girl :)

        So far I’ve reached out Daily Caller,Tom at Judicial Watch linking the looting,sorry dividends of over 1 billion from Digi,with the BK and the extremely large Clinton Foundation offshore donations ,topped off with a China state co trying buy the pacific assets….

        This is red meat for that crew or chum:)

  5. Fintan Frobisher

    I know quite a few people enjoying this lockdown immensely.
    Most were part-time workers who did a few hours to earn beer money and put a few bob towards their annual holiday.
    Then along came Santa Claus with €350 a week no questions asked.Happy as Larry.Why not spend the summer getting a free tan and supping slabs of suds in your back garden ?
    The trouble is when it’s May 24th and you can’t be arsed to form a new government after an election back on February 8th.
    And the media has spent most of that time smugly comparing Ireland’s response to the UK instead of demanding to know why Ireland’s nursing home deaths are the worst in the world when your main medical expert predicted only a handful of isolated incidents in the population on March 2nd.
    And you don’t think the electorate should be able to watch you being asked these difficult questions on live TV at 5pm every night.
    And you see the fear you’ve instilled in otherwise intelligent people that makes them wear a face mask while out walking their dog in the open air.
    And you’ve got a gormless Muppet from Cork as an opposition leader.
    Then why on earth should give a toss ?

    1. Johnny

      -the brits numbers are simply off the charts,dont follow the news of a dying empire but came across these reading up on Oz/Digicel,its bordering on euthanasia or negligent homicide by the brits.

      -As of Monday morning, Australia, with its 25.5 million people, had recorded a total of 7,054 infections and 99 deaths, according to Worldometers. That’s 277 infections and four deaths for every million people. In the United States, the per capita figures were 4,619 infections and 275 deaths per million by Monday; in Britain, 3,592 infections and 511 deaths per million.-

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/opinion/coronavirus-australia.html

      1. Fintan Frobisher

        You seem to have conveniently missed out the important fact that Ireland has a worse death rate per capita than the United States.
        Easy mistake.
        The Irish media make it all the time in their rush to compare with the UK.
        And you mentioned Australia. 85th in the table.
        Ireland is 8th.
        Doh !

        1. Johnny

          – I really don’t follow it as someone who doesn’t like most other people I haven’t found the whole quarantine too bad:)

          -NY is a disaster zone I flew back from LA in mid March and have been in/out Brooklyn and Soho a few times-its simply awful Cumo/Di’Blassio (NY) should resign-Newsome/London (Cali/SF) did a great job.

          -the irish media is embarrassing at this point,the IT hack this weekend was once again scaremongering and misrepresenting what Trump said.

          -reporting to fit bias

          -he was referencing the Irish Pharma industry as a counterweight to the hysteria in States that China,China controls the Pharma pipeline and PPS gear.

          -in response he pointed out how important Ireland is to the US-not in threatening way in fact it was to reassure the nervous yanks that Ireland will help out the US if required.

          -instead reporting that the hack at IT misrepresented it as a ‘threat’ to Ireland-how many times has this been exaggerated and misreported by the IT…

          https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/us-election-could-spell-trouble-for-irish-economic-model-1.4260182

        2. scottser

          And you have missed the obvious fact that the numbers can’t be trusted because few countries have anything like a robust testing regime. As for your game of national Covid one-upmanship, I hope you enjoy playing it on your own.
          silly.

          1. Fintan Frobisher

            Somehow I doubt you’d be talking about a robust testing regime if the UK had the Irish figures.
            Your hypocrisy is not surprising however given your myopic posting regime on here.

      2. SOQ

        Punch down why don’t you? Anyone trying to pay a mortgage/rent and bills out of €350 a week won’t be going far afterwards. The people who really have an interest in keeping the lock down going are mainly professional because they are working from home on full pay without the associated costs and commute times. And, most of them are not doing a full days work either. They even get tax relief while doing it.

        If Britain is so together then why are they still building Nightingale hospitals eh? https://twitter.com/i/status/1263114706807599105

        Although I do agree on stupid masks in the open air.

        1. ReproBertie

          “ most of them are not doing a full days work either.”

          Didn’t notice you popping round the house there. I’m actually working longer days during this lockdown and I know I’m not alone but carry on spouting your groundless nonsense.

          1. SOQ

            Maybe you are but I know quite a number who are getting nice sun tans. It depends on your work of course but quite a lot of jobs cannot be done 100% from home- fact.

            Home working is great and I am all for it but in these forced circumstances- across the board, productivity is way down.

    2. SOQ

      Punch down why don’t you? Anyone trying to pay a mortgage/rent and bills out of €350 a week won’t be going far afterwards. The people who really have an interest in keeping the lock down going are mainly professional because they are working from home on full pay without the associated costs and commute times. And, most of them are not doing a full days work either. They even get tax relief for it.

      If Britain is so together then why are they still building Nightingale hospitals eh? https://twitter.com/i/status/1263114706807599105

      Although I do agree on stupid masks in the open air.

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Gas alright when €350 is being bandied about as some massive sum. But to put it in context, the average rent per week in Dublin is €410 approx.

    3. V'ness

      I’ll go along with your gormless Muppet from Cork

      However Mary Lou is the leader of the opposition
      The GE20 campaign and the subsequent results bare that out
      So you can eat that with thistles on

      The gormless Muppet from Cork
      Is the leader of the Confidence and Supply team alright
      Or as I’ve started saying
      Leo’s congealed twin

    4. Daisy Chainsaw

      Livin’ it large on €350 a week, eh? Do they walk around with 2 pints in each hand or something?

  6. V'ness

    ‘not calling anyone a liar
    Or a chancer
    Or anything

    But anyone buying the story that RTÉ were sniffing around the Joes and Hers with 10 plus million rattling around their pockets

    We know this crowd Maximun Media are no strangers to bigging themselves up
    Over inflating numbers with artificially enhanced activity stats and the like

    So I’m sure the SBP and the Journo must have been satisfied about their facts – twice and three times over even

    So wtf were RTÉ at then
    If tis true like

    Dee Forbes and her Chair / BoD had no business going to the trouble to draw up numbers for that Max Media Crowd
    Where would they even find that kinda stray cash?
    Or just as importantly, were they influenced in any way to bring the Joes into the National Broadcaster’s Family

    If that kinda money was available for Strategic Investment/ Acquisitions then why didn’t the iPlayer get a look in
    Or f’n decent and original content that didn’t start with, or need to be shared with the BBC, and others.

    Pretty careless to be coming up with offers, even in early 8 figs, without any due diligence, which should have kiboshed any interest in that company anyway
    If tis true like

    Still, it explains and paints a picture of the State of RTÉ ‘s financials way better than I ever could ⊙.☉

  7. Rosette of Sirius

    Looking more likely that Cummings is for the chop. The sheer hypocrisy of it all….

    1. Rob_G

      he really reminds me of Phil Collins- not just the fact that he’s bald, but that kind of smug, smirking air about him.

  8. Who am I now

    Already have Giggidy. They are a total scam. A friend worked for one and echoes O’Callaghan’s comment here.

    1. GiggidyGoo

      After their stuffing the People’s Assembly, and getting caught, that was a very public eye opener of RedC.

  9. Ringsend Incinerator

    36,000 dead and they’re jumping up and down about Cummings. Granted he is a noxious, insidious individual, but if you have to politicise COVID-19 measures to get him, then your priorities and abilities are up your bottom.

    1. Chuckenstein

      They’re jumping up and down about both. No harm in looking for some consistency in how standards are applied.

  10. SOQ

    So- it turns out it was the Imperial model is what prompted the US lock down?

    How is God’s name did this guy have so much influence when every single thing he predicted previously was wrong- VERY WRONG.

  11. Rob_G

    I hope now that when some posters here complain about people ‘obsessing’ .over the IRA’s violent past: here is the current leader of Sinn Féin lamenting how she missed out getting involved in all of the mayhem, and how the IRA murdering ordinary workers and burning alive the Collie Club was “justified”.

    1. Rosette of Sirius

      Rob, it’s not that they’ve ‘not gone away’, it’s that they’ll never go away. They clearly fetishize the fantasy of their version of the republican struggle and will always do so.

    2. Ringsend Incinerator

      You’re being permanently outraged on the behalf of others – most of whom are cocooners.

      1. Rob_G

        I’m far from a cocooner and I am old enough to remember the IRA’s crimes. Paul Quinn would only be about 34 today, if he hadn’t been bludgeoned to death by the IRA in a cowshed.

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