From left: Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd; Testing centre at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2 in May
This morning.
People are afraid.
Let’s make them more afraid.
Via Independent.ie
More than 1,300 people have refused a Covid-19 test despite being at risk of the deadly disease after being in close contact with an infected person.
The startling figure showing 1,314 have snubbed the offer of a test was revealed by the HSE to the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response.
Dr Lorraine Doherty, HSE national clinical director for health protection, said they are concerned about people not turning up for tests.
She said: “It shows that the public are becoming disengaged with the idea of having a Covid-19 test if they are symptomatic or if they are a contact, because they understand the implications of having a test and that they would need to restrict their movements.”
…Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd said: “The gardaí may need to call to people’s doors if they refuse to come for a Covid-19 test.”
Multinational companies (MNCs), running their income through Ireland (for tax AVOIDENCE purposes) inflates Irish GDP firgures. Ergo, Irish citizen on the hook for €15.7 billion. Thanks #FFG
Private Eye reporting that there are no checks on where the £18bn in cheap government lending to Covid-hit companies goes once it's with the recipients.
And no strings attached – meaning BA, JCB, Ryanair and more are making huge jobs cuts while being publicly subsidised pic.twitter.com/qJADWsh7va
Taoiseach Micheál Martin arriving for last night’s cabinet meeting at Dublin Castle
This morning/last night.
The Government has agreed that the following countries be included as ‘Normal Precautions on the Department of Foreign Affairs Travel Advice’: Malta, Finland, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia, Greece, Greenland, Gibraltar, Monaco, and San Marino.
Via Merrion Street:
Anyone arriving into Ireland from these countries will not have to restrict their movements. Passengers from any other country outside of those with a Normal Precautions advisory are asked to restrict their movements for 14 days.
The list will be reviewed on a fortnightly basis, based on advice from officials including public health experts.
There is no change to the current policy in respect of travel from Northern Ireland.
The Government will continue with plans to strengthen the existing measures for monitoring passengers who arrive into Ireland, including the introduction of an Electronic Passenger Locator Form, enhanced follow-up procedures, a call centre operated by the DAA, and a proposed testing regime for symptomatic passengers at airports and ports.
Processes to restrict flight or passenger travel in certain circumstances will also be explored.
In conjunction with these preventative measures, there will be a renewed communications campaign across all platforms to ensure maximum public awareness of the latest advice.
The Pandemic is not over and the public health advice remains the same. The safest thing to do is not to travel.’
€800,000 a day is being lost by consumers on foreign travel for flights and holidays forgone. People are being penalised for doing the right thing. Our airlines are vital services but their future can’t be built on the back of this dreadful treatment of customers. #GreenListpic.twitter.com/IMum1nZ54D
— Darren O’Rourke TD (@orourke_darren) July 22, 2020
So the Covid app – on Android – shares your IP address (a rough proxy for location), phone IMEI number, serial number, actual phone number, and email address with Google. Every 20 minutes https://t.co/4ynVIfHRI6pic.twitter.com/Nhlk1v8ClV
Ireland’s Covid Tracker smartphone application is sharing information which could lead to location tracking with Google at least every 20 minutes, the Irish Examiner can reveal.
A new research paper released by the school of computer science and statistics at Trinity College Dublin details the information that is shared – which includes IP address, the handset’s IMEI (its unique identifier which can be used to block its usage), serial number, phone number, and email address – and describes the revelation as being “extremely troubling from a privacy viewpoint”.
The HSE had insisted that the app is completely anonymous and does not track location data.
However, the HSE only controls the public health side of the app, with the exposure notification segment being administered by both Google and Apple via their Google/Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) service.
Meanwhile…
“The HSE has been celebrated in Ireland and beyond for their transparent approach to developing the Covid Tracker app,” said Elizabeth Farries, director of information rights with The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL.)
“However, Google Play Services represent a significant component of the app. Most people, even app developers, are unaware of this level of invasiveness,” she added.
Also.
It has also emerged that the HSE’s side of the app is collating information via the metrics it receives from users which could be used to link all requests sent from the same phone together, akin to a ‘cookie’ footprint left by a computer as it surfs the internet.
A report on the impact of the virus on nursing homes by The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has been published.
Via The Irish Times:
“The State health watchdog was granted an emergency court order to shut down a nursing home over fears residents could not be protected during the coronavirus outbreak.
The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has also revealed none of the 44 homes where there had been confirmed cases of Covid-19 fully complied with regulations to stem the spread of the disease.
…In a report on the impact of the pandemic on nursing homes, Hiqa said it began inspecting homes that had “significant outbreaks” and found shortcomings in management, staffing levels as well as infection prevention and control skills.
The report also outlines the human impact of dealing with the pandemic on staff, residents and their families who contacted HIQA to tell their story.
Residents spoke of the fear of never hugging their family again and of what would happen if a resident of staff member tested positive.
One said he would “not leave the room again until a vaccine was found”.
Others were frustrated and angry that prevention measures meant they were largely confined to their bedrooms and cut out from the friends in the centre.
The only human contact was from staff, many of whom were wearing PPE.
There was also a serious impact on the wellbeing of staff.
One home said “we have some staff that are still out and it is likely they will never return, such is their upset“.
A selfish Dublin city centre shopper’s mask allows her a sneaky supply of fresh oxygen
Stop that!
This afternoon.
Valencia, Spain has placed a ban on wearing masks with valves.
To wit:
The valve allows unfiltered air to escape from the mask into a sterile environment. While there’s no known difference between masks with and without valves in terms of personal protection, a mask with a valve isn’t going to protect the people around you – hence the problem….
In the second part of his investigation into Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes, Aljazeera journalist Laurence Lee looked at Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, County Tipperary.
‘In the mid 1980’s Michael Donovan was working as a gardener in Sean Ross Abbey when he was asked by the Nuns to help landscape an overgrown area of scrub.
Michael said:
“ The tractor drove down this way and turned over the sod and I just noticed lots of small bones”.
That area where Michael found the bones is now a carefully tended burial ground known as the Angel’s plot. But that plot is not all it seems.
Nine years ago the nuns admitted 269 babies died in Sean Ross, a number that could plausibly be buried in this plot but it is now clear that over 1,000 babies died here.
So where are they?
This Photograph (above) was taken in 1974 not long after the Nuns closed the Home, but there is no obvious sign of the Angel’s plot which the nuns now claim was a consecrated graveyard where they buried babies in individual coffins.
However, we’ve established that the area above this hedge (green line) which takes up the top third of the claimed angel’s plot actually contains a pit used by the Nuns for the mass burial of unbaptised babies and stillborns.
Toni Maguire, an archaeologist and anthropologist who specialises in the location and excavation of unmarked graves, says:
“They have no death certificates for these infants and those infants are not included in the 1000 plus babies for Sean Ross Abbey.”
With that area unavailable for the thousand burials, it is even clearer that the remaining area cannot be the true extent for the graveyard.
The most probable scenario is that it in reality extends to a faintly visible pathway (above) on the 1974 picture right up to the walled garden (at left).
And that is a cause of deep concern because of something else we discovered.
This plan produced by Tipperary Town Council was submitted to the Commission. A copy has found its way to us.
It describes a sewage pipe installed in the late 90’s which runs from an inspection hatch directly beside the current Angel’s plot to another inspection hatch at the other end and beyond,
But as we have established that plan is wrong in several important respects.
The inspection hatches are actually situated above (marked in blue) and between them in a project apparently agreed between the Nuns and the council a sewage system has been constructed on land which may well contain child burials.
Our investigation suggests that the system above includes a settlement tank, an overflow pipe here and a sewage outlet pipe cutting through the probable burial grounds and emptying into another tank constructed within the current angel’s plot.
Disturbingly around the same time the sewage system was installed yet more damage was done to the potential burial grounds when they were planted with fast growing conifers.
Toni Maguire says
“what they’ve done they have not planted the trees over the area where the pipes been laid, the roots obviously damaged the pipes and would do exactly the same thing to any burials that may be included in that land as well.”
In early 2019, the Commission ordered a ground penetrating radar survey of the plot followed by test excavations
They still have not said what they found but we can reveal the survey confirmed existence of a tank within the Angel’s plot.’
