Tag Archives: coronavirus

Dublin Airport last Christmas

This afternoon.

The Dáil.

“I think in terms of people booking flights for Christmas to come home, I’d advise them not to do that at the moment.

“I know that’s difficult, I know that’s tough, but Christmas is six weeks away and it is too soon now for people to be booking flights to come home”.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar.

Meanwhile…

Mr Varadkar said there are dangers that international travel could reseed the virus here.

Visitors still welcome.

Good times.

Tánaiste advises not to book Christmas flights home yet (RTÉ)

RollingNews

Tweets from a Covid Cocoon.

By Helen O’Rahilly. who writes:

Cocooning with my ninety-year-old Aunt is not the life I’d imagined when I came back to live in Dublin after 30 years of being a high-flying media executive in London.

From the Groucho Club to our North Dublin coastal cocoon, it was back to earth with a bump. Funny and frustrating, living with the Aunt in our Covid bubble has been quite the eye-opener. Bickering, bitching, masking-up for rare outings, The Stairlift Ascends is a Twitter diary of our time trying to live together, of surviving the pandemic … and each other.

Love, lashings of apple tart, laughter and a longing for trips to Arnotts have seen us through, so far…

Illustrated by Jennie O’Connell.

The Stairlift Ascends (O’Brien Press)

This afternoon

An open letter to Northern Ireland Minister of Health Robin Swann from a group of GPs urging a change of course in the North’s Covid strategy.

Previously: ‘Revise Current Policy And Consider An Alternative Strategy Tailored To Our Nation And Its People’

This morning.

UK’s Talk Radio.

“One of the biggest travesties of Covid, not just the sad deaths, has been the use of data…we’ve had made many mistakes.”

Former head of health analysis at the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) Jamie Jenkins speaking to Mike Graham after the  British government was forced to reissue key charts used to justify a second lockdown after admitting projected fatalities were overstated.

Last week, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) statistician John Flanagan calculated that 900 and 1,200 people ‘who would otherwise have been alive’ if Covid hadn’t struck died in Ireland up to the beginning of October.

The Department of Health’s number for the same period is in excess of 1,900 deaths.

Covid Graphs Wrong: Death Toll Will Not Surpass First Wave (telegraph)

Previously: Morbid Curiosity

 

Don’t worry.

The people who did it want you to know they have your back this time.

Government Buildings. Dublin 2.

This afternoon.

Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe (above) and Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin give an update on the Covid Restrictions Support Scheme.

The scheme will “assist those businesses whose trade has been significantly impacted or temporarily closed as a result of the Covid restrictions’.

Good times.

Government launches the Covid Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS) to support businesses significantly impacted by COVID-19 restrictions (Gov.ie)

RollingNews

Top from left: HSE CEO Paul Reid; Anne O’Connor, Chief Operations Officer, HSE; Dr Colm Henry, Chief Clinical Officer, HSE; and Clare O’Leary, Senior Physiotherapist, Integrated Care Team for Older Persons, Tallaght, HSE

This afternoon.

Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin 2.

HSE CEO Paul Reid (above) leads the weekly HSE operational update on the response to the rona.

Meanwhile…

The minister [Stephen Donnelly] said the Government’s plan is to “open back up in the first week of December”, adding that various methods of doing so will be considered closer to this time.

“It could be Level 3. There is a possibility that it might be Level 2, or maybe a regional approach would be taken.”

He said it is “very much our intention that retail is open for what is their most important time of the year“.

Govt plan is to ‘open back up first week in December’ (RTÉ)

RollingNews

This morning.

Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health, Dr Tony Holohan warns the joint Oireachtas committee on Transport and Communications that “Europe has uncontrolled transmission of the disease…”

More as we get it.

Watch live here

Meanwhile…