Tag Archives: coronavirus

This afternoon.

Dame Court, Dublin 2.

On a day that wet pubs all over the country are allowed to reopen, except in Dubin which is under Level 3 restrictions, a group of diners at the Dame Tavern enjoy, what we must assume, are post-meal or pre-meal pints. The food not only soaking up the alcohol but scaring off the rona, according to experts.

Rollingnews

Earlier: Wet Your Whistle

Update:


“Well, they smell of food.”

Tense moments as Gardai pass by.

Rollingnews

From top: ‘Death’ from Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957); RTÉ News Health Correspondent Feargal Bowers

Uncanny.

Frank Armstrong, writing In CassandraVoices [full article at link below

The Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ says that ‘nine out of ten people in Ireland say RTÉ has been their main media source for accessing information on Covid-19.’

The broadcaster recently launched an initiative against fake news entitled: ‘The truth matters at RTÉ – here’s why,’ claiming:

‘Now that society is grappling with the challenges of a pandemic, and the inescapable anxiety that comes with it, the potential for manipulation of the facts is huge.’

But RTÉ has at times provided an unreliable account of the danger posed by Covid-19 to the Irish public.

Throughout the pandemic RTÉ’s Health Correspondent Feargal Bowers has pointed to the exceptional danger posed by Covid-19, which fits within what Nancy Tomes has called the “killer germ genre of journalism”.

Bower’s describes a Grim Reaper that is redolent of the character of Death from Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal:

‘This virus could visit any of us, at any time, in our homes, or in work.’

‘It does not make an appointment. ‘                                                       

‘Going outside involves a certain roll of the dice.’

‘Inside you may also encounter this intruder.’

‘Like any lottery, there are things people can do to improve their chances.’

‘And hold onto the most valuable prize of all – your life.’

In fact, we are dealing with a virus with an infection fatality rate below 1% according to Nature magazine, or ‘possibly as low as 0.2% or 0.3%,’ according to Lone Simonsen, a professor of population health sciences at Roskilde University in Denmark who has worked at the CDC and National Institutes of Health in the U.S.; others such as Professor Johan Gisecke, a member of the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH) previously suggested a figure as low as 0.1%. The IFR has varied from region to region, with New York, Madrid, London and Lombardy particularly badly hit, but in Africa, as indicated, the IFR appears to be exceptionally low.

With better treatments – especially the use of the generic drug Dexamethasone – and protection of vulnerable groups, chances of survival have improved since the early stages of the pandemic.

This seems evident from the relatively low death toll currently witnessed across Europe, including in Ireland, despite rising case numbers. Many of us also harbour T-cell immunity from other coronaviruses.

Yet Bowers has continued to make factually incorrect claims in a succession of articles, including on September 5, which stated:

‘The World Health Organization says data to date suggests 80% of Covid-19 infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical, requiring ventilation.’

Ventilators are now used sparingly in the treatment of Covid-19, and large orders were cancelled in April. Remarkably, Bowers seems to have copy and pasted that information from a WHO Situation Report from March 6, stating:

‘…data to date suggest that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation.’

The continued use of data from March undermines RTÉ’s credibility and should be a source of embarrassment.

Covid-19 in Ireland: Elusive Facts (Frank Armstrong, CassandraVoices)

Getty/RTÉ

Meanwhile…

Oh.

Meanwhile…

Ah.

Meanwhile…

Stop it.

Meanwhile..

Uncanny.

Snug.

This afternoon.

Newbridge, County Kildare.

Friends Brendan Brogan and Dan Ryan (pic 3) and Tom Smith and Pat King (above) enjoy drinks served by manager Chris Moore (pic 2) in McDonnell’s as wet pubs are allowed to reopen outside Dublin, for the first time since the Covid-19 Lockdown in March.

Eamonn Farrell/Rollingnews

Saturday.

O’Connell Street, Dublin 1.

An Anti-lockdown, anti-face mask demonstration, with protestors including Gemma O’Doherty (Pic 3), is met by a counter demo supporting restrictions (pics 4 and 5).

Rollingnews

Deputy Assistant Secretary General at the Department of Taoiseach, Elizabeth Canavan

This morning/afternoon.

Alternatively…

Anyone?

Level 3.

What does it all mean?

A handy, wallet-sized, cut-out-and-keep guide (via RTÉ News) to the NPHET recommendations agreed by cabinet today.

Explainer: What does Level 3 mean? (Conor Hunt, RTÉ)

Earlier: Cry Threedom

Thanks Edel

Meanwhile…

Senator Michael McDowell

Via The Irish Examiner:

Former tánaiste and justice minister, Senator Michael McDowell delivered a stinging rebuke of Nphet on foot of its recommendation to send Dublin into a fresh lockdown.

Closing down restaurants in the capital will condemn vast swathes of vulnerable, underpaid people to go home to their bedsits, or wherever they are, and spend weeks alone in those premises without proper wages, he said.

Mr McDowell said the decision to lock down has not been scientifically justified.

“It is wrong. It flies in the face of the strategy announced two weeks ago by Government that it was going to open these places again,”

“NPHET does not deserve our respect. The HSE does not deserve our respect. They are implementing policies which are cruel, wasteful, and extremely damaging to our economy and extremely damaging to public health in terms of cancer, psychiatry, psychology, and well-being across the board. It is time we stood up and demanded that these regulations be properly debated in this House.”

Michael McDowell has ‘no confidence’ in Nphet as Dublin lockdown ‘flies in the face of science’ (Irish Examiner

Rollingnews







This afternoon.

Dublin city centre.

Ahead of Level 3 restrictions expected to be announced by the government this afternoon.

UPDATE:

RTÉ News understands that the Cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19 has agreed to adopt all of the National Public Health Emergency Team’s recommendations – including a move to Level 3 for Dublin and a ban on indoor dining for the capital…

Cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19 approves NPHET recommendations (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

From top: Van Morrison; Lyrics to his anti-rona protest song No More Lockdown

This morning.

Via The Guardian:

Van Morrison has described the British government as “fascist bullies disturbing our peace” in one of three new tracks he has written to protest against safety measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19….No More Lockdown also condemns “celebrities telling us what we’re supposed to feel”…Morrison said the songs would be released every two weeks, starting with Born to Be Free on 25 September.

Over to you, Jedward.

Van Morrison criticises ‘fascist bullies’ in anti-lockdown Covid songs (Guardian)

Previously: Bleeding Fleece

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

You hum it, we’ll play it.

Update:

Escalating.

From top: Pre-Covid revelry; Special measures for Dublin

This afternoon.

Legal boffins Dr Oran Doyle and Dr David Kenny are members of the COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory at Trinity College Dublin.

Since the rona outbreak, they have studied the ‘divergence between the announcement of restrictive measures and what is actually prohibited by law’.

You may recall Dr Kenny spoke at a recent Oireachtas Special Covid-19 Committee meeting about possible government overreach and lack of clarity.

Of the new restrictions, Doyle and Kenny write on their blog [at link below]:

It is in relation to the [red marked bullet-point, above] that significant divergence emerges between the Regulations and the Government announcement.

As presented by the Government, this measure prohibits more than two households meeting at any time, whether indoors or outdoors, and with a maximum of six people.

Part of this is included in the regulations and is a legal requirement; a large part is not.

Regulation 5A only applies to events in private dwellings. ‘Private dwelling’ is not defined in the Regulations, but the definition of ‘dwelling’ in the primary statute, which refers to a dwelling including a part of a house, strongly implies that the dwelling is the physical structure in which people live.

It seems to follow that there is no legal prohibition on events in, for example, the gardens of private dwellings.

Still less so is there any prohibition on more than one household gathering in public places outside.

The second way in which the Regulations diverge from the Government announcement is that no numerical limit is placed on the number of people from two households who may gather in a private dwelling.

Moreover, Regulation 5A is not deemed to be a penal provision, meaning that breach of the provision— although unlawful — cannot lead to criminal punishment, nor to enforcement powers for the Gardaí. This was notably termed a “civil offence”, though this is not a term with established legal meaning.

They add:

….it is difficult to read the [red marked bullet point] as an announcement of anything other than legal prohibitions. This impression is then enhanced by the fact that some of the measures contained in that bullet-point are now implemented through legal prohibition, while some are entirely absent from the regulations.

It is hard, without skill in compiling and reading secondary legislation, to know what the law truly requires, and so citizens will inevitably be confused as to what the law is and what they are legally required to do.

All back to mine.

FIGHT!

Special Measures for Dublin: Legal Restrictions and Government Announcements. COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory (TCDLaw)

Top Pic: Eventstock