Tag Archives: Lockdown

This afternoon

A nationwide campaign is launched to “resuscitate the Irish yoga industry” ahead of World Yoga Day this Sunday.

It is estimated that more than 300,000 people practice yoga regularly in Ireland.

Colm Walsh, of Yoga Dublin, writes:

The Association of Irish Yoga Studios was recently formed to get Ireland’s yoga studios back open, and to keep an industry that was thriving just a few months ago, viable in the future.

They are highlighting that the higher VAT rate for individual service providers has been erroneously applied to yoga studios which are businesses which have fixed overheads, running purpose designed facilities with associated costs, rates, insurance and staff wages.

Unlike yoga studios, gyms had their incorrect classification rectified in 2012.

Several yoga studios have closed permanently since April, and the Minister of Finance must act now to save the rest of the yoga industry in Ireland.

Yoga studios have never been properly VAT classified and this incorrect VAT rate is crippling them as facility providers.

Illustration by Andrew Kavanagh

Professor Alan Barrett this afternoon

This afternoon.

At a Special Covid Committee meeting in Dáil Éireann.

[Non-medical] Professor Alan Barrett, Director of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) spoke about the possibility of ‘geographical lockdowns’ and ‘surgical interventions’.

He said:

“That notion of having much more sort of targeted lockdowns and, I remember this came up in a discussion that one of my colleagues sitting around the table discussing epidemiology matters was making the point that when you have viruses in animals. OK, it’s very, very clear, you sort of lockdown the group of animals or whatever like that. And you just make sure they don’t move around.

Now at the time it sort of seemed inconceivable that we would think about a human virus in the same way we would think about a virus affecting animals.

But I think, you know, we can actually imagine a situation that geographically, in some shape or form, if a virus could be contained, it would be better to contain one part of the country rather than the whole area or the whole country.

“So I certainly think we should be moving in a direction of having much more sort of surgical lockdowns … surgical interventions to the extent that we can.”

Hmm.

Meanwhile….

Orla writes:

‘I’ve been wondering if people have considered changing where they live because of Covid and in case there’s another pandemic down the road..feels like there might be some kind of virus decentralisation.’

Anyone?

 

Today’s New York Post

Um.

This afternoon.

Via The New York Post:

Meanwhile, the city is welding playground gates closed to keep out children — who barely register as COVID-19 cases, let alone transmit it significantly.

For all the talk of being guided by “the science,” our decision-makers are actually ignoring the science as they play favorites.

The double standard is obvious, and erodes the trust of the public who admirably adhered to this era-changing lockdown. Why believe anything the governor, the mayor or the media tell you when they set one rule for certain people and one rule for others….

Couldn’t happen here, obviously, but still.

FIGHT!

There’s a double standard from pols and the media with protests and coronavirus (New York Post)