Observations. Satire. Politics. Interviews.
So the week draws to a close with the island of Ireland receiving a visit from the infamous coronavirus. In the circumstances, I guess Storm Jorge provides an appropriate backdrop to unfolding events. Since the Italian outbreak, there’s been a certain creeping inevitability regarding COVID-19 happening upon our shores. In the end, it was a…
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus it is amazing the number of people that have become statisticians of the common flu. Because the clinical presentation of coronavirus is similiar to Influenza it is tempting to compare them I suppose. The basic point of these people is that the common flu is also contagious and kills…
You’ve probably noticed that coronavirus panic has increased several notches over the past week. The revelation of a cluster of cases in northern Italy last weekend, seems to have triggered a media frenzy across Europe. That is very much the case in Ireland too. This has shone a light on testing for the disease and…
Let’s start this article with a very simple proposition. Acting Minister for Health, Simon Harris, is a dangerous fool. Yes – Harris is a smart fool out of his depth in dealing with a crisis of the magnitude of the coronavirus pandemic. One of Harris’s responses to the coronavirus this week has been to appear…
I spent the morning chatting with the HSE on-line support and as I suspected Ireland doesn’t really have a plan to deal with an outbreak of the coronavirus. Basically, if you have any of the symptoms stay at home. And most definitely do not rock up to a hospital or GP Surgery. There could be…
Three Wall Street Journal reporters have been expelled from Beijing by the Chinese Communist Party this morning. Superficially, it follows a number of harsh opinion pieces in the WSJ critical of the Chinese handling of the Coronavirus outbreak. In particular Chinese authorities are aggrieved with one article – an opinion piece entitled ‘China – The…
Chinese communist party officials are reeling today after announcing the death of Dr Liu Zhiming from the novel coronavirus. Dr Zhiming was head of surgery and director of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital. Zhiming was at the forefront of Chinese organisational efforts to fight the outbreak in the Hubei province. Chinese officials initially refused to certify the…
I have been taking a browse through the official coronavirus figures on the website of the World Health Organisation. The latest figures for February 16th 2020 have just been published and are broken down below by Chinese province. There are a number of curiosities. Some might say deliberate falsehoods. As you can see from the…
” This Virus is a demon and we cannot allow this demon to Hide ” President Xi of China I’ve been waiting. Waiting for the Irish media to take a proper run at the corona-virus. As we don’t currently have a government, it’s pointless lashing politicians for the moment, although it would be no harm…
There is significant evidence emerging that the coronavirus outbreak in China is the result of a leak from one of it’s leading Biosafety laboratories. Dr. Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as…