Health – Page 11 – Slugger O'Toole

Northern Ireland is about to learn the cost of lies

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on June 6, 2020, 9:12 pm

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“What is the cost of lies?” This is the question posed by Valery Legasov in the HBO mini-series Chernobyl, about the lies of the Soviet authorities in the lead up and aftermath of the 1986 disaster in what was then the Ukrainian SSR. The British government has stated that it will not be seeking an extension to the transition period with the EU following the UK’s exit from the union in January. It therefore appears likely that Northern Ireland will …

The UK now has more daily deaths from Covid than the rest of the entire EU put together…

Brian O'Neill on June 5, 2020, 8:27 am

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From BBC Newsnight on Wednesday night: “The UK now has more daily deaths from Covid than the rest of the entire EU put together.” #Newsnight's Political Editor @nicholaswatt talks us through the latest #coronavirus data 👇 WATCH 👇 pic.twitter.com/odLY0L4jfS — BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 3, 2020 Boris Johnston did promise the UK would be World beaters… Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. …

With the R number across the UK and Ireland less than one, what lessons can be learned from the United States on re-opening safely?

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on June 5, 2020, 7:30 am

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The Northern Ireland Executive announced that there will be further loosening of lockdown restrictions next week, following the Department of Health announcing that the R number (the average number of people an infected person will pass the virus to) in Northern Ireland is currently between 0.7 and 0.9. It appears that R is holding steady at less than one across the UK and Ireland. The chart above shows estimated values for R across the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, …

Our New Class System During The Coronavirus Pandemic…

Michael Palmer on June 2, 2020, 10:18 am

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The coronavirus pandemic has completely reordered the world as we know it. Simple, everyday things that we took for granted such as shopping or going to the gym or bars have either been taken or been severely restricted for the good of public health. In these restrictions that have become the new normal has emerged a new class system in all societies all over the world: Essential Workers and Shielders. A third group are those who fall somewhere in between. …

What is the evidence for and cost of lockdown?

Terry Maguire on May 31, 2020, 8:34 am

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Many are doubtlessly bored with protracted and pedantic discussions on the rights and wrongs of lockdown as a tool to mitigate Covid19 deaths. No one is dispassionate; we are either for and resistant to opening up or against and demanding our economy and our grannies back. As England moves to lessen restrictions there are concerns from SAGE advisers that now is too early accompanied by a whiff there might be protest resignations from our academic boffins if their views are …

The COVID-19 R number in Northern Ireland has drifted back up towards 1 since the partial lifting of the lockdown restrictions

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 30, 2020, 7:30 am

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The COVID-19 basic reproduction number, or R, has become the most crucial metric for policymakers as they start to tentatively reopen the economy following the lockdown measures that were implemented in March to halt the spread of the disease. Lockdown measures will only be relaxed when the R value is below one. To attempt to calculate the R value for Northern Ireland, I used Imperial University’s EpiEstim app, which provides estimates for the reproduction number from daily case count data …

Cancer and Me – A look back with candour…

Lynda Tavakoli on May 30, 2020, 7:00 am

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It’s time. Time to look back with candour on the thirty odd years since my breast cancer diagnosis and time, too, to write it down the way I experienced it, warts and all. But let’s start by getting one thing straight – I have not been on some kind of ‘journey’ cancer or otherwise; nor have I been fighting some almighty battle that is somehow meant to define my strength as an individual. I have simply been getting on with …

Attire for a pandemic. Let’s mask up…

Terry Maguire on May 29, 2020, 7:24 am

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My daughter who studied fashion at Uni. has found a lucrative niche in designer cloth face-masks and they’re proving popular with her fashion-conscious peers and their trendy mothers. My other daughter, teaching overseas, cannot leave her apartment without a surgical face-mask – the blue ones – and off course internationally there is more and more pressure to make the wearing of face-masks in public mandatory. Face-mask fashion is de rigueur, the modern equivalent of the late-medieval Plague Doctor’s attire with …

Why wait for a Covid-19 vaccine; could we consider “natural vaccination”?

Terry Maguire on May 27, 2020, 7:00 am

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The race is on and the stakes high. A safe and effective vaccine in the near future is the best chance we are told of controlling a virus that brought so much death and economic destruction in the first half of 2020. A vaccine without side-effects administered to the whole population and giving total protection is what we seek but are unlikely to achieve. Things just don’t work this way, but that should not stop us trying. There is already …

Sewage monitoring could be one of the most effective weapons in the battle against the coronavirus

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 26, 2020, 7:26 pm

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A recent paper from Yale University has raised hopes that monitoring of sewage could provide a key early warning indicator of a community outbreak of the coronavirus. Researchers compared the amount of virus RNA found per mL in primary sludge collected from a wastewater treatment facility in New Haven, Connecticut in the United States, with the number of positive new cases in the community from mid-March until the end of April. The chart below shows the amount of virus RNA …

“Most people believe social care should be free, but there’s a lot of confusion out there”

Paul Gosling on May 25, 2020, 9:02 am

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Social care must be reformed. If it wasn’t clear before the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become tragically obvious over recent weeks. So this is an opportune time to hear in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast from Deirdre Heenan, professor of social policy at Ulster University and joint author nine years ago of a major study into Northern Ireland’s health and social care system. “The vast majority of people accept and want the NHS to be free at the …

The United Kingdom now tops the global table for weekly COVID-19 deaths per capita

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 25, 2020, 7:30 am

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With the Dominic Cummings saga dominating the front pages of British newspapers, data from Our World In Data indicates that the UK has overtaken Sweden and Belgium to become the country with the most COVID-19 deaths per capita for the week ending the 23rd of May. The chart below shows deaths per capita by week for countries that have been most severely impacted by the pandemic. Data for the most recent week (ending 23rd May) was estimated for Northern Ireland …

The benefits of growing your own fruit and veg…

Lisa Wells on May 24, 2020, 7:00 am

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In the current climate of lockdown we are moving into the slow lane and finding it offers time to focus, observe and maybe start hobbies that we perhaps didn’t have time for until now. One of those is definitely gardening and growing your own food. I had previously grown salad veg in my garden and have fruit trees. I always enjoyed being able to eat something freshly picked, there’s nothing quite like the homegrown taste. And yet gardening even on …

If I had to do lockdown again, I would cut back on media…

Brian O'Neill on May 23, 2020, 8:33 am

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In my younger years, I used to backpack around the world. One time I met an Australian girl who mentioned that she never consumed any news at all. This has always stuck in my mind. I was amazed and asked her was she not worried about missing out on anything important? Her insightful reply was that if it were important enough people would tell her. She gave the example of 9/11. The day after 9/11, someone said to her ‘Did …

Slugger TV – the devolved nations fightback episode

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 22, 2020, 9:15 am

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This month, in episode 38, Slugger O’Toole’s deputy editor David McCann talks to Irish News journalist Allison Morris and Andersontown News columnist Andrée Murphy about the performance of the Northern Ireland Executive, the legacy of different devolved government strategies to ease the COVID-19 lockdown, and the Irish Government’s lack of cross-border consultation about their plans. Edited by Alan Meban and also broadcast (as a slightly shorter 30 minute edit) on Belfast’s community TV channel NvTv tonight at 20:35.

Social Security and Covid-19: An inadequate response to crisis…

Ulster University on May 21, 2020, 3:41 pm

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By Ciara Fitzpatrick, Ulster University, School of Law Lockdown due to the Covid-19 global pandemic has had far reaching consequences for life as we know it. The economic repercussions will be huge – recent analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has shown a 10 percent spike in unemployment, equating to around 2 million more people out of work in the UK. In the three weeks to 9 April, 45,000 new claims were made for Universal Credit (UC) in …

“Epidemiologically, we’re all one Ireland”

Paul Gosling on May 18, 2020, 9:02 am

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It is clear that health services in both Northern Ireland and the Republic will need to be reformed as our society recovers from Covid-19. They need to be more resilient and flexible to cope with both underlying existing demand and the capacity to cope with the current and possible future pandemics. Reform was already planned in both jurisdictions – the Bengoa plan in the north and Sláintecare in the south. But could reform be even more effective – in terms …

Who could disagree with the UK lockdown?

Terry Maguire on May 16, 2020, 7:00 am

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With the lockdown accepted almost as an article of faith it seems reckless in the extreme to even suggest it could be wrong. Apostates are hunted down all over social media and ridiculed, punished and belittled with methods designed by the Church of Scientology and inspired by the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith or maybe their FaceBook accounts are just deleted. Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro received righteous contempt for their foolish suggestions that we could ride-out the …

Not waving but drowning – The need to reduce inequality…

Terry Maguire on May 11, 2020, 9:11 am

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How was your lockdown? Bored by now? I feel life coming back: restaurants getting cleaned, outdoor tables appearing at cafes, more traffic on roads and a general spirit of giddy optimism rising again. We said we would get through it and we have and even before Buoyant Boris announced it, we were making small, tentative baby-steps into a new future as we test our ability to survive in a World with Covid. But we are not returning to from where …

Covid-19 just part of Darwin’s dangerous idea…

Terry Maguire on May 9, 2020, 1:30 pm

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Some years back, the vagaries of cheap air travel and the capriciousness of meetings schedules conspired to place me in central London with a few hours to spare. So I took that rare opportunity to visit the Gothic cathedral that is the Natural History Museum (NHM) to see a Charles Darwin exhibition. In my youth, pathetic in the eyes of my peers, Darwin was my hero; his simple, powerful idea excited me sufficiently to make studying science a joy rather …