Covid 19 / Coronavirus – Page 5 – Slugger O'Toole

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 …

Podcast: #CargoOfBricks talks to Ian Parsley on Northern Ireland’s response to #Covid19

Mick Fealty on May 27, 2020, 1:39 pm

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Well, since everyone else is doing one, I thought I would take a plunge into podcasting with short weekly conversations with someone who I think can add value to our understanding of the changing world around us. This week, I spoke to Ian Parsley whose frequently updated blog you should definitely put on your reading list for its incisive analysis of many aspects government, and most recently for his coverage of Covid 19. In it we cover: How Northern Ireland …

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 …

What can we change to help consume less of the earth’s precious resources – and in doing so, improve our lives?

Soapbox on May 26, 2020, 1:50 pm

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Joan McCoy is President of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and writes in support of #OurChangedPlaceNI – a campaign which asks people what they’d change about the built environment During lockdown, I have been entertained by receiving and sending memes commenting on the current situation – some funny, some less so. One has stuck in my mind though – it was a cartoon of the earth, battered and bruised and coved in bandages – beside an almost equally large …

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 Foster/O’Neill relationship is one that is important for us all.

David McCann on May 24, 2020, 2:35 pm

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SKY News Ireland Correspondent, David Blevins held a joint interview with Arlene Foster and Michele O’Neill which was aired this morning. RTE’s Tommie Gorman has an interesting piece online today about the relationship between the two and some of the previous power-sharing bids in the past which is worth a read. When devolution returned in January this year, there was no fan fare. On that rainy Saturday standing in the Great Hall, all of us who are nerds were watching …

The coronavirus remote working boom has made many modern offices obsolete and the impact on the economy will be profound

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 23, 2020, 5:40 pm

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The announcement this week by Facebook that they would begin to allow most employees to work remotely was among many this week from technology companies announcing similar moves towards remote working. The coronavirus outbreak has seen a massive increase in the number of people working from home. In 2019, only 5% of the UK workforce worked exclusively from home. In April 2020, 39% of workers worked only at home, and whilst this has fallen to 33% over the last couple …

Slugger Podcast – Chris Donnelly on the challenges to education during Covid-19…

Brian O'Neill on May 23, 2020, 3:30 pm

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For episode two of our new Podcast series, I take to Slugger contributor Chris Donnelly. More know to Slugger readers for his political insights, Chris is also a headteacher of Holy Child Primary School in Belfast. In the podcast we discuss the challenges of trying to teach during the pandemic as well as other issues such as the 11plus and the future of education. Have a listen and let me know what you think. You can subscribe to the Slugger …

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.

We need to reopen the park car parks. Keeping them closed is dangerous and discriminatory…

Brian O'Neill on May 21, 2020, 10:18 am

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After two months, I was getting a bit fed up walking around my small local park, so yesterday I decided to bring junior up to Lady Dixon Park for a change of scene. As you may know, they decided at the start of the lockdown to keep parks open but close their car parks. The idea was to discourage people from driving to parks. This was not based on any science, but tabloid mock hysteria about people having the audacity …

Could open streets save our restaurants and bars?

Brian O'Neill on May 20, 2020, 9:07 am

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Covid-19 has severally affected the hospitality industry with most bars and restaurants now closed. At some stage, we need to work out how we can let these businesses safely reopen. I came across a video that proposes a solution – open streets. In simple terms, it means having more outdoors areas for restaurants and bars. Customers will be uncomfortable sitting inside; they will be more relaxed sitting outside in the fresh air. The chances of catching the virus outside are …

Differences over Covid management within the UK shouldn’t be exaggerated but they are provoking a rethink of how the UK is governed

Brian Walker on May 19, 2020, 1:01 am

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Schadenfreude at the state of the United Kingdom is a familiar default sentiment among republicans who comment in Slugger. They believe that mishandling of Brexit and now Covid is evidence of terminal decline. The notion is not limited to those predisposed against the UK . It crosses the community. What encourages the republican- minded depresses unionist Cassandras like Alex Kane. The most eloquent is the Guardian columnist Martin Kettle. To the surprise of many of those watching, and perhaps even …

Covid-19 has forced us to think differently. So let’s take the opportunity to build back better.

Soapbox on May 18, 2020, 3:35 pm

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Councillor Anthony Flynn represents the Ormiston DEA for the Green Party in Belfast City Council Dolly Parton’s Working Nine to Five is without question the anthem of the office worker. The sentiment is familiar to many of us and I might even have sang along to Dolly’s classic at Friday evening work drinks at some point. Covid-19 has put an abrupt end to office life and we’ve been thrust into working from home and in different ways. There’s been little …

Have a listen to this unusual but very catchy Covid-19 charity song – On Horseback…

Brian O'Neill on May 17, 2020, 6:52 pm

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I have taken to listening to RTE Radio 1 early morning show, The Rising Time. The gently introduce you into another Covid-19 Groundhog Day with some relaxing tunes. The other morning I pricked up my ears at a song that started: I like beer, and I like cheese I like the smell of a westerly breeze But what I like more than all of these Is to be on horseback. WTF? Thought I. is this a spoof song? You can’t …

What’s your lockdown luxury?

Lisa Wells on May 17, 2020, 7:02 am

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Is it having a lie in, eating a packet of biscuits with your cuppa or finally watching that box set you’ve been promising yourself? Maybe you’re doing a spot of online shopping. Who hasn’t ordered something online only for it to turn up not quite as expected, or indeed how it was described. I recently ordered a Slanket for my daughter. (A Slanket-a blanket with sleeves!) I got it on eBay so I shouldn’t have been surprised to open it …

Who could disagree with the UK lockdown?

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

| Readers 2481

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 …

The Governor of the Bank of England and Tory back benchers join Boris Johnson to reject the A-word – Austerity

Brian Walker on May 14, 2020, 10:49 am

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Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England Because of Covid 19,“ the UK is facing a mega recession” warns the Institute of Fiscal Studies. It’s hardly a surprise to learn more every day about the dire state of yet another part of the economy. GDP is forecast to slump by 25-30 per cent this quarter, and millions of jobs could be destroyed – with no guarantees about the recovery. Official figures yesterday showed a 5.8 per cent fall in …

Establishment of biosecurity zones could allow different regions of Ireland to safely emerge from lockdown at different speeds

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on May 12, 2020, 11:08 pm

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The Northern Ireland Executive announced their roadmap to relaxing coronavirus restrictions today, following similar publications for England and the Republic of Ireland. Unlike the Irish government’s plan, no dates were released with the plan, although there is an aspiration to progress through the plan’s five stages by the end of 2020. Progress on lifting restrictions depends on the all-important R0 figure, the number of people with Covid-19 who subsequently infect others. However, calculating R0 is difficult and necessarily imprecise. An …

Re-placing Christianity After Lockdown

Jonny Currie on May 12, 2020, 9:45 pm

| Readers 1291

“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near.” – Mark 1:15  “ We will not save a place we do not love. We cannot love a place we do not know.” – Baba Dioum (Senegalese Environmentalist) Ched Myers’ writing on Watershed Discipleship advocates for a Christianity that recognises we are in a watershed moment of interlocking crises of climate, consumption and ecological degradation. He calls for a refocussing of radical Christian discipleship on a bioregional basis of environmental …