Global unity is needed if we are to tackle this pandemic

THERE is much discord brewing within society regarding the incongruity of inward international travel to Ireland from locations internationally where the Covid19 virus is surging.

It raises the question: should public health be policed by the politicians and public officials at all in these pandemic times?

Smoking and drinking to excess are very bad for your health, but cigarettes and alcohol aren’t banned. Actually, governments have profited from excise duty and the old reliables for tax income generation. There’s been much talk about pub reopenings – but drinking alcohol isn’t an essential activity of daily living during a global pandemic.

If governments globally or nationally are going to intervene in matters of public health during the unprecedented global pandemic of Covid-19, and want the population to comply with their interventions, the measures that governments introduce need to be properly based on scientific evidence, and consistently and congruently applied.

At present, government interventions in many countries internationally, including Ireland, are haphazard and disjointed. It seems that the current measures being introduced by many developed countries to stem the spread of Covid-19 are becoming much more clearly driven by political and economic considerations.

It is also incomprehensible how, internationally, political decisionmakers are ignoring the sound historical lessons of previous pandemics at grave peril to humankind. This virus is surging internationally with slightly in excess of 230,000 new cases announced in one day by the World Health Organisation yesterday.

It is abundantly clear that until we can get a vaccine, this virus is humanity’s enemy number one, threatening to collapse healthcare systems, societies and economies. The virus’s ongoing surge will continue to cause havoc and challenge humanity, politically, socially, psychologically and economically, until world political leaders unite to develop a global strategy to tackle this 21st century plague.

PAUL HORAN, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing & Midwifery,

Trinity College Dublin.

Folly in Florida

FLORIDA is currently the fourthhighest ranked ‘country’ for the most new Covid-19 cases a day, except that it’s not a country, it’s just one of the 50 US states.

It should be time to shut its borders and for its population to go into isolation at home, but what happens instead? Walt Disney World is reopened.

The Disney ads proclaim it as the ‘most magical place on Earth’, and it must truly be magical if there are no further cases of virus spread. The Disney site should take the opportunity to set an example by staying closed and telling people to find the magic in their own lives. DENNIS FITZGERALD,

Melbourne, Australia.

Football’s own goal

I COULDN’T agree more with Martin Samuel that football lawmakers have made a Horlicks of handball (Sportsmail).

The introduction of VAR and the continual meddling with the laws of the game have resulted in fouls being invented and appalling decisions being made. You can’t afford to celebrate a goal until you have waited for VAR to give its verdict. Stop trying to make football an exact science. Turn the clock back or teams will be permanently playing to empty stadiums and not because of coronavirus.

PAUL MARSH, by email.

Bad hair days

COME on, ladies, be honest. How many of us have just had our longawaited hair appointment only to find we have been left with hair that’s far too short and the wrong colour because we didn’t get a booking with our usual stylist? It’s not what we wanted at all.

BRENDA WILLIAMS, by email.