Covid poses no threat to the vast majority
HOW does a distinguished immunologist like Professor Kingston Mills make the claim that coronavirus is ‘a very serious illness for all ages’, as reported in the Irish Daily Mail (‘Expert warns of further restrictions’, August 3)?
It is now undisputed that Covid19 has shown a markedly low proportion of cases among the undertens. In fact, the severity of cases is directly linked to the victim’s age profile. In a comprehensive analysis published on July 3, the Health Information and Quality Authority found that 79% of Covid19 deaths occurred among over-75s. Many of those hospitalised for coronavirus will have pre-existing health problems, e.g. hypertension, diabetes or pulmonary disease.
A 14-state study conducted in March by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in America discovered that 90% of hospital admissions for Covid-19 had just such an underlying health condition.
So it is clear that far from being a serious illness for all ages, Covid-19 is a potentially deadly disease for a relatively small population segment – mostly the very elderly and infirm – and poses no real threat to the health of the vast majority.
The recent spike in infections among a younger cohort in Kildare and Laois, mentioned in Ronan Smyth’s report, is attributable to some residents of direct provision centres in those counties working in meat processing plants, and either not following – or not being able to follow –
Covid-19 preventative guidelines.
But, as with the fiasco in care homes, the Government seems incapable of targeting these outbreaks with specific, localised measures and instead reaches for the blunt instrument of restrictions on everyone’s liberty.
How else to explain the astonishing decision by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to persist with the shuttering of Ireland’s pubs?
Mr Donnelly cites NPHET’s concerns about reopening pubs to justify what looks increasingly like the scapegoating of a heavily regulated, scrupulously law-abiding sector that is an easy option when it comes to public health policy.
Pubs are the heartbeat of rural Ireland, sustaining 30,000 jobs and the longer this quasi-legal lockout drags on, the deeper the damage inflicted on communities nationwide.
Alarmingly, we are now hearing public health officials talk about making Ireland ‘Covid zero’, i.e. permanently suppress a virus which has evolving strains and we know will recur annually.
Back in March, the same people assured us that lockdown was intended to ‘flatten the curve’. Well, the curve is now flattened but the totalitarian hypochondria has metastasised.
Who will explain to the Irish people that we are going to have to live with some element of virusrelated risk for the foreseeable future, but that this risk is small and must be balanced against the imperative of salvaging our economy and allowing citizens to take responsibility for their health by making their own decisions, rather than being coerced into following ‘advice’ through a sinister Sovietera process of government decree and social shaming.
We, the people, need to collectively insist that as a nation we will not accept the new normal and demand a return to the old normal.
PHILIP DONNELLY, Clane, Co. Kildare.
‘Holy Joes’ hard at work
WHY are they keeping pubs closed for so long? Do they think people who enjoy going to the pub are more irresponsible that the rest of society? The latest cases of Covid are not because of pubs.
It seems that those who are blocking pubs opening must be a bunch of so-called pioneers. Teetotalling, anti-drinking Holy Joes who would love it if all alcohol was banned from society. Good luck on that.
WILLIE MURPHY, Drogheda, Co. Louth.
Dutch ‘courage’
ONE of the reasons why I buy an Irish Daily Mail every day is because, unlike other newspapers, radio and TV, you allow comment you will never see or hear on other media.
I refer in particular to Ian Birrell’s article (August 3) on the reason why no masks are used in Holland. He wrote how the nation’s top scientists, having examined key data and research on masks argued that ‘wearing the wretched things may actually hamper the fight against the disease’. The very next day the Government ordered that we have to wear masks when shopping, etc.
Recently, a website watched by five million that showed a group of doctors discussing the best medicines that help cure the virus was taken down. One wonders if there is a worldwide conspiracy to terrify all into buying a vaccine when one comes out. Keep up telling us the facts as there are so many fictions out there. JAMES O’HANLON,
Dublin 14.
How to honour John
IT seems to me that the most fitting tribute to the late John Hume and his valued concern to respect the totality of relationships that achieved the political settlement that we now enjoy on this island, is for a copy of a statue of him, paid for by public subscription, to be erected, not only in Dublin, but also in Belfast, London, Strasbourg and Washington DC.
JTR McCoy, Dublin 7.