Rude Health

The G20 summit will be asked later this year to consider new anti-virus measures, writes who is converted to savouring a juicy red apple a day

Shepherd’s plan

Considering how expert we have all become on matters to do with international viruses, it’s surprising that so few are looking anywhere beyond a vaccine for controlling our current pestilence. Even if a jab or sugar lump does come, this year or next, the various emergences of coronavirus in recent decades suggests the genius of a young Artemis Fowl will be required to outwit it. Former British prime minister David Cameron retired to a €30,000 garden shed after his spell in Downing Street, but he hasn’t put the downtime in his shepherd’s hut to waste. He doesn’t trust the world’s politicians to fix the World Health Organisation’s lumbering response to future viral outbreaks and is suggesting that the G20 meeting scheduled for Saudi Arabia next November sets up a dedicated Global Virus Surveillance Organisation. He wants it to be new, nimble, open, fast, science-based, non-political and independent. Good luck with that! It sounds like the perfect health service we all want but nobody ever had.

An apple a day

Apparently 42pc of us own up to putting on weight during lockdown. The other 58pc haven’t eaten as well as I have. I haven’t stood on my trusted Seca mechanical scales for over a year now, but, coming out of lockdown, I had a sneaking suspicion it could be a while before a slim-fit shirt would fit over my head again. Digestive biscuits are best friends and worst enemies in pandemic times. I have broken the habit of taking three or four at a time from the glass cookie jar, and replaced it with the slicing and dicing of a juicy red apple. Apples may not keep doctors away from themselves, but I have found that slow chomping of this fibrous fruit, skin and all, induces a postprandial fullness that lasts a good many hours. It’s a valuable first step against biscuit addiction.

Kid’s meal

There is an interesting contrast in the way children are considered in Ireland and the UK. I was struck by the letter to Boris Johnson last month, signed by 1,500 British paediatricians demanding that he either sends children back to school or risks “scarring the life chances of a generation of young people”. No such hyperbole in Ireland, where missing school days for bank holidays, staff training or electoral requirements is almost a national pastime. In the same week, Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford singlehandedly twisted the arm of government into providing free school meals to vulnerable children when schools aren’t open this summer.

The concept of school meals for disadvantaged kids is a recent addition to the Irish education system. Schools apply with a bundle of paperwork to a special office in the Department of Social Protection to receive 60 cents for breakfast, with an extra euro or two for lunch or dinner. I didn’t hear any

Irish footballers calling for that scheme to be continued into the summer. To be fair, children’s allowances are more generous in Ireland. The UK pays €23 a week for the first child but penalises subsequent children with a measly €15. A family with five children in Ireland receives €8,400 a year. The same family in Britain gets just €4,400.

Bonny drink

Scotland is poster-boy for the minimum pricing of booze. It’s two years now since our bonny cousins bit into their haggis and became the first country in these parts to impose a price on alcohol than nobody can under-sell. Scotland had a serious national drink problem. Hospital admissions related to alcohol were unsustainable, particularly in deprived areas. The average Scot was consuming 10 litres of pure alcohol every year. The minimum price they came up with was 50 pence per unit of alcohol. The measure, or should that be half-measure, has had an effect. Sales of alcohol have reduced by about 5pc. Early studies suggest the average Scot is consuming half a pint of beer less a week. Heavy drinkers are down by a pint. Minimum pricing has been a boon for English supermarkets close to the border. Canny Scots stock up there on take-home brew. With Stormont up and running, Ireland north and south could be in line to follow suit, with minimum prices both sides of the Border. The next programme for Government says we are going ahead ‘in consultation’ with the North. If you’d like a bottle of table wine with enough change from a tenner for a newspaper, you might need to head for France or Spain.

Dr Maurice Gueret is editor of the

Irish Medical Directory