Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘World Health Organisation (WHO)’ Category

Biden: “We Have To Take Care Of The Cure That Will Make The Problem Worse No Matter What” | Video | RealClearPolitics

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Joe Biden is almost certain to be the American Democratic Party Presidential Candidate in November 2020.

Tariq Ali Brilliantly Translates a Baffling Biden Statement About the CoronaVirus into the English Language ;

People are puzzled by this one, but in fact, it’s Biden at his most lucid. What he’s saying is that he needs to be taken into care because even though he is the cure to the Trump virus he will make all the problems worse no matter what.

Comeback Kid 🧒 In Evil 👿 of Two Lessers Saloon

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Ireland Locks Down – Paul Murphy TD “Requisition Personal Protective Equipment For Health Staff Who Need It”

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Statement, Paul Murphy TD

All non-essential work finally being stopped. Construction sites, factories and call centres should now come to a halt, stopping workers and their families being placed in further danger. This has to be matched with requisitioning of Personal Protective Equipment to get it to our health staff who need it, and we need to take-over and direct production in factories to manufacturing PPE and ventilators. Public health before private profit!

Paul Murphy and Supporters, Campaigning Before Irish General Election February 8 2020

Taoiseach Varadkar announces :

stay at home in all circumstances, except in exceptional circumstances such as work and to get essential goods

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Bluebottle Alert – British Prime Minister Johnson and his Health Minister Hancock Have the CoVid-19 Pox – Schadenfreude Moments

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Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister, and Matt Hancock, British Health Minister, Got the Pox – “Ten Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall; And if One Blue Bottle Should Accidentally Fall?; There’ll be Nine Blue Bottles Sitting on a Wall…”

New British Tory Party Logo

British Tory Bluebottle : “Bluebottles, like other flies, are often found on refuse tips, rotting animal matter, dirt and dustbins. They commute from filth to food and carry bacteria on their legs, feet and bodies.
Remedy
Keep dustbins clean, with tight lids and away from doors or windows.”

How did Johnson and Hancock become infected? A detective supplies a big clue

Shaking with Shock or Schadenfreude?

Schadenfreude :

Schadenfreude is a complex emotion, where rather than feeling sympathy towards someone’s misfortune, schadenfreude evokes joyful feelings that take pleasure from watching someone fail. This emotion is displayed more in children than adults. However, adults also experience schadenfreude, though generally concealed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude?wprov=sfti1

A Charming Photo

“Keep Calm & Carry On” Johnson Tells Room Full Of Corpses – Waterford Whispers News

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Close to British CoronaVirus Reality

Vampire 🧛‍♂️ Inspects Victims

EVOKING the daring-do of the great generation that survived World War II, but won’t survive him, Britain’s PM Boris Johnson delivered an impassioned speech to a room of corpses which contracted and subsequently died from Covid-19.

“Keep calm and carry on, ” Johnson bellowed, delighted with how the markets have ‘rallied’ and the pound has ‘jumped up’ in response to his government’s prioritising of profit over people these past two weeks.

Despite the cold and stark surroundings of a near capacity morgue, Johnson, encouraged by the lack of dissenting voices among his captive audience, continued his speech full of vim and vigour.

“We shall socialise on the beaches, we shall congregate en masse on the landing grounds, we shall get pissed in the fields and in the streets, we shall lie to the hilt; we shall never surrender to logic and the haunting pleas from kindhearted nations begging us to save our own people and not make the same mistakes they did.”
— Read on waterfordwhispersnews.com/2020/03/20/keep-calm-carry-on-johnson-tells-room-full-of-corpses/

Stormont Health Minister Robin Swann Offers CoronaVirus Unnecessary Deaths in Ireland – North, South, East and West

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Professor Gabriel Scally came to the attention of many people in Ireland because of his no-holds-barred examination of a Cervical Smear Scandal in the Irish Health Service. https://www.thejournal.ie/scally-review-outsourcing-labs-4677380-Jun2019/

Scally assesses the behaviour of Stormont Government Health Minister Robin Swann (recent leader of the Ulster Unionist Party)

Robin  Swan n Must  Go!
Robin Swann Must Go!

Professor Gabriel Scally writes :

Ridiculous assertion on BBC from N Ireland minister @RobinSwannMoH

“the RoI has worse #corvid19 position than N Ireland.”

The South has more cases. But that’s because they have 32 community based testing stations. The North has ZERO and stopped testing in communities last week https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1240923430318456832

Here is A Sharp Comment

Siubhán O’Connor@siubhanoc·Replying to @GabrielScally and @RobinSwannMoHSwann is so utterly blinded by his bias…ppl in the South with NO SYMPTOMS are getting tested where they are deemed ‘at risk’. Our maintenance man has COPD & has been referred for test. 2 day wait. NI is in serious trouble

The Irish Examiner Reports “Public health specialist Dr Gabriel Scally, Honorary Professor of Public Health in Bristol University, has described the UK’s policy on Covid-19 as “way out of line” with the rest of Europe and advice from the World Health Organisation.

Dr Gabriel Scally
Dr Gabriel Scally

“I think it’s dangerous. Their view really is let this fire burn and they will try and damp it down where they can and spread it out over a period of time. 

“But we know from elsewhere in the world that if countries and communities act fast, this can be kept under control and knocked back.”

The UK approach is similar to the old adage: “Everyone is out of step with our Johnny”, he said. 

“If the UK has got it right, then the rest of the world has got it wrong. And I don’t think that’s likely.

“I think it’s displayed by some of their appalling science that they’re talking about, using herd immunity. 

They are reliant on mathematical modelling but this is not a mathematical modelling issue.

Dr Scally said that if there was one threat to how things are being handled in the Republic of Ireland, it is the UK’s position. 

People in Northern Ireland need to be demanding better from their leaders and they themselves need to do a better job.

“They’re following along blindly this notion that somehow all of the wisdom is emanating from Number 10 Downing Street and we know that to be wrong. 

“Even the United States is taking a more proactive approach than the UK.” https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/closing-borders-would-make-things-worse-says-disease-prevention-and-control-expert-988199.html

Readers should also note from the Irish Examiner report that Public Health Experts Oppose the Closing of Borders

“Dr Agoritsa Baka said that given there is already community transmission of the virus in European countries, “we need to collaborate to make sure everyone can deal with the virus in a coordinated way.”

Closing borders would make things worse, she said and would negatively affect the function of healthcare systems, as was seen during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.

Dr Baka said that if, for example, Germany closed its border “everything, like food supplies, personal protection equipment cannot move around Europe, and it would be a disaster.”

Let’s Get Real – Swann Must Go! The Stormont Health Minister has already guaranteed unnecessary death and illness in the North of Ireland – and, because so many people travel daily across the Irish Border in both directions, Swann has guaranteed unnecessary death and illness in the South East and West of Ireland.

CoronaVirus Kills Orange Marches

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There is a Silver Lining in Every Cloud

Arlene Knits While Virus 🦠 Threatens Mass Murder

Nursing home staff spread coronavirus to other facilities, CDC investigation finds – Los Angeles Times

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This is a scary factual report about the spread of the CoVid-19 illness in an American Nursing Home based in Seattle, Washington State.

A key cause of the crisis was :

low wages in nursing homes and assisted-living centers force many staffers to work in multiple facilities. Certified nursing assistants often make no more than minimum wage, and nurses typically receive less than they do in hospitals.

In addition, a sense of duty and financial stress may tempt employees to come to work sick, endangering elderly residents who have underlying health conditions.

Could this happen in Ireland? The answer has to be Yes.

Of the deaths linked to the nursing home, one was a visitor and the rest were patients.

The advanced age of many long-term care facility residents, their underlying health conditions and their proximity to one another put them at risk for sickness and death, the report said.

Life Care residents infected by the virus ranged from 54 to 100 years old, with a median age of 81.

“Substantial morbidity and mortality might be averted if all long-term care facilities take steps now to prevent exposure of their residents to COVID-19,” the report said.

Infected Life Care workers ranged from 22 to 79 years old.

A spokesman for the nursing home said Wednesday that managers welcomed the CDC report, because it could alert other facilities and lead to new guidelines.

“For us this is all positive, even if there are things they found that we could have done better,” said Timothy Killian, a crisis communications specialist, on behalf of Life Care.

He said that two or three days after the outbreak was discovered, staff members were banned from working at other facilities.

“As soon as we had an idea that this was something that shouldn’t be done, we stopped,” he said.

Killian said that “it’s a relatively common practice” for nurses to work in multiple long-term care facilities.

Dr. Michael Wasserman, president of the California Assn. of Long Term Care Medicine, said that low wages in nursing homes and assisted-living centers force many staffers to work in multiple facilities. Certified nursing assistants often make no more than minimum wage, and nurses typically receive less than they do in hospitals.

In addition, a sense of duty and financial stress may tempt employees to come to work sick, endangering elderly residents who have underlying health conditions.
— Read on www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-18/coronavirus-spread-nursing-homes

“Never Waste A Good Crisis” – Big Economic Recession Coming Our Way – Irish Ruling Class Cuts “Meals on Wheels” – EU Leaders Pour Petrol ⛽️ on Flames 🔥

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An Irish Warning : Sam Nolan reports his HSE “meals on wheels” service has been suspended. Friends and Comrades are rallying, Sam will be supported. Des Derwin reacts, very perceptively :

“I’m speechless. Just as an expanded service is needed. Have y’all noticed how the (Fine Gael!) state is building up its repressive apparatus for the crisis. Templemore early graduation trainees given crash course in public order (read riot control). New standing public order unit. (WTF?!) Scores of hired in Garda cars to ‘help the vulnerable’. Maybe the HSE is transferring the meals on wheels service to An Garda Siochana.”

Former SYRIZA Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis Analyses the European Union Response :

Those of us who know how the Eurogroup works were not holding much hope yesterday. Nevertheless, Europe’s finance ministers managed to do even less than what we feared: They failed to use the fiscal compact’s proviso for loosening up fiscal policy across the euro area. They continued with the tragic error of treating a crisis of insolvency as a crisis of liquidity. And they failed to recognise that some countries, in particular those savaged by the never-ending euro crisis, need a great deal more support than others.
In short, the Eurogroup’s bazooka is no more than a pathetic waterpistol. It is time that Europeans pushed for something better than this. It is time that we organise at a transnational, paneuropean level to replace this instrument of austerity-driven recession, the Eurogroup, with an institution that can work for a majority of Europeans everywhere.

APPENDIX: The Eurogroup’s telling reference to “automatic stabilisers”
The Eurogroup communique referred to the “full use of automatic stabilisers”. What did they mean?
Here is an example of an ‘automatic stabiliser’: When people lose their job, they go on unemployment benefit. This means a transfer of money from the better off to the worse off. As the worse off, who are now unemployed, save nothing and, therefore, more of the money of the better off enters the markets. That’s what economists refer to as an ‘automatic stabiliser’ (‘automatic’ because no government decision was needed to activate it – the loss of jobs does it automatically | and ‘stabiliser’ because the higher portion of spending relative to savings boosts GDP ).
Can you see dear reader what the Eurogroup are really saying when confessing to relying to the ‘automatic stabilisers’ in the absence of concerted fiscal expansion? They are saying: Don’t worry folks. While it is true we, the finance ministers, are doing almost nothing to avert the disaster, when the disaster comes your job losses and poverty will trigger some automatic mechanism that will break the economy’s fall. A little like consoling the victims of the plague with their thought that their death will, through shrinking the labour supply, boost future wages…

Some Proposals for Resistance :

DiEM25’s answer to: What should they have done?
At the very least, the Eurogroup should have recommended to the European Council that the European Investment Bank is given the green light to issue EIB bonds worth €600 billion with the stipulation that, as part of its ongoing and recently enhanced quantitative easing program, the European Central Bank will support the value of these bonds in the bond markets. That €600 billion should be spent directly to support national health services and also be invested in sectors of the economy badly hit by the lockdown – while also nudging our economy toward greener forms of transport, energy generation etc. Additionally, the fiscal compact should be immediately side-lined and governments should effect a tax haircut for small and medium sized firms, households etc.
The above would probably be enough not to avert but to contain the recession to something like between -1% and -2% of GDP. To avert it completely, the Eurogroup should have decided to mimic Hong Kong and have the European Central Bank mint an emergency fund from which every European household is given between €1000 and €2000.

Westminster Government in London and Stormont Puppet in Belfast Planning Virus Mass Murder

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Eamonn McCann, a People Before Profit Derry and Strabane Councillor, argues that, in effect, the Boris Johnson British Government is planning Mass Murder :

But this isn’t really about herd immunity. It’s about a dangerous and reckless drive to keep Britain open for business and maintain profits at all costs

Veteran British Comrade Phil Hearse Makes the Same Argument : he says the Westminster “herd immunity” strategy is akin to a “far-right death cult” https://www.timetomutiny.org/post/government-strategy-tipping-britain-towards-huge-death-toll

McCann continues in the same vein below. He calls on Admiral Arlene Foster to steer the Stormont Titanic Away from the Mass Grave. But, she won’t do that. It is Time for a Mutiny – Sinn Féin should sink the Stormont Titanic.

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Coronavirus In Ireland: A Doctor’s Grim Warning – 277 Intensive Care Beds in Ireland – 60,000 Will Be Needed – Stay Home!

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A Very Scary Message to All in Ireland, Passed On by Ed Moloney.

I received this message in an email from a friend in Dublin, earlier today. It came originally from a doctor practicing in Ireland who wishes it to …

Coronavirus In Ireland: A Doctor’s Grim Warning


Scary Numbers from a Doctor Working in Ireland

The Government has said between 25% and 75% of the population will get the virus. If 25% of the Irish population get it, which based on the numbers above is a very low estimate, that’s 1.2 million people.
5% needing intensive care means 60,000 people will need intensive care beds to stay alive.
We currently have 277 intensive care beds in Ireland.
I’m going to say that again:
At least 60,000 Irish people will need an ICU bed to stay alive.
We only have 277 ICU beds in Ireland.

Let’s place the Irish Crisis in an International Political Context; Daniel Tanuro writes :

6. The major danger of the epidemic is the possible saturation of hospital systems. This would inevitably lead to a worsening of the price paid by the poorest and the weakest, in particular among the elderly, as well as a further shift of care tasks into the domestic sphere, that is to say generally onto women. The saturation threshold obviously depends on the countries, the health systems and the austerity policies that have been imposed there. It will be reached all the more quickly insofar as the governments are running behind the epidemic instead of preventing it. The fight against the epidemic therefore requires a break with austerity policies, a redistribution of wealth, refinancing and de-liberalization of the health sector, the suppression of patents in the medical field, North-South justice and a clear priority given to social needs. This implies in particular: banning dismissals of infected workers, the maintenance of wages in the event of partial unemployment, stopping checks, “activation” and sanctions against social security recipients, etc. It is mainly on these questions that we must intervene to counter irrational responses and their potential for racist-authoritarian slippage.

7. There are many commonalities between the Covid-19 crisis and the climate crisis. In both cases, the capitalist system’s logic of accumulation for profit makes it incapable of preventing a danger of which it is nevertheless aware. In both cases, governments oscillate between denial and the inadequacy of policies designed primarily according to the needs of capital, not the needs of populations. In both cases, the poorest, racialized and weakest, especially in the countries of the global south, are in sights, while the rich say that they will always get by. In both cases, governments are using the threat to advance toward a strong state while far-right forces are trying to take advantage of fear to out forward foul Malthusian and racist responses. In both cases, finally, the social law of capitalist value comes into direct contradiction with laws of nature with exponential dynamics (the multiplication of viral infections in one case, warming and its positive feedbacks in the other).

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6452

Daniel Tanuro, a certified agriculturalist and eco-socialist environmentalist, writes for “La gauche”, (the monthly of the LCR-SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International).

Daniel Tanuro is the author of The Impossibility of Green Capitallism, (Resistance Books, Merlin and IIRE) and Le moment Trump (Demopolis, 2018).