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THE OVERALL THEME of this year’s TEDxUCD talks in Dublin was ‘Enlighten’.
Within that wider theme, there was a focus on conflicts and crises across the world. Here are some of the best bits.
Terry McCarthy, the Emmy Award winning war correspondent, and a UCD philosophy graduate discusses his time covering conflicts in Central America, South East Asia and the Middle East.
“I wanted to use this opportunity to enlighten those who may not have experienced war up close about the human costs of war, and why it is so important that we never forget those human costs when we debate the use of military force anywhere in the world.”
Goal CEO Barry Andrews looks at this generation’s humanitarian catastrophe… But wonders why we are not able to separate it from the political.
“There are no petitions to parliament, there are no protests outside embassies, there is no fundraising going on… There is no letters to the paper.
“Why the apathy? Why the inertia?”
Dr Erin Baumann describes herself and a news junkie, noting that crises heighten passions and emotions. She highlights the fact that news cycles are quite short – the crises change daily, weekly, monthly. Currently, there are crises everywhere – Sudan, Syria, Iraq and Sudan – but what pervades the airwaves is different each day.
She asks: “How do you teach long-term ideas in a world of short-term information?”
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Bulgaria has one of the lowest vaccine uptakes in Europe. Only 28% of the population vaccinated with an extremely high case fatality rate in comparison to Ireland. Their population is only a little bigger than Ireland, and despite having lower reported case numbers – they are at upwards of 100 deaths per day.
So anyone questioning whether vaccines work, here’s your answer.
@Seán Ó Briain: They have amongst Europe’s highest death toll per head of population, with 30,530 official COVID-19 deaths and 60,140 excess deaths. They have a population only a little bigger than us, 6.9 million, that’s like us having 22,000 COVID-19 deaths and 43,000 excess deaths.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
@Colin Conlan: “However Bulgaria’s number of cases in past six months was half of Ireland’s”
Their “reported” cases.
Aren’t your kind always harping on about “only deaths matter, not cases”?
Well for a population similar to Ireland’s, they’ve had over 5 times the amount of deaths as us.
@Colin Conlan: That is misinformation of course, they had 12,017 COVID-19 deaths in the last 6 months, 778 deaths in January (564 deaths if they were same population of Ireland, but we announced 123 deaths). Their deaths in Jan were 5.6-fold ours.
https://www.google.com/search?channel=crow5&client=firefox-b-d&q=covid+bulgaria
@David Jordan: Please pay closer attention to my comment. I referred to *cases* not *deaths*.
Around 1st of July 2021 they had 422k total cases. Now they have about 800k cases.
Ireland had around 1st of July 2021 272k total cases. Now it reached 1mil.
@Colin Conlan: Are the testing as much as us?
@Colin Conlan: Also, one other thing, do you honestly think that Bulgarians equally enthusiastic about getting COVID tested as us, given their very high rates of vaccine scepticism and anti-everything?
@David Jordan: Yes, they are testing as much as Ireland. However! The correct question is: Are people there going to be tested? I could not answer that with data. But I have my suspicion that answer is no. So I will double their case numbers. They have about 50% rural population.
In that case the number of positives are same as Ireland. Which makes sense. And still vaccines does not seem to have an impact on protecting others.
Something else interesting. The Delta wave took much less time. Just over a month. Ireland is dragging Delta since Sept until now into Omicron.
@Colin Conlan: And to continue on the aspect that Delta wave took much less in Bulgaria. Number of deaths presented here as argument were per unit of time at peak. Since the Delta wave spanned on different lengths of time between Bulgaria and Ireland it is interesting to calculate the amount of deaths per wave rather than per time unit at peak.
@Colin Conlan: Delta was dragged out because vaccines were reducing infection rates, it reduced infections by 50 – 80% (Qatar data), but you are right, Omicron is transparent to vaccines.
At this point, now Omicron is dominant, Vaccines prevent serious symptoms and save lives but they no longer prevent infections getting passed on. That is why we are riddled, but have very few deaths (Omicron is also intrinsically milder).
So I agree you, at this point, vaccination no longer protects others, that benefit is no longer there e.g. if I’m vaccinated and visit an unvaccinated Bulgarian relative, I could infect them. Thankfully Omicron is mild (we’re very lucky, it could have gotten worse).
That said, Omicron arrived in Bulgaria only 2 weeks ago, this you can see from the huge spike they had since the new year.
Hopefully it will quickly displaces Delta and reduces deaths.
@Colin Conlan: Also, look at Gibraltar and COVID:
https://www.google.com/search?channel=crow5&client=firefox-b-d&q=gibratar+covid
100% fully vaccinated, 81% got boosters, but they are riddled with Omicron. But the important thing, no more deaths.
@David Jordan: Is not clear what argument you have there. Delta wave finished clearly in Bulgaria before Omicron arrived. There’s nothing to “displace” there.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=irl&areas=bgr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usvt&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=usky&areasRegional=usfl&areasRegional=usmi&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-08-01&values=cases
On 28th of Dec before Omicron rocketed number of cases, Bulgaria had 17.6/100k a day. Something that Ireland didn’t have since July.
@Colin Conlan: Yes, 2 weeks ago Omicron arrived. We’re not disagreeing here, deaths are falling despite rapidly rising cases, Omicron is milder and it likely heralds the end of the Pandemic. I’m not arguing with you.
I think if things don’t change, I mean if a worse variant does not show up, by next winter, I think it would be best if Omicron specific vaccines, possibly combined with the flu vaccine, are recommended for >65s, like the flu vaccine is today.
@Seán Ó Briain: have you shares in the vaccine or what? It’s their choice if they want to take it or not
Why is the title of this article misleading?
Protesters are anti-restrictions not anti-vaccine!
@Colin Conlan: False. They are anti everything. Anti-mask, anti-restrictions and anti-vaccine – despite having barely no one vaccinated and their hospitals full of covid patients with 100+ people dying every day there, despite their population being able the same as the island of Ireland.
Nothing misleading about the article.
@Seán Ó Briain: To protest anti-vaccine exceeds individual level. To protest against vaccine mandates does not exceed individual level. No one there protests that *other* citizens of Bulgaria should not be vaccinated.
Conclusion: they are not “anti-vaxxers” but anti restriction on personal level.
@Colin Conlan: They aren’t protesters either but rioters, once you turn violent you are no longer protesting, just look at the BLM riots.
Deep suspicion of anything coming from the Bulgarian government is a legacy of the soviet era, as well as the population’s sorry experience of government corruption since that time.
@John Mulligan: Agreed. I knew a Czech citizen whose conditioning was to distrust anything the Irish government, or any government said, but who would immediately accept any medical conspiracy theory they came across on YouTube, without doing any checking into the background of the YouTube speaker or channel, or anything they said. And their brother was a surgeon in the Czech Republic!!!! They didn’t put the same kind of faith in what their brother told them.
@David A. Murray: misinformation and suspicion is a major problem in Eastern Europe. Anti everything and pro nothing apart from conspiracy theory’s. Obviously not all of them but a large chunk of them. Victim complex across the whole region.
Bulgaria is a country many Irish people only know from going there for packaged summer holidays on chartered Balkan Airlines flights. Groups of schoolchildren and adults in winter also flew to the country for cheap ski holidays. Some of the country’s red wines have been found to be tasty and cheap. Before the early 1990s it was very much a conforming member of the Soviet bloc. What sort of regime rules there nowadays?
@Garreth Byrne: Since you are asking, there was 3 elections in 2021, and only after the last one there was a wide enough coalition to form a government. Basically, everybody who was against GERB, a populist party that ruled for 10 years, joined that coalition. GERB’s leader Boiko Borisov is a bit like Berlusconi, I think. No discernible policies apart from to make him and his chums rich.
Nuke em…
have your say