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FIVE PEOPLE DIED yesterday when a garment factory was torched by looters near Chile’s capital Santiago, bringing the death toll in a wave of unrest to seven as authorities expanded a state of emergency.
Police and the military fired tear gas and used water cannon against protesters in the city as clashes over price hikes and social inequality raged through a third day.
Almost all public transport was paralysed in Santiago, with shops shuttered and many flights cancelled at the international airport, leaving thousands of people stranded and unable to leave due to the curfew.
After an emergency meeting late Sunday, President Sebastian Pinera defended his decision to call a state of emergency and deploy troops onto the streets for the first time since Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship between 1974-1990.
“Democracy not only has the right, it has the obligation to defend itself using all the instruments that democracy itself provides, and the rule of law to combat those who want to destroy it,” Pinera said.
The state of emergency was extended yesterday, with Interior and Security Minister Andres Chadwick saying new decrees were being drawn up for Antofagasta in the north, Valdivia in the south, and other cities such as Valparaiso, Temuco and Punto Arenas.
Firefighters said five people died in a garment factory burned by rioters in Renca, a northern suburb of Santiago.
Earlier, Chadwick said two women burned to death after a store owned by US retail chain Walmart was set alight in the early hours of Sunday.
One victim, who authorities initially said had died in hospital, suffered burns on 75% of her body.
Escalating violence
Authorities reported 103 serious incidents throughout the country with 1,462 people detained — 614 in Santiago and 848 in the rest of the country.
Protesters set fire to buses, smashed up metro stations, knocked down traffic lights, ransacked shops and clashed with riot police in Santiago and other cities.
During the curfew from 7:00 pm (10pm Irish time) until dawn, people should “be calm and all in their homes,” defense official General Javier Iturriaga announced.
What started earlier in the week as a protest against a hike in metro fares escalated dramatically on Friday as demonstrators expressed anger over social inequality and the government’s liberal economic system.
On Saturday, Pinera announced he was suspending the fare increase.
Pinera acknowledged that those in the streets had “good reasons” to protest but called on them “to demonstrate peacefully”.
The appeal failed to prevent further rioting and looting.
“It’s really sad what’s happening, but the people are outraged because they’re not being listened to,” 26-year-old Antonia told AFP in central Santiago.
Dozens of protesters torched a building belonging to Chile’s oldest newspaper, El Mercurio, in Valparaiso on Saturday evening, while elsewhere a metro station, supermarkets and other stores were set on fire.
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As long as the pubs are open feck all the people in hospital, in ICU, our testing capacity. The Vitners lobby really are in cloud cuckoo land.
@nazi killer: it’d would be hard to have your livelihood shut down for 6 months.
I’m not going to be running into the pub myself, but I like most of us I know a few publican and it’s been tough for them and their staff.
@nazi killer: And what about coffee shops, restaurants, gaa clubs, playgrounds, cinemas etc etc? Just because you look down your nose at pubs doesn’t mean they are not essential social outlets for many communities. Or businesses and livelihoods for thousands of people. They want to try safe socially distant opening like everyone else before they go under. Don’t go if you don’t want
@nazi killer: The hospitals and ICUs are empty, and most of those testing positive are asymptomatic.
This is the first pandemic in history with an enormous shortage of sick people.
@Alonso: you go to a pub to drink, likelihood it’s a lot of people will get drunk. It’s a major difference between pubs and those places you list. You have to admit that it wouldn’t be easy to control that
@Mark K: nearly 2000 people have died from it in Ireland with heightened restrictions…
@Mark K: rubbish. In kilkenny of all tested people that were positive 0 or níl were asymptomatic. Where are you getting your facts from
@Macca Attack: that’s what he said though?
@nazi killer: open all pubs but only to our pensioners, give them some leeway. The rest are the ones causing the damage in this country
@Forest Hump: no it wasn’t sorry
@Forest Hump: it’s not. It’s the opposite
@Mark K: The hospitals are empty, that must be the joke of the year, even Trump couldn’t come up with a statement like that.
@Forest Hump: I go to the pub and I don’t drink
@Mark K: “This is the first pandemic in history with an enormous shortage of sick people.” A pandemic does is not defined by the “number of sick people” it’s defined by the number of counties or continent’s that is affected by the same disease. You need to read more.
@Alonso: it’s not the pub it’s the behaviour of some publicans and customers who will not adhere to the safety guidelines.
The majority of rural pubs will be fine but most of the city centre pubs will not.
@Forest Hump: And gaa players aren’t climbing all over each other during games and training? You’re assuming everybody goes to the pub to get flattened. That is just not the case all over Ireland. It just isn’t. There is a time limit in place too. The publicans are asking for a chance to make sure the guidelines are met on their premises just like they have been in restaurants where drink was already being served. Tiny few cases tracked to food pubs so far. Give them a chance to try it like everyone else
@nazi killer: Pubs by their very nature…social outlets…consumption of alcohol which disinhibts the consumer/s the more alcohol is consumed, have the potential to be super spreaders. Pandemic is teaching us new ways to live!!!
@nazi killer: So if you go in to a pub that has been open since the end of june and serves baskets of chicken wings with your pint you won’t catch Covid? But if you go in to a pub which only serves crisps and peanuts with your pint you will? Hahahaha…
@Alonso: actually it IS true that the majority go to the pub to get flattened. Ireland has the second highest rate of binge drinking in the world, over 60% of drinkers admit to binge drinking at least once a month.
@Forest Hump: With it.
@Mark K: brilliant I wish more people would think like that
If people respect the social distancing rules it’ll be grand…now after 6/7 pints try to implement that rule.
@011Y: I was in a pub on sat to watch Leinster v Ulster over pizza and pints. Half did not wear masks walking around, number limits for using toilets breached every time, it was loud (loud spreads covid!), over an hour to get pizza, some drank pints and took pizza home…impossible for staff to police these rules.
@M J Flynn: loud spreads covid………. Ya but the pizza cures it so your grand
@Paudie Ireland: I know what you’re trying there but in fact you’ve proven why the regulations were needed. Shouting above the t.v. does in fact increase potential spread, while eating a pizza does in fact lessen your chances of bring drunk and therefore just shouting for the craic. It’s for people like you.
@David Clements: will laughter be allowed in pubs when they reopen? Or does laughter also increase potential spread?
@FecklessBear: Laughter is definitely a pathway to contagion. But don’t worry too much, there’s more than enough misery around to balance things out.
@FecklessBear: laughing?….. Laughing?,,,, LAUGHING? .. how very dare you even suggest such an outburst.. Laughing is banned even behind a mask.
Dublin has consistently had over half the daily cases for the past few weeks. More concerning is that there’s also been a significant amount of community cases in it’s numbers daily. If the government/NPHET aim is to reduce the growing upward trend in Dublin, how could opening the pubs as planned in Dublin help with this? – Can’t see it happening.
@RogerRamjet: It’s a pity Micheal Martin, Leo V, Simon H and Stephen D dont visit pubs and dont read these comments or talk to real people directly.
Was in Dublin last weekend. Called into one shop to get myself a quick coffee. While there approximately 15 people came and went. Out of those 15 I counted 4 people wearing masks. Not saying masks are the new vaccine but if that the level of complacency being shown, it’s no wonder the numbers are so high up there . God help them when temple bar fully reopens .
@Murph11: to be fair i cant see many Locals rushing to temple bar to pay a fortune for a pint. Will be a fraction of the usual amount of punters there due to lack of stags/hens from Uk and the likes.
@Murph11: I was in the square last Friday and I seen 4 women not wearing masks everyone else had a mask on and was in liffey valley a couple of weeks ago and 98% of people were wearing masks,so people keep going on about people in Dublin not wearing masks yet the places I have been the vast majority have
@Warren Mcdermott: I was in Blanchardstown shopping centre and everyone was wearing a mask as well, however there was security on every door ensuring compliance .
@Murph11: yes but how many are wearing them wrong or taking them off wrong , not washing hands afterwards or reusing same masks. I have seen so many people wearing them on neck , wearing them not on nose , or mask falling off and keep touching it adjusting it. Really think need a better ad campaign about how to wear a mask safely And that it’s not a magic device!
@Keith Dempsey: Ha Ha, wait and see. The fools are chomping at the bit at the mere thought of temple bar pubs opening again..
What happened in Dame Lane a few weeks ago?
@Mick: Remember the images from the pub in Templebar the weekend before the lockdown was implemented. In fact it was probably the reason why the lockdown was brought in on that particular Friday, so that those scenes would not be repeated. Especially as that particular week we were hitting upwards of 200 cases if memory serves me correctly.
@Joe_X: and look at the numbers now, on the way back up, and a lot more to come..
@Mick: unfortunatly so
Just don’t open the pubs in Dublin until the numbers come down.
Kildare, Laois and Offaly eher all locked down for less.
@Davis Payne: are you including the Dáil bar in that.
@Davis Payne: if by less you mean significantly more
Open the pubs so people can sanitise themselves with alcohol from the inside out
@Paul: not even remotely funny,
@Paul: not even remotely funny.
@Paul: Funny!
@Paul: that’s funny
@HuffnPuff: well you’re a c u n t
Lockdowns simply delay the inevitable spread and lead to more lockdowns. They are a crude mechanism to stop health system being overwhelmed. We never even got close – with empty private hospital after empty private hospital during the so-called “surge”.
Many many people seem to think we lockdown for a bit, then open up and it’s all gravy.
But lockdowns ensure there are many many hosts for the virus when they finish – and therefore the inevitable spread again.
This really isn’t difficult to understand, it’s not complicated science, and this disease has been shown in study after study to be much milder than first thought.
@Mark K: Lock down was never meant to stop it. Same with the face coverings and all the other actions that are taken. They are meant to slow it down to give our medical staff the best chance at being able to help people.
@Joe_X: only covid matters. Suicide and cancer deaths are irrelevant by that logic!
Here’s a question for you, if we really want to keep the hospitals free for covid patients how come 1000 of the people who died weren’t even taken to hospital?
Answer – most of those were of such an advanced age that intensive care and ventilators etc would be unethical.
Most people who died were older than people in this country expect to live!
@ahhere: they are very relevent, but they are problems that have been here for years, and now people who didn’t give a toss about them 12 months ago, only care about them now because they can be used as ammunition in their rhetoric against the restrictions, which I find disguting. Funny thing is I was able to go to my appointments, So was my mam in her 80′s. As to the age of the people that died from CoViD-19, does the fact that they are older than people in this country are expected to live make them more expendable?
@Joe_X: no I’ll spell it out for you – it means the biggest risk factor was advanced age. No need to lock up kids or make disingenuous arguments about being kind protecting the elderly by shutting society.
I can make it simpler – there are 130k people older than 80 and those under 65 are more likely to die from the flu. Focus on the right groups!
Sweden had the wrong approach at the start as they didn’t protect these elderly (of which they have more) quick enough (like everyone.)
@ahhere: really, my mam is active for a woman in her 80s same goes for my parents in law. You think its fair on them to lock themselves away so us young lads can go mad? Here’s another 1 for you. One of the first cases in the country was a farmer in Cork, no underlying conditions. Mid 40s. They don’t know where he got it. He presented to hospital a couple days before the damn thing was even supposed to be in the country, turned out he had developed pneumonia from it and ended up dying of it.
They dont seem to realise the country will be back in full lockdown if the numbers get too high. Get the numbers lower in Dublin then reopen would be smart
@Munster1: explain Sweden
@ahhere: 13th in the world for deaths per head of population? Great country to follow….
@ahhere: you mean a country with twice our population but three times our deaths? Granted as was pointed out to me the other evening, they have an older population, which makes their response even worse. They had access to the same figures from the likes of Spain and Italy that we had. They were obviously more willing to sacrifice their vunerable than we were.
@Munster1: we can’t afford another lock down.
I was in a midlands county over the weekend and the closed pubs has really impacted the social fabric of all the villages and small towns, At best of times these pubs are only half full and need to be allowed re-open now. No justification for not re-opening them immediately. As a Dub I would have reservations about the Dublin pubs but feel they should be given a chance, for the sake of the staff. However it requires rigid enforcement of the rules, close them immediately, don’t renew licence and fine them if breaching rules, if this is done over the first few days of opening they will all play ball. Also if there is a spike attributable to the pubs maybe they will have to close again but treat them like other businesses. In Dublin we can survive socially as things are but local pubs in towns and villages are a necessary social outlet and it isn’t fair on these country publicans and their few customers. Also give the Dublin pubs a chance but close them immediately if they break the rules.
Do I order stock, do I not order stock, do I hire staff, do I not hire staff? Nightmare scenario for the pubs. 30,000 jobs at risk.
Let people work and let people live before the damage is irreversible.
I walked into a bar the other day. Still have a bump on my head
@Kieran Stafford: was there a horse with a long face in there?
@GrumpyAulFella: And had the englishman and scotsman self isolated for 14 days?
I can’t wait to sit in a pub with the smell of p12s and s41t wafting through the air because the publican is to lazy to clean the toilets #keep the kips closed. Inspect and let the clean pubs open
I am all for reopening businesses around the country. Those that get to reopen should be monitored to make sure they comply with the conditions imposed on them.
If businesses adhere to the conditions imposed, then we should all be safer.
During the last two weeks of horseracing covered by betting shops, very bookmaking shop I visited was flouting the distance rules.
One newspaper to cover each race meeting is not safe for the customers. I have seen up to four people trying to read the form at the same time, which is surely going to spread any infection present in any of those people. Who is monitoring the betting shops? This is a very big issue and nobody is doing anything to fix it.
Open up society
Pubs have the potentisl to be super spreaders of Covid 19.
@Catherine O’Gorman: schools even more so
No point to lock down with border open as virus can keep coming.
Keep them closed
Interesting. Worth a listen. https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1305454060280086528?s=19
Rising numbers. Looking dodgy.
Few pints never did any harm
Donall O’Keefe lol
have your say