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FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin has said the names and regions where clusters of Covid-19 cases have been diagnosed should be made public.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is this afternoon meeting with party leaders at Government Buildings to brief them on the ongoing coronavirus emergency measures.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, Martin said that he would be calling on the Taoiseach to give more information about the towns and regions where cases have been confirmed.
“I think it would help awareness but also I think it would help people protect and take steps to be careful… look at Singapore, Taiwan and other countries, they have been doing this consistently and people in those countries welcome it and it doesn’t cause any stigma but it allows people be more aware and take more self-protection,” he said.
Every day, the Department of Health and the HSE release the national figures.
Yesterday evening the fourth death from Covid-19 was confirmed in Ireland. A further 121 people were confirmed to have contracted coronavirus bringing the total number of cases in the Republic to 906.
Recently, a county-by-county breakdown has been provided.
However, Martin said today more detailed information on cases diagnosed would create more self-awareness. He said if people knew there were clusters in a certain town or region, people might be more aware of their actions, and act differently by perhaps avoiding a local beach or park.
He said this information should be released on a daily basis.
“It would create a sense of ‘we’re all in this together’,” he said, highlighting that there’s been some criticism over the weekend about how some people are carrying on as normal and not physically distancing themselves from other people.
He said there is a lot of fear and “scare-mongering” going on in certain areas around the country as people speculate about where cases have been diagnosed.
By releasing more factual information about what towns and regions have been affected in each county, “it could change behavior in a good way, because people would be a bit more conscious of the situation in their locality. And they would behave accordingly. And I think that’s important. Also in terms of staff in a given institution, in terms of people who are visiting that institution. They need to know. They need to be aware of the scale of something or not,” said Martin.
The Fianna Fáil leader said that highlighting areas where clusters occur may result in more restrictions being imposed on a certain area or town, as has been the case in some other places around the world, such as New Rochelle in New York State, where the National Guard was deployed a number of weeks ago due to the high number of cases recorded in the area.
Martin said more “severe restrictions” are needed, though he added that the majority are adhering to the guidelines.
A similar call was made by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald who today called for all non-essential businesses to be shut down immediately. She said some workers were very concerned about their workplace practices and the lack of protections being afforded to employees.
She said it is “not plausible” for some workers to practice safe distancing in some jobs, stating that she had a call from one construction worker who is on site with 400 people, and there is only one tap available with hot water.
“Delays cost lives,” she said, adding such a move would lead to more job losses. McDonald said that supermarkets, petrol stations, pharmacies, public services and emergency services should stay open.
She said restaurants should close, but added that those providing take-out or delivery services could remain open if they can adhere to the HSE guidelines.
When asked about government formation today, Martin said Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will swap papers later this week and hold further talks.
Martin said that he could not state when a new government would be up and running, stating that the focus is quite rightly on the coronavirus outbreak.
He would not be pressed on the matter of whether Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and Simon Coveney might remain in their roles when a new government is eventually formed. He said he would be entering those discussions this week, but said there was a “clear understanding how that would develop”, but gave no further detail.
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Its all about getting people hooked into one of the most intrusive operating systems that ever came out of Microsoft and it certainly ties in with TTIP and the recently passed CISA Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and more so from Bill Gates.
Microsoft are really pushing this. Annoying pop ups throughout the day offering free ‘upgrade’.
Anyone I’ve spoken to about Windows 10 tell me ‘don’t get it – it’s crap’.
Makes me suspicious when something is promoted to such an extent.
Time will tell.
I have it and I find it completely fine. there are some privacy steps that are easily applied and after that I’m completely comfortable with it.
Not crap but far from perfect yet. Using it daily for work and is mainly fine. Some extremely basic issues such as sees an SD card, asks if you want to import photos, say yes and it asks from where as Photos can’t see it. You can still copy and paste them but it’s very strange. HyperV services need restarting every morning after a clean reboot. These are minor and I am sure will get resolved soon enough.
Microsoft needs to get people off old versions as otherwise advertising all manner of security enhancements and features is pointless when all versions are lumped under the same title of Windows and they get slagged every time someone finds some issue in XP etc
Tommy , you can turn off the reminder pop-ups by uninstalling update # KB3035583.
My son upgraded my Windows 7 to 10 on the laptop (admittedly about 3 years old) and managed to delete the roll back option too. It was so slow I gave up and wiped it and put Linux on. Much faster and seemingly more stable too.
Well i love Windows 10, I’ve used all versions, if you are unhappy with he data they take here are a few solutions. http://bgr.com/2015/08/14/windows-10-spying-prevention-privacy-tools/
What ever you can do about stopping Microsoft from spying on you, Google already knows unless you change your browser.
There some serious bugs still. One is the “Fatal_power_error” which crashes systems. Apparently a hibernation issue that kicks in.
Installed it but forced to go back to Win7 on a dual boot as default system.
Hopefully the expected November major update can help resolve some of these issues.
Wins 10 does still have some issues that need to be addressed, normal or new users will or may find it difficult to navigate around. As for the upgrades for users that have older PC’s/Laptops they may have issues finding drivers that support Wins 10, so sound cards, VGA drivers etc are but just 2.
For these users if they have wins 7 are are looking for the chance to try something new/stable and Free try Linux Mint http://www.linuxmint.com/start/rafaela/ this has a wins feel about it and the user does not have to be totally savvy to use it.
This distro (linux Mint) allows to create a dual boot when installing it so you can still have your wins 7 and you can choose which operating system (OS) you wish to boot into at startup.
It installs almost all the drivers required on both new and older machines, installing software is very easy and best of all 99% of the software is Free.
There always a Linux troll lurking around.
It is so slow with Chrome or Mozilla and I am certain that is deliberate to make you use the Windows search engine. I could not accept that on rain opal, but hey, who am I , you are very odd these days if you are a sheep !
it also can ruin your hard drive when downloaded. mine corrupted within hours after installing, almost €200 for a new one
Still awaiting it even though I requested it back in July!!
have your say