Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 13 Apr 2020
THE DEATH TOLL from Covid-19 has slowed in some of the worst-hit countries, with Spain set to reopen parts of its economy today as governments get to terms with a once-in-a-century recession.
Italy, France and the US have all seen a drop in Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, with Italy – the European nation most afflicted – reporting its lowest toll in more than three weeks.
More than half of the world’s population is staying home as part of efforts to stem the spread of the virus which has now killed at least 112,500 people, overwhelming healthcare systems and crippling the world economy.
Spain’s death toll has fallen in recent days, but as a small bump in deaths was reported yesterday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned that the locked-down country was “far from victory”.
“We are all keen to go back out on the streets… but our desire is even greater to win the war and prevent a relapse,” he said, as some companies were set to resume operations at the end of a two-weeks halt of all non-essential activity.
Some factory and construction workers are returned to work today, with police to hand out face masks at metro and train stations.
The lifting of this economic hibernation has led to criticism from some regional leaders and unions, but the rest of the lockdown restrictions in the nation of around 47 million people will remain in place.
France
Meanwhile, France’s lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak will be extended until May 11, President Emmanuel Macron said, but added that the restrictions could start to be eased from then if current positive trends continued.
While giving France a concrete date for a possible ending of strict confinement, Macron acknowledged that the country had not been prepared for a crisis that has killed nearly 15,000 people in the country.
“The strict confinement must continue until Monday, May 11,” Macron said in a TV address, adding that it could then be eased “if we continue to be good citizens, responsible and respect the rules, and if the spread of the virus has indeed continued to slow”.
The lockdown has confined the French to their homes since March 17 with only brief trips allowed outside for shopping and other essential errands.
The epidemic is “beginning to steady… hope is returning,” he said, acknowledging France was “obviously not sufficiently prepared” when its first cases were reported last February.
China
In China, where authorities appeared to have the virus under control last week, officials reported 108 new symptomatic cases today, the highest number of confirmed infections in a single day in over a month.
Imported cases accounted for most of the total, the National Health Commission said, underscoring why the government has been so focused on preventing new outbreaks stemming from international arrivals.
In the US – now the world’s worst-hit nation with a fifth of all deaths and more than half a million confirmed cases – the government’s top infectious disease expert added to cautious optimism that the pandemic may have reached its peak.
Anthony Fauci said parts of the country could begin easing restrictions in May, but warned that the world’s biggest economy would not turn back on like a “light switch”.
“We are hoping by the end of the month we can look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on?” Fauci told CNN.
President Donald Trump had previously wanted the US to be back to normal by Easter, but most of the country remained at a standstill and churches took celebrations online.
‘Easter of solitude’
Many of the world’s more than two billion Christians celebrated Easter from the confines of their homes, while Pope Francis delivered a livestream message from a hauntingly empty Vatican.
“For many, this is an Easter of solitude lived amid the sorrow and hardship that the pandemic is causing, from physical suffering to economic difficulties,” he said.
One priest in Rio de Janeiro blessed the Brazilian city from a helicopter, while another in Portugal addressed the faithful from the open top of a moving convertible car.
In the UK, which has seen more than 10,000 people die in hospital from Covid-19, prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said he had been discharged after “a week in which the NHS has saved my life, no question”.
The UK is now seeing daily death tolls to match those previously seen in Italy and Spain, after recording nearly 1,000 fatalities on Friday and Saturday. There were 737 new deaths reported yesterday.
Johnson, like Trump, had initially resisted stringent measures such as shutting down public places.
First case in Yemen
Meanwhile, there were also worrying signs the virus could be taking hold in new, and vulnerable, parts of the world.
Yemen reported its first case last week, raising fears of a devastating outbreak in the war-torn country.
In Mumbai’s crowded Dharavi slum, more than 43 cases have been confirmed.
While sub-Saharan Africa has not been as badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic as some other parts of the world, the economy is being pummelled.
Governments are under pressure to keep populations safe while preventing economic collapse, amid warnings of a downturn not seen since the Great Depression.
But the World Health Organization has warned countries against lifting lockdown restrictions too early.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Aw, looks like aul’ Jack Murphy got the road. Thoughts and prayers.
The British have a deep rooted presumption of superiority over the Irish that has religious, colonial and other aspects. They themselves are blind to this deep rooted characteristic but its harmful consequences are real.
@thomas molloy: The harmful consequences of Anglophobia are also real.
@Brendan O’Brien: brits have Anglo phobia too since they’re ruled by foreign royal family
@Niall Lappin: and populated by Pakistanis
@Brendan O’Brien: when the Brits wake up and realise 1) that they no longer rule the waves, and their colonialism has caused a multitude of problems, people will more willingly engage with them.
@Symon: It doesn’t make sense to classify ‘them’ (any more than the Irish) as a single bloc with a single mindset. ‘They’ are a pretty diverse bunch, like ‘we’ are.
@thomas molloy: Are you for real, I doubt most normal people in the UK think like that for one, or even give Ireland a second thought. I would hazard a guess from reading a lot of comments on here that we are the ones with the deep rooted hatred, living in the past, unable to move on.
@The Firestarter: Living in the past could be an accusation levelled at them also, given their tendency to claim our most successful people constantly. More English people than you would think definitely have it in their locker, and not that deep below the surface either. Of course, the same can be said of people here against them. I find that one side is left off the hook with it a lot quicker than the other though. Source: Working for a UK company in a job where I was often telling people things they didn’t want to hear. The veneer of civility often went out the window at the slightest gripe.
@Brendan O’Brien: Maybe you have a point there. An ingrained attitude unconsciously present towards a People would be a phobia.
@thomas molloy: what about reconciliation?
People who live in the past like you dont bring peace.
Dope
@Paul: It is good that it drifts into the past. People who at present work for British companies and organisations need this to happen more than those who can just consider it an inconsequential theoretical matter.
@thomas molloy: Maybe the Irish have a inferior complex to the British and are totally obsessed with the country and everything they do while the British people couldn’t care less about Ireland and the Irish people .
@Setanta O’Toole: That British people don’t care about Irish history and our imperial past . Our 300 yrs of service to the crown and the part we played in the British empire and how we profited from the empire . Forty percent of the British army made up of Irish infantry units in 1845 . The British couldn’t care less but Irish people are obsessed with telling other countries about what they did in the past because we have an inferior complex.
@thomas molloy: Plus one of them would surely try to ride her ,smart move young lady.
@Jack Moss: That’s because of their ignorance of other nations history and only their own “ watered down whitewashed “ version. The Irish never forget their history, the British never remember theirs!
@Setanta O’Toole: how do UK residents claim Ireland most successful people? Just because some tabloid or the BBC say it in their newspapers, doesn’t mean it’s a representation of the entire Anglo population. When RTE posts absolute rubbish, does that represent the Irish people as a whole? Did it?
@Lulu: The Irish don’t know their history. They spent the last 100 yrs rewriting their history into a 800 yr victim story . When it comes to colonialism the Irish were no different to the British. We were upto our necks in it . We don’t like to hear it . We can make history into anything we want because the British couldn’t care less about telling us about our real war mongering history.
@Joe Willis: dId iT!? I obviously wasn’t speaking about every single english person. It’s a product of the colonial attitude still prevalent in many of their institutions and the general ignorance which a large portion of the populous have about the history of their closest neighbours. Christ, some lads on here get very sensitive about the slightest bit of criticism of the Brits. Don’t open a history book lads, you might have a breakdown.
@thomas molloy: really ? I think certainly those recently educated are well aware of the role of the British in Ireland . It’s covered in the national curriculum. Many many British people are tied to Ireland and the Irish through family /employment /interest/travel.
@Lulu: sorry to disappoint you but as the parent of 2 English senior school students , Ireland , the Irish colonialism and the troubles are more than adequately covered in the national curriculum
She’s must of seen Andrew walking round in his carpet creepers and fear set in.
@J B: ‘must of’ ..what language is that ?
Andy will be sneaking in to rooms after dark
Amazing the Shinners still still going to Time Warp
@Tim Brennan: Amazing that both the royal family and “the shinners” along with the vast majority of people on these islands have moved since the GFA, but we still have trolls on here stuck in a time warp.
@Eugene Burns: …….moved on….
@Eugene Burns: The sinn fein apologists are out in full force defending their degenerate party.
@Eugene Burns: Fantastic and delusional the IRA as Gerry tells us they haven’t gone away you know and he should know. Oh sorry he was never a member.
Kangaroo courts – can’t condemn Garda killers and worse they collect them from jails.
@Tim Brennan: Thank you for proving my point. Can you point to a conflict anywhere that there wasn’t “spillover” trouble or incidents after deals/compromises were struck?
Some conflicts take years to settle down after agreements.
The GFA was late nineties and it has been pretty successful as far as violence is concerned.
Don’t forget we signed an agreement with Britain to end violence and form the free state in December 1921.
But over 50 years later, in the 1970′s, senior Fianna Fail people were still smuggling ship loads of ammunition to the IRA. And how did Fianna Fail discipline them? They promoted one of them to party leader and Taoiseach. Smuggling shipments of ammo, I’m sure you would agree is a lot more serious than collecting someone from jail.
Anyway, the country and Britain moved on. They could have all buried their heads in the sand and dug in like you, but they choose not to. They kept going, eventually achieving peace, which we were all more than happy to vote to accept. Time to move on Tim. You can’t live in the past.
Full English or Ulster Fry, it’s the little things.
She should have accepted it then, when having a nightcap with the King, explained Republicanism to him. I would say he would listen attentively. Might even be somewhat sympathetic.
@AnthonyK: He would touch her inappropriately
Plenty of Sinn Fein members stayed in Royal residences” during the troubles
Could she not share the bed with Emma Little-Pengelly for cross community cohesion?
@Jack Murphy: Maybe a good idea for all your troll accounts?
@Róisín Flemping Bunt-Himmler: WTF?
So the Windsors are doing B& B now., the times they are a changing. Michelle probably needed to meet her strictly unwelcome minders anyway, for debriefing, excuse the double entendre.
As for offending the King, no doubt relief prevailed that he did not cause offence to British subjects who bear the family loss and disabilities suffered in the so called “troubles”.
@William Kelly: anderochrome for night cap.
@William Kelly: Hmm, and yet Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came from the IRA and yet this conveniently overlooked. You probably don’t have the intelligence to realise with the IRA still in existence, there would be no Sinn, just like Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who killed more Irish during the civil war between them is questionable, rivers of blood abd all that, oh, sorry, I forgot, the IRA in the early 20th century were acceptable despite there being np difference, sorry, other than thr fact that the north was ethnically cleansed and in the 20th century was a Protestant state but the south had a right to independence why? At this stage there wer no penal laws against Catholics so couldn’t exactly be said to be suffering under a sectarian state.
@Brian D’Arcy: IRA at time of the War of Independence has zero in common with Provo thugs and criminals
@Brian D’Arcy: if you have a clear point to make…don’t be shy. Just make it. Stop drivelling.
It’s been a bad year for him health wise. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been looking forward to Nurse O ‘Neill bringing him his night cap in her Summers uniform. He got one bit of luck at least.
@Alan: Talk about a comment that is completely unnecessary.
@Brian D’Arcy: think Andy
@Alan: Did your brain hurt when you spent hours composing that completely irrelevant comment?
She should stay the night. Plant a tree or something
Someone was saying the other day there that Emma Little-Pengelly’s mother is Emma Big-Pengelly.
She’ll miss out on Prince Andrew doing hi sighting rounds with a glass of wine
SF/IRA objective during the troubles was to smash Stormont and remove British rule in Ireland . Today they are enforcing British rule from Stormont . The hinger strikers died for nothing . If you are going to voluntarily give your life for a cause or an organisation or even a country then you need to realise that cause or organisation or country may not exist in the future but you will be still dead . Maybe if SF they chose politics before violence then they would have probably achieved far more and 3500 people wouldn’t have needed to die .
@Jack Moss: Maybe if the Loyalist didn’t start the whole thing ………….
@Lulu: Maybe if the 1916 riding didn’t happen then there would have been no war of independence or civil war . The island wouldn’t have be broken in two . The troubles would not have happened and Ireland today would be an independent 32 county country . The Republican violence thing denied Ireland its full independence.
@Lulu: Maybe if the Fir Bolgs & the Mna Bolgs hadn’t beaten up the Tuatha de Danann or visa versa.
@Jack Moss: Maybe if the British (English) didn’t start the Plantation of Ulster in 1609 …….
@Jack Moss: What?
And then there were none.
Good stuff
have your say