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THE ACTING CHIEF chief medical officer has encouraged students to form social bubbles, as he lends his support to a new campaign aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19 in third level environments.
‘Keep it Small, Keep it Safe, Keep your Distance’ is the message the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) hopes to get across to the thousands of people starting or returning to higher education this autumn.
The campaign will be conducted over social media, and has also received the support of the Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris.
Concerns have been raised that the return of students this month could exacerbate the spread of the virus.
The government on Friday asked all higher education institutions to deliver lectures online where possible. Students have been asked to not visit campus unless absolutely necessary, such as for practical and lab-based classes.
The disease has been promdominatley circulating among younger people for some time now, although the number of cases among older demographics who are more susceptible to serve illness from Covid-19 continues to rise.
A number of countries have experienced clusters connected to universities. Scotland has banned students from going to pubs, and an outbreak at a Swiss university lead to 2,500 people being placed in quarantine.
The USI’s new campaign is part of efforts to prevent a repeat of scenes like this in Ireland.
“For younger people in particular, this pandemic has impacted on your education, your relationships and your social lives,” Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said in a statement.
You have all been committed throughout the pandemic to following public health advice – and for that I thank you. But the disease is continuing to spread disproportionately among younger people, and so, I am asking you to stick with this and continue to follow the public health advice.
“Be a role model for others. Limit the number of people you meet, try and meet the same small group of people all the time, maintain two-metre physical distance, wear a face covering, wash your hands well and often.
“Together, every safe behaviour counts.”
The advice around sticking to socialising with the same handful of people – known as a social bubble – has been recommended at National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) meetings for the general population as well.
Minister Simon Harris said this was a difficult time for young people, who have already missed many milestones due to restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19.
We are asking students to follow three simple messages – keep your gatherings small, keep yourself and those around you safe and keep your distance.
Throughout this pandemic, our young people have been leaders and I urge them to stick with us, to hold firm, and help us ensure a safe resumption of the academic year.
While the campaign is focused on encouraging students to stay up to date with and stick to public health guidelines, it is also aimed at encouraging socialising in a safe and responsible manner.
“We all have a part to play in limiting the spread of the virus, but we are also concerned about the impact of loneliness or seclusion on students,” USI president Lorna Fitzpatrick said.
“So, depending on where we are in the country and the restrictions in place at the time, we can meet friends and family providing it’s done in a safe way. This will help support our mental health while reducing the risk of spreading the virus.”
The government has committed an extra €5 million to mental health supports for students.
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This opinion piece is a little disingenuous in leading with “China is going carbon neutral” which is an alleged aspiration for 2060, rather than the present reality, that it is that now and up until 2030 they are intending to reach peak emmisions, in other words pump ever more emmisions into the atmosphere, up to the maximum they can produce.
It’s a little like an alcoholic claiming to be going sober, while in reality intending to not only continue drinking, but to increase their intake of alcohol to as much as they can possibly drink for the next twenty years…..
I think the US has way more than just carbon neutral targets to think of when it comes to China. That seems like the smallest issue when compared to the human rights issues, aggressive territorial expansion and lest we forget the initial Covid cover up that made the world as bleak as it is today.
But you know what? Great. If the worlds biggest polluter thinks it can get a handle of things in 40 years, then that’s one less thing the world needs to be concerned about. They disproportionately pollute the world by land (the dams to influence countries downstream), sea (200 million cubic tonnes of waste was dumped from them into the water in 2018) and air (28% of global emissions) and this needs to stop.
@Paul Cunningham: let’s not forget that they produce all that waste and CO2 making things we buy. We have outsourced manufacturing pollution to China so we can pretend to be cleaner.
@Ivan Connolly: your right added to that is greed by the west of the wealthy % 70 years ago Ireland had a few manufacturers now considerably less the same with Europe
@Paul Cunningham: Until China became the power it is now , the U.S. as the major industrialised nation on earth had no problem in being the worst polluter in the world. As for territorial expansion think you would want to look at the U.S. interference in South America and the Middle East. The fact that China is near matching the industrial might of the U.S. has America rattled..The fact the U.S. backed the wrong horse and lost China still rankles them.
@Donal Desmond: we get it dude you hate America ffs the funny thing is your probably American and if you are I can gurrentee 100% that you are democrat
So is the issue that the USA doesn’t offer any “climate ambitions”? Because their actual climate results are quite impressive. In the last 15 yrs they’ve seen the largest drop in emissions of any nation on earth, just slightly below the reduction seen for the whole EU. Meanwhile China and India have seen unprecedented rise in theirs. While the USA dismantles coal plants, these other nations build them. It’s all fine for China to claim it will reach some imaginary target in 40 yrs (including 10 more yrs of record breaking growth) but I have more confidence in nations that show results. Trump may be a dud with regards to climate change but his nation isn’t. And fortunately, unlike Xi, Trump isn’t a dictator and therefore states that don’t agree with his laissez faire approach to the environment are free to pursue a different path. And some of those states are enormous. If we broke the USA into 50 countries then California, if it was a country, would still be the 4th largest economy in the world, just behind Germany. And like Germany, California is a global leader in green policies and changes. I get that some people prefer it when nations make popular climate promises (without any actual plan or political will to see through to fruition) but I prefer results and I think many within the USA has done this.
“introduction of a robust state security law in Hong Kong.”
The introduction of a police state you mean.
Quite a few euphemisms used in this article.
He mentions the economic miracle from 1978 but no mention of the millions murdered before 1978 during the ‘Great Leap Forward’.
It’s sad that so many on the left, due to their hatred for Trump, are now extolling the ‘virtues’ of the Chinese police state and it’s one party dictatorship.
China is the worst human rights abuser and the biggest polluter on earth bar none.
@Will: You realize the miracle or 1978 involved the wet outsourcing all of its manufacturing emissions to China.
How about china go eating bats neutral first and we’ll go from there…
@Darren Byrne: i d i o t
China has nearly 250 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power now under development, more than the entire coal power capacity of the United States
@Owen: When you’re the workshop of the world that tends to happen. 18,000 kms of high speed rail built between 2008 and 2020
The Journal heard Joe Biden say it on last debate so must be true
Trump declaring to open back up the coal mines and let the good times role back to his numpty supporters.china has the resources and man power to completely dominate the electric vehicle market.something Europe Russia and America will struggle with
@snotser: go see your Doctor ASAP tell him you have Trump Derangement Syndrome TDS for short.. best of luck in your recovery
Anyone bashing American while defending China have to be paid to do so.
Per head of population the US is probably still the worlds largest polluter. If the Chinese do go renewable they will be such a big player that they will dictate the terms of trade on use of fossil fuels by other nations. We will all be forced to end fossil fuel use quickly. The chinese will be more secure as they will no longer depend on foreign energy supply imports (oil.) This is why Ireland should go for green energy now – its cheaper, its produced locally, doesn’t require taxpayer subsidies of about 300 million euros a year to oil companies and its use will, along with similar policies worldwide, give our children a fighting chance of handing on a habitable planet to our grandchildren.
Per head of population the US is still the worlds largest polluter. If the Chinese do go renewable they will be such a big player that they will dictate the terms of trade on use of fossil fuels by other nations. We will all be forced to end fossil fuel use quickly. The chinese will be more secure as they will no longer depend on foreign energy supply imports (oil.) This is why Ireland should go for green energy now – its cheaper, its produced locally, doesn’t require taxpayer subsidies of 300 million euros a year to foreign oil companies and its use will, along with similar policies worldwide, give our children a fighting chance of handing on a habitable planet to our grandchildren and avoid human extinction.
Per head of population the US is probably still the worlds largest polluter. If the Chinese do go renewable they will be such a big player that they will dictate the terms of trade on use of fossil fuels by other nations. We will all be forced to end fossil fuel use quickly. The chinese will be more secure as they will no longer depend on foreign energy supply imports (oil.) This is why Ireland should go for green energy now – its cheaper, its produced locally, doesn’t require taxpayer subsidies of 300 million euros a year to foreign oil companies and its use will, along with similar policies worldwide, give our children a fighting chance of handing on a habitable planet to our grandchildren and avoid human extinction.
But there’s no votes in carbon neutral. In America is a moot point.
One true utterance from Trump has been that wind and solar power are just scams. Every KW they generate has to be backed up by something else. Follow the money. Who are the big, big pushers of renewables.? Answer, the big fossil fuel corporates. They know they will have us all over the metaphorical oil barrel, for filling in the big gaps.
There is only one power source that has any chance of saving us from run away climate catastrophe and that is a mass move into Gen 4 nuclear. www. bene.ie
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