Scant attention is being paid here to the fact that the number of Covid-19 fatalities in Japan is approximately the same as in Ireland, despite Japan having a population of 127m with an elderly demographic versus our 5m with a younger demographic; their population is thus 25.4 times greater than ours, with many living in densely populated cities.
The transmission rates have been very high in Japan but people have been infected with low viral loads resulting in minimal symptoms. The reasons for this are known and our decision-makers would do well to take note of the following:
1. Theirs is already a mask culture;
2. They are not tactile in public and tend to be quiet in public (do not talk loudly, etc).
3. Good ventilation;
4. Good use of apps;
5. Low rate of obesity;
6. Limited International travel, mandatory testing on arrival and supervised quarantine of 14 days.
7. A diet rich in vitamin D, zinc, and iodine, all factors in boosting the immune system and reducing the inflammation that features in Covid-19 fatalities.
As a result, the Japanese have avoided many of the drastic measures that may cripple our society and at a fairly minimal cost. Could we not be a bit more ‘Japanese’ for a few weeks?
Dermot O’Dowda
Blackpool
Cork
Government must let Nphet decide
Strange times we are in. Government leaders can sack a man for breaking their regulations but are now firmly placed at the centre of our discontent over their handling of the pandemic. The Government ignored the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) and chief medical officer Tony Holohan to go to level 5 two weeks ago and now we have a serious crisis for front line care workers. Phil Hogan was not even infected, but they sought to make an example. Their
inconsistent policies have failed and we are at a loss to lose a commissioner that might have steered some kind of Brexit deal.
Alas, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
If they have any humility left, the Government should leave all decisions to Dr Holohan and Co in the future on tackling an out of control situation that we now find ourselves in.
The virus spread around the country, and there can be no doubt that its
rebirth lay in the doomed policy of staycation and other social engagements at a time when we needed to crush it instead.
Ian Hester
Carrowduff
Ballymacurley
Co Roscommon
Sole dwellers are safer on their own
Some well-meaning people are protesting on behalf of folk who live alone — how we will all be miserable without visitors. How many single people have they asked? A number of my friends live alone and we are well used to our own company. Do the protesters think that we would prefer to gasp out our ‘lonely’ lives in some hospital for the sake of meeting face to face with friends and families?
Utter rubbish. We are far safer on our own.
Dusty Kingsbury
Doneraile
Co Cork
Getting on with life during a pandemic
None of the ‘boffins’ seem to be in agreement as to the problem of Covid-19 — its magnitude or its solution.
Until there is unity of cause and solution, please let us get on with our lives. Plagues have been with us from the time of Moses — and, I’m fairly sure — long before it. (One such, in the early 14th century gave us The Decameron but, I do not see this one providing such a gem.)
As an 85-year-old, I have long realised that the only certainty after birth is death. Until the dying day, life is to be lived and not to be feared. Lockdown is but a living death. I have two lovely great-granddaughters in London and, I want to be able to visit them as long as my sanity lasts.
Cal Hyland
Roscarbery
Co Cork
Dealing with truth on social media
Facebook and Twitter are facing questions about taking down references to a New York Post report about Joe Biden. The action of taking down information that is incorrect, might be
incorrect or is offensive is understandable and sensible but why now?
There are still millions of Facebook pages that contain inaccurate information. This isn’t probably that bad given there are at least a billion users and some of them are fake. Is it even possible for Facebook to take down all inaccurate pages?
Twitter has also stopped some items but is it able to stop all — again it’s doubtful. It seems that US president Donald Trump has sent out more than 50,000 tweets. If we removed any that were inaccurate, incorrect, impolite, or incoherent, how many would be left?
Why can’t we just tell the truth?
Dennis Fitzgerald
Vic Melbourne
Australia
Beware of building towers on sand
I read that permission was given for a 34-storey hotel at the Custom House site — ‘Plans approved for €150m hotel on Port of Cork site’ (Irish Examiner, October 15). However, I had written to the Irish Examiner some weeks ago, about earthquakes in Cork. We have not had earthquakes in living memory, and that does not mean that they never happen.
In the past, we have had several. In old records, Felcon writes in 1247 of a strange earthquake striking Cork and all the western world. The same earthquake destroyed St David’s cathedral in Wales.
Tuckey mentions a quake in 1755, and another in March 1751.
In San Francisco in the US, the Millennium Tower — a recently built luxury apartment block — is slowly sinking and also leaning. It was built on reclaimed land as is the Custom House site, it is built on mud.
In 2015, I had given the history, for heritage week, on Parnell place describing the street as former Nelson Quay, a shipping channel.
Liquefaction takes over, where water seeps through reclaimed land, despite piles driven into mud, which do not reach solid ground causing buildings to collapse. We have had numerous buildings collapsing, and lately buildings in danger of collapse. We already have one white elephant — the Cork event centre — which according taoiseach Enda Kenny would be up and running by 2017.
Surely the city name should be warning enough, in Irish it means the great marsh of Munster. Most Corkonians know the main streets were once river channels. Take great care.
Pat Kelly
Blackrock
Cork
Put old statues in a ‘Graveyard of Hate’
Depending on who is in government, or on the throne in Spain, statues are fast disappearing there. A few years back, the socialist-led government and town mayors began a cleansing campaign. They removed all statues of the fascist Franco and his henchmen, and put them into cold storage.
Now a fascist-led government is removing statues of socialists. The musical chairs type of government helps ethnic statue cleansing. Also the Black lives Matter campaign are targeting older, more stable figures like Christopher Columbus and former Spanish colony conquistadors, like Hernan Cortez, Pizarro, etc.
Soon the country will be denuded , and only the bullfighters down south will be left standing. However, if the animal cruelty campaigners get their way, they too are for the scrapheap, and good riddance.
But I would like to propose a special cemetery for all statues. We’ll call it the ‘Graveyard of Hate’, where they can all stand side by side, a kind of curiosity shop of oddballs, a Madame Tussauds of freaks.
Holly Barrett
Mallow
Co Cork
Greens’ hounds turnaround
In its pre-budget submission last year, the Green Party demanded that public funding for the greyhound racing industry be stopped. In the budget, the Green Party in government announced a €2.4m increase in funding for this same industry. What a difference a year makes.
Vera Dolan
Manor Court
Galway
Brady got justice
It is hard to understand the point of the recent protesters at the Courts of Criminal Justice, with placards reading ‘Justice for Aaron Brady’. That is exactly what Aaron Brady got — open, transparent justice.
Thank God.
It was not the protesters’ type of justice, no hoods, no kangaroo court.
Congratulations to An Garda SÃochána on their successful prosecution of a very difficult case.
I look forward to congratulating them further when they round up and prosecute the remaining members of the gang.
Tony Fagan
Enniscorthy
Co Wexford.
