Letters to the Editor: Vague info makes it impossible to track Covid-19 trends
Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan at a Covid -19 update press conference at the Department of Health on Monday, February 1, when 10 Covid-related deaths were reported. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
The wild day-to-day variations in the reported number of Covid-19-related deaths reflects very poorly on the Department of Health’s recording system.
On February 1, the Department reported just 10 Covid-related deaths. The next day, this jumped to 101, which, according to Dr Tony Holohan, was “the highest number of deaths we have reported on any single day of the Covid-19 pandemic so far”.
This might give the impression that all these deaths had occurred in the previous 24-hour period.
In fact, according to the accompanying departmental press release, most of these deaths occurred on unspecified days in January.
Just 18 occurred in the first two days of February.
Such vague statements make it impossible to track trends in Covid deaths on a daily, and even a weekly, basis.
Similar problems apply to the daily reports of infection numbers.
One might have expected the Department of Health to at least be able to provide reliable daily figures on Covid deaths and infections.
Surely it should be possible to have a simple information system whereby, when a Covid-related death is pronounced, this fact is immediately reported to a central database.
The same applies to vaccinations. While the British health service is performing vaccinations at a much higher level, it is still able to provide daily vaccination data.
Why is the Irish Department of Health not capable of doing this with much fewer vaccinations?
Proinnsias Breathnach
Maynooth
Co Kildare
Listeners sick of Covid debates
The current affairs department of our public service broadcaster needs to be dismantled.
The virus is being discussed morning, noon, and night non-stop.
Housebound listeners are tormented. They don’t know who or what to believe.
One evening last week, a respected spokesperson, who commands universal trust gave his opinion on zero Covid (the flavour of the month). The following morning a different medic was drafted to give the exact opposite opinion — and so it goes day after day.
Government ministers are interrogated, cross-examined, demeaned and contradicted whilst opposition spokespersons are given a full hearing often echoing the raucous carry on that passes for debate in the Dail.
We can do better.
Mairin Quill
Wellington Road
Cork
People must pay for own quarantine
Justice Minister Helen McEntee says very little of any value.
For example, she hasn’t specified who’ll be paying for hotel quarantines. Only errant tourists should pay for these hotels, not the State.
I would also expect Irish people quarantining abroad to pay these expenses.
Dr Florence Craven
Bracknagh
Co Offaly
Compel travellers to stay in hotels
It is difficult to understand how the Government have not made provision to compel visitors to isolate at designated hotels. Our Government is comprised of “educated” people.
They have surrounded themselves with “educated” “advisors and assistants”. Yet it seems none of them had the basic common sense needed to foresee this eventuality.
Michael A Moriarty
Rochestown
Cork
Taoiseach’s visit to US would be error
If Taoiseach Micheál Martin presses ahead with his visit to the White House it will prove to be a colossal political miscalculation and own goal.
There are those who vehemently argue for the merits of such a trip in terms of currying favour and generating business stateside.
All of that is true and, indeed, our British friends were reported to be particularly envious of our diplomatic strategy in the US.
However, we are not in normal times. We are in the grip of a global pandemic and whereas, before that “meaningful” Christmas, we were ahead of the curve we are now considered to be one of the most infectious areas in the world.
When US president Joe Biden got to work in the White House one of his first tasks was to swear in members of his administration.
He did so virtually and Micheál Martin could well conduct a Zoom call into the Oval Office on St Patrick’s Day and firm up an invitation to our shores.
Our ambassador could drop off the bowl of shamrock and a book of poetry by Seamus Heaney. That would cement the relationship and also would be seen as progressive and supportive by the Democratic president who inherited a vast country ravaged by coronavirus.
To proceed with the visit which is only a matter of weeks away would be tone-deaf to the will of the people whom have had the harshest of travel restrictions imposed upon them.
Killian Brennan
Malahide Road
Dublin 17
Pay hike sends a terrible message
Robert Watt is a very effective civil servant. But this sudden gigantic inexplicable pay rise in a national emergency is a recipe for disaster.
Beyond benchmarks. It sends a terrible message. It is fuel for division.
This strange pay hike is going to cause a slow-burning kind of havoc in the hearts and minds of the people politicians ask for votes and trust.
Michael Deasy
Carrigart
Co Donegal
Entrant teachers getting a raw deal
One year ago this week thousands of teachers pre-covid went on a strike to highlight the scandal of a nine-year pay inequality for new-entrant teachers.
“Teaching Transforms” is a campaign from the Department of Education to promote the teaching profession in Ireland.
Surely penalising new entrant teachers is just wrong.
What is so wrong with pay equality?
Some seek pay equality and some a pay rise of over €90,000.
Watt a scandal of our time.
Brendan Greene
Teacher at St Clare’s Comprehensive School
Manorhamilton
Co Leitrim
Hedge schools are ideal option now
We need to revive hedge schools — plenty of ventilation, close to nature, disease-free environment, rich in oxygen, which might help suppress the virus.
Early introduction to this world of bugs, flora and fauna will have benefits for their future and for sustainable conservation.
Even learning about the different trees and the birds is a bonus for better mental health and instrumental in developing the character and mindset of individuals.
Ian Hester
Ballymacurley
Co Roscommon
Institutes of technology could be part of larger universities
As a native of Co Waterford and someone who has maintained a deep interest in the importance of education there, I was intrigued to read in the Irish Examiner about the ongoing saga regarding a University in the South-East.
There is more than one way to achieve that, something on which there has been no debate.
Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) is an excellent academic institution with real strengths; it has been able to demonstrate its ability to compete in the nation’s research agenda, and has buildings and infrastructure that are very impressive.
Thus, why do certain local parties keep pushing for it to be become a “technological university”, notwithstanding government policy.
Most quality universities, even the most ancient, now complement their traditional academic foci with a technological one.
Not recognising that and promoting a binary system of university education creates a view that institutions that foreground the word technological in their titles may be second-rate or lacking in some way.
Since the criteria to be applied when considering applications for technological university status do not differ markedly from what we might expect to be used for accrediting any university, it seems astounding that there has been no debate about the possibility of institutes of technology being absorbed in the existing long-established university system.
For example, WIT being absorbed into NUI Maynooth would be eminently sensible as their academic offering would complement each other.
Such an arrangement with it or any other long-established university would also be wise on grounds of financial prudence since there would then be no need for the payment of a new president and vice-president of a technological university and there could be a great savings when it comes to departments of human resources and financial services.
Furthermore, absorbing an institute of technology into an older university would also save the former from being ranked close to the bottom on international league tables.
Professor Tom O’Donoghue
Graduate School of Education The University of Western Australia.
Visiting Full-Professor
University College Dublin
