Steve McGookinVaccine row overshadows tragic Covid milestone
Britain’s death toll from Covid-19 passed 100,000 this week, more than the number of civilian deaths recorded during World War Two.
The UK is now the fifth country – and the first in Europe – to exceed 100,000 deaths; after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico. A recent surge in fatalities has partly been blamed on new, fast-spreading variants, and medical officials have warned that more deaths would likely follow before the vaccination programme begins to show benefits.
At the weekend it was reported that Capt Sir Tom Moore, the 100-year-old who raised more than £30million for NHS charities last year, had been admitted to hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
With new travel and quarantine restrictions in place, it looked like vaccinations in the UK are heading in the right direction. But a political dispute between London and Brussels over vaccine supply was looming, and it exploded at the end of the week with – as often happens – Northern Ireland caught in the middle.
It was perhaps inevitable that the narrative around the contract dispute quickly dissolved into the discourse of blame that we’ve become used to with Brexit.
Meanwhile, there were enough real warnings about the ongoing effects of Brexit on everyday life and in particular on business.
Here in NI there were some important changes to Amazon deliveries.
See Also:
Leaders Need To Lead: The Executive and Covid-19
Life Is Harder Right Now. We Should Be Kinder To Ourselves
The Covid-19 Vaccine Explained
Reinforcing Northern Ireland’s In-Betweenness
Public Opinion and Northern Ireland’s Future – What Does The Latest Polling Tell Us?
***
Biden acts quickly on climate
New US President Joe Biden wasted no time in staking out his administration’s policy territory on climate and the environment, this week signing a wide-ranging raft of measures that go well beyond his campaign promise to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord.
But backing these up with binding legislation and getting the nation to commit to his goal of a zero-emissions economy by 2050 will undoubtedly be harder, to say nothing of involving the rest of the world in significant change.
This week saw the – virtual – gathering of economic elites at the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos conference. One of the participants was Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who criticized world leaders for “weak” plans to deal with the climate emergency.
“It’s like waking up in the middle of the night, seeing your house on fire, then deciding to wait 10, 20 or 30 years before you call the fire department,” she said.
Meanwhile, with much of the US currently in the grip of the huge Winter Storm Orlena, it’s worth remembering that this coming Tuesday, of course, is Groundhog Day, when the eyes of the world will once more turn to Gobbler’s Knob.
See Also:
Build Back Differently – How NI Can Tackle Climate Change
“Everything is Getting Much Worse, Much Faster, Everywhere”
***
Another weekend of protests in Russia
Greta Thunberg is among the nominees for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, along with the World Health Organization and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
There was a second weekend of protests in cities across Russia as supporters of Navalny continued their demonstrations against his detention. More than 5,000 people were reportedly arrested – more than the approximately 3,000 who were detained at similar rallies last weekend. Once again, many gatherings – often as much motivated by opposition to Vladimir Putin than support for Navalny – took place in extreme cold weather. In St Petersburg, protesters chanted “Down with the Tsar.”
Elsewhere, news was breaking late on Sunday night that Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and several governmental colleagues, had been arrested and were being detained, raising fears of a coup in the Southeast Asian country.
***
GameStop game stops
In what will probably become a business school case study, small investors targeted mega-rich Wall Street hedge funds by pushing the stock of a troubled video game store to improbable highs.
It may, or may not, have ended well.
The AP writes: “If a meme of Bernie Sanders in mittens can distract us amid a presidential inauguration and a Reddit message board can send Wall Street big shots running in panic, perhaps some good can come out of this, too. Right?”
***
Report released into NI Mother and Baby Homes
Finally, a sad addendum to the recent release of the Irish government’s report into the activities of Mother and Baby homes, when a corresponding report into similar homes in Northern Ireland was released this week.
The report contains many heartbreaking personal accounts of a dark chapter covering much of the 20th Century.
Also published on Medium.
