I first came face-to-face with Bill Campbell where he stood outside the old stone fish house at the top of the Mall in Ramelton. As he was a newcomer to the Lennon river bank I stopped to ask who Bill was and why he was there. To my shame, I had never heard of him. Since his 2015 Nobel Prize for medicine this 92-year-old son of Co. Donegal has become an international celebrity; the man who discovered ivermectin the drug …
After nearly 3 years of dodging it, this week, I have succumbed to Covid. I woke up on Wednesday with a headache. I was able to function ok that morning, but when I met my wife for lunch, a wave of nausea hit me as soon as I bit into my first chip. That night I had aches and pains all over my body, especially in the lower back. Then there was the tiredness and alternating shivers and sweating. Luckily …
If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that the world never pays enough attention to things that happen in inland China in December. The whole metropolitan region of the Chinese city of Xi’an, home to the terracotta warriors, has just been put under a hard lockdown, with residents to stay home except for one person from each household allowed out to buy groceries every two days. Thirteen million people confined at home because of a Delta outbreak …
Northern Ireland continues to rank among the world’s highest for the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered per capita. The chart above, from Our World in Data, shows that if Northern Ireland were an independent country, it would rank third in the world for the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered per person, behind the Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and fractionally ahead of Bahrain. The Northern Ireland Department of Health released this week a programme outlining its plans for vaccinating …
Painfully and suddenly all in a rush, under pressure of the Covid pandemic we’re witnessing the development of power sharing throughout England that has wider implications for the whole UK. The pandemic will stretch well into next year. The infection rate is about to equal or exceed last March’s. The strains imposed on government and by government are tightening. From having a rate of infection per 100,000 people of 11.4 in the week up to August 15, well below the …
Our latest episode of Slugger TV looks at how the local tourism industry can be reset. Brona Moffett (National Museums NI) and Michael Stewart (hospitality consultant) joined David McCann to discuss the sector which is worth 4.9% of Northern Ireland’s GDP, sustains over 40,000 jobs, and has taken a real battering since March.
The First and Deputy First Minister have made a televised address following Boris Johnson. There was nothing new announced from yesterday, it was a restatement of the message they have been giving for the past 24 hours. The new thing was how the form of communication. Looking back through the records (Slugger readers will correct me if I am wrong) this is the first time in nearly 52 years that this has happened. A leader(s) of a devolved administration …
Covid 19 has presented many challenges since the inception of lockdown on March 23rd. An uncertain time with unwelcomed anxiety and disappointment that we were apart from friends and family. Although the relaxing of restrictions comes as a welcome relief it begs the question what other obstacles are potentially ahead of us post Covid 19? Lockdown was never going to be easy for anyone. However, consider the situation presented to someone struggling with mental health. Someone who was just about …
David Frost, UK, and Michel Barnier, EU, chief negotiators Imposing a unenforceable quarantine on visitors to the UK from other countries with lower death rates. Forcing MPs to vote in person to set an example for a return to work. Even in the midst of crisis – or especially? – irrationality plays a great part in politics as is does in human nature generally. Somewhere there was a germ of a point that got overtaken by time and circumstances. The …
