Cassandra Voices

Category: Science & Environment

  • ‘Healthy People Do Not Require Genetic Vaccination’

    Editor’s Note: Having previously published Vaccination: A Matter of Trust with Caveats, we now anticipate objections from some readers to an article that may provoke vaccine hesitancy, at a point when rapid rollout to the entire adult population is widely touted as the only path out of interminable lockdowns. The author of this article, Dr. Marcus de Brun, however, is a medical doctor, and prior to his resignation last year– in protest against the government’s handling of the pandemic – a member of the Irish Medical Council. He also holds a first class degree in microbiology from TCD. Thus, we believe it is incumbent on Cassandra Voices as ‘a home for independent voices to inspire new thinking’ to provide this platform for him to articulate fully a public stance that he would not vaccinate a healthy person with any of the four vaccines currently on offer in Ireland. All the more so in a period of crisis, we maintain it is vital to give space to informed arguments that go against the grain. We invite comment and/or rebuttal, and ask if you appreciate this article that you offer a contribution to this publication, either through signing up with us on Patreon or through a single donation Buy Me A Coffee.

     

    Having recently stated publicly that I would ‘not administer a genetic-vaccine to a healthy animal, never mind a ‘healthy human being,’ I have been asked by friends (and foes) to clarify this statement, and will attempt to do so here.

    At present, vaccines produced by four companies (Pfizer, Moderna, Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson) are available on the European market. All four are ‘genetic vaccines’ in that they are composed of synthetic DNA or RNA that is contained within a membrane or shell. In construction and appearance the vaccine is very similar to the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the coronavirus disease known as Covid-19. The vaccine gains entry to human cells by a process that is almost identical to the manner by which a virus generally gains access to host cells. This process is called ‘transfection’.

    Each of these vaccines work by introducing either DNA or RNA into host cells. The genetic material then instructs host cells to make a piece of the coronavirus (the spike protein) that is then released into the blood stream or tissues. There, the spike protein will trigger an immune response. Following this immune response, the vaccinated individual will retain some immunity; they will have antibodies and white cells that can now recognise Covid-19 and attack it before it has a chance to cause a serious infection.

    The AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are DNA vaccines,[i] which transfect DNA into the Nucleus of host cells. The Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines are RNA vaccines, these transfect their RNA into the cytoplasm of host cells. The difference will be explained later; however, the initial process is the same: human cells take up synthetic viral genes, those genes then direct those cells to begin manufacturing the spike-protein of Covid-19. The cells will then release the nascent spike-protein into the bloodstream or tissues, where it will then function as a ‘traditional vaccine.’

    In essence, the distinction between genetic-vaccines and ‘traditional vaccines’ is that the latter would involve a person being injected with killed or inactive virus or spike-protein, which would then cause our immune systems to mount a response. Each of these novel genetic-vaccines however, insert genetic material into human cells. These synthetic genes then ‘hijack’ those cells or ‘convert’ them to manufacture and release the spike-protein. With a genetic vaccine, pharma does not make the vaccine, our own cells are programmed to do the work instead, a process entirely different from that of a ‘traditional vaccine’.

    Out with the Old…

    For the first time in my medical career of some twenty years, I am presented with the apparent necessity of vaccinating young healthy people with experimental vaccines, against a disease for which they have little or no risk of suffering life-threatening,[ii] or even serious long-term[iii] illness. The vast majority of  ‘vulnerable’ people to whom they might pass Covid-19 have already been either vaccinated or been exposed to the virus.[iv]

    In Ireland according to our Central Statistics Office, during the past 12 months up to the end of January 2021; amongst the entire population of 1-24yr olds, there have been 55,565 PCR confirmed cases of Covid-19. Out of those cases, there has not been a single death recorded; from, by, or associated with Covid-19.[v] It has been reported that a single Covid-related death in this cohort (1-24yrs) did occur in February of this year. However, this has yet to appear in the figures published by the CSO.

    Young nurses, medical staff, care workers, are being pressured into taking a vaccine they probably don’t need themselves, despite residents under their care having been almost all vaccinated already. Now Covid-19 genetic-vaccines are being tested upon children as young as six months old.[vi]

    A Scarcity of Serious Questions? Or a Scarcity of Serious Media?

    The justification for many, if not most, policies during this crisis has largely been based on ‘mortality data’. In contrast, Swedish authorities have enforced relatively few restrictions, nor made masks mandatory. In Ireland, the CSO indicate that 92% of all Covid-related deaths have occurred in those over 65 years of age.[vii]

    In Sweden that cohort of their population is 3.17 times greater Ireland’s. Thus, if we roughly compare the Swedish mortality total (at the time of writing) of 13,262,  to the Irish total of 4588, and if we then multiply the Irish mortality total by 3.17, we arrive at a figure of 14,544, which is significantly higher than the comparable Swedish total.

    We are crudely, but reasonably, comparing ‘like with like’ to reveal glaring potential problems with our own relatively draconian Covid policies. When compared with Sweden, our own version of lockdown seems to have had no benefit in terms of preventing mortality. It might not be unreasonable to assert that our stricter policies may have contributed to a relatively higher mortality. Yet, perhaps the biggest question here is: why are there so few questions being posed in the media in respect of the efficacy of masks, lockdowns or vaccination policies?

    On the rare occasion questions are raised in our national media, it as if an ‘anti-vaxxer’, ‘right-wing loon’, or political extremist is trying to gate crash what might otherwise be a rather sedate and respectable party.

    Pro-Vaxxer

    In the good old days before Covid, in Ireland, and around the world, we only vaccinated those who were vulnerable to, or at risk from a specific disease. We still vaccinate children against an array of illnesses that adults have not been, and are not routinely vaccinated against; Rotavirus and Meningitis B are but two obvious examples. Adults are equally susceptible to infection by either, but they are not as vulnerable to serious illness, and so are not vaccinated. Previously, we only ever vaccinated the vulnerable and those at risk; recently, however, that good science and common sense has been turned on its head.

    It is suggested that we should vaccinate young healthy people who have little if anything to fear from Covid-19. A paediatric genetic-vaccine is expected to be available later this year. It is argued that even though children are generally not susceptible to serious disease, they should be vaccinated in order to protect the vulnerable and achieve ‘herd-immunity.’ In the meantime, the vulnerable have in large part already been either been vaccinated already, exposed or sadly passed away.

    In a recent post on Twitter Michael Levitt, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Biophysics at Stanford University said:

    If getting the disease does not give immunity, how do you think that a vaccine that makes the same spike protein as the virus makes will give immunity?

    It beggars belief that with over a quarter of a million cases of Covid-19 already confirmed in Ireland, [viii] those who have already contracted the virus, are not at least being offered antibody testing prior to being offered (or pressured into taking) a new type of vaccine; novel vaccine that have recognised associated risks, and have not completed all safety trials.

    Between March and June, 2020, 96% of additional deaths related to COVID-19 in Europe occurred in patients aged older than 70 years [ix] We have clearly lost sight of whom we are trying to protect, and what we are trying to protect them from. Presently we have a national obsession with conformity, and an ostensible adherence to guidelines. Despite empirical truths, and substantial contrary evidence, we are being corralled into what increasingly appears to be a specific belief-system surrounding Covid-19, and its threat to the entire population.

    Those who have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) will be familiar with the threats issued to the hapless animals: ‘Jones the farmer will return, and destroy all of your good work!’ In contemporary parlance, he will return with ‘Long Covid,’[x] and frightening ‘New Variants’ with him.

    https://twitter.com/bergerbell/status/1379143927542947841

    Politicians have applied policies that are in keeping with this notion of ‘universal severity’ in response to a virus where 86% of those infected did not have virus symptoms, such as cough, fever, and loss of taste or smell., according to a UK study from October.[xi] Many of our Covid policies arrive with the benefit of preserving established governments from demonstrations and assemblies calling for policy revisions and or enquiries.

    My own calls for a public enquiry into nursing home deaths, or my pleas on behalf of common sense and natural science, are at best ignored by media. As are those of colleagues who feel and believe as I do, including Limerick GP Dr. Pat Morrissey, and Wexford GP Dr Gerry Waters, who was recently suspended by the Medical Council for refusing to adhere to and promote current public health guidance. Others who have openly spoken out against current policies have been subjected to investigation by the Medical Council, and ongoing vilification by many of our peers. Speaking out returns precious few short term dividends.

    Throughout much of Europe since the outset of the crisis, governments, like our own, are presently controlled by proxy scientific-panels or unelected expert committees. Governments claim to be simply ‘following their scientists advice,’ whilst the scientists insist that they are merely informing the government and not directing government policy. In this apparently blameless political ‘no man’s land’, the stage is perfectly set for blameless political atrocities.

    War of the Words: ‘Genetic vs ‘Traditional’

    Many scientists and physicians prefer to describe most Covid-19 vaccines as ‘gene therapy’. It is a phrase that no doubt serves as much to antagonise proponents, as it does to inform them. However, it is as good a place as anywhere to start.

    Genetic vaccines are certainly not ‘traditional’ vaccines. The licence for their use against Covid-19 throughout Europe was granted under emergency legislation that permits manufacturers to skip phase 4 safety trials that would have otherwise delayed their distribution. Advocates insist that skipping this final phase was absolutely necessary to resolve the current crisis.

    There is much to this argument, and we will not dive into it here. However, one point should be made. There are at least two off-patent (cheap and safe) drugs, Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, that may be effective in treating Covid-19. These drugs are not, however, licensed for use in treating Covid in many Western countries, (particularly the wealthier ones who can afford the novel vaccines).

    https://twitter.com/EvidenceLimited/status/1379400534000594945

    If either, or both, drugs had been licensed, this might have proved an obstacle to the granting of emergency use licences for Covid-19 vaccines. The reason for this is that grounds for emergency licensing of genetic-vaccines are substantially reinforced, as long as there are no other pharmacological treatments available at the time.

    Edward Jenner (1749-1823)

    A Traditional ‘Vaccine’

    In China the practice of inoculation against diseases such as smallpox was established as far back as 200 BC.[xii] It is likely that traditional medicine, tribesmen and ancient civilisations used, or at least inadvertently ‘knew’ something of the benefits of limited exposure to a disease, in order to establish some degree of immunity.

    Our own modern era of the ‘traditional’ vaccine begins when Edward Jenner (1749-1823) noticed that milkmaids appeared to be relatively immune to smallpox, a viral illness that was, in Jenner’s day, responsible for widespread suffering and death.

    Jenner observed that something was being transmitted from the cows to the milkmaids, effectively protecting them against smallpox. Cows contract cowpox. It’s not the same disease as smallpox, but as the respective viruses are so similar, whenever the hands of a milkmaid came into contact with a blister or pox on the udder of a cow infected with cow-pox; the milkmaid would be exposed to this very similar virus.

    In these instances the cowpox virus or ‘pieces’ of it, would enter the milkmaid’s blood stream through a cut or minor abrasion on her hands. The virus would be identified by her immune system as a ‘pathogen’ or disease-causing agent. White cells would attack the cowpox virus, causing it to break apart. Those same white cells would manufacture antibodies; little Y-shaped proteins that will stick to surface-proteins on the virus, and cause it to be directly destroyed, or recognised by other white cells that will mobilise to destroy it.

    All of this complex immunology would of course be occurring within the milkmaid’s blood, whilst she happily milked her cows. She might notice a slight blister, a little pus, or minor swelling around one of the abrasions on her overworked hands. The slight redness might be ignored, and would inevitably fade away. However this localised reaction would have heralded exposure to cowpox. The cowpox antibodies would then persist in her blood, remaining attached to the surface of many of her circulating white blood cells; protecting her or “vaccinating” her against small-pox.

    If the milkmaid should later come into contact with smallpox, those newly formed cowpox antibodies would be ready to mount an early and more efficient immune response. Her antibodies to the cowpox virus could attach to the smallpox virus, recruit other white cells – killer t-cells etc – onto the scene, and mount a pre-emptive response. This would be fast enough to eradicate the smallpox infection before it had an opportunity to spread and cause severe illness or death. It was Jenner’s genius that ultimately brought this reality to light.

    Jenner collected some of the pus that oozed from the udders of cows infected with cowpox. He swirled it about in a drop of water, placed it in a glass vial and then offered it to the world as the prevention for small-pox. Half a century later Louis Pasteur coined the phrase ‘vaccination’ after vacca, the Latin for cow. The paradigm in respect of human medicine and public health had shifted forever.

    Louis Pasteur.

    Perhaps the real hero of the vaccination story was an eight-year-old boy by the name of James Phipps, the son of Jenner’s gardener. On May 14th 1796, Jenner made a small incision into James’s arm, and rubbed in a drop of his magical ‘pus-paste’, making little James the first to be given a vaccine in the modern sense.

    Thankfully, little James proved immune to the various small-pox ‘exposures’ and challenges that Jenner then came up with. At the time small-pox was responsible for almost 10% of annual deaths in England. Jenner sent his results in a paper to the Royal Society for publication, but his paper was ignored.

    Having had the audacity to suggest pus from an infected cow’s udder, as a cure for smallpox, Jenner was at first dismissed as an eccentric by his peers. Yet, rather than disappearing into obscurity, he persisted. He vaccinated a further twenty-three people, and having seen little James survive, he even included his own eleven-month old son Robert, in this first ever vaccine trial.

    At that stage the medical establishment found it impossible to ignore his findings, which soon attracted widespread interest amongst the medical fraternity. However, it was not until 1840, some forty-four-years after his first attempt to publish his results, that the British Government began offering Jenner’s vaccination, free of charge, to the general public.

    The same but different

    Since Jenner’s day, ‘traditional vaccines’ have functioned in precisely the same way. Pharmaceutical companies take a virus or bacterium, they break it up, kill it, or leave it intact but render it weaker or ineffective ‘the same but different.’ They then take the bug (or pieces of the bug), swish them around in a little drop of water, add in a few elements that act as preservatives and immune-stimulants; then we doctors inject those pieces into people, thereby preventing many from succumbing to various infective diseases. The vaccination exposes us to a bug or pieces of a bug causing our immune system to generate antibodies and white blood cells that will persist in our circulation and be ready to launch a pre-emptive strike against the bug or a similar bug if it is encountered again: we have, in essence, become immune.

    So what is different about genetic-vaccines? Well here’s where the story becomes a little nuanced. Let’s try to put it in terms we might relate to.

    To begin with we must remind ourselves that: all living things are composed of cells, which is perhaps the most basic tenet of biology.

    Image of a recreated 1918 influenza virus.

    Viruses are not considered ‘living things’, because they are not ‘cells’ and neither are they made up of cells. They are formally referred to as ‘obligate intracellular parasites.’ They only become ‘alive;’ and can only replicate, after entering host cells, at which point they replicate or multiply within host cells. Once inside a cell the virus hijacks the cell’s own processes for making things that the cell needs for itself. The infected cell then becomes a virus factory, it swells with new virus particles, until it bursts, dies, and releases its payload of new virions into the bloodstream, or fluid outside of the cell membrane.

    It is only when a virus is outside the cell, within the blood stream or tissues, that it might be recognised by white cells or antibodies, and become the subject of an immune response. When a virus is inside one of our cells, there are some discrete ways this cell can let other cells know that it has become infected; there are means by which the immune system detects that one of our own cells has a virus inside it. However, these are comparatively slow, indefinite and uncertain processes and will not be discussed here. The major and most important way the immune system clears viruses is by getting at them before they get inside our cells.

    Once a virus is inside a cell, for the most part, it is hidden from the immune system. This point will be crucial to understanding the distinction between a genetic vaccine, and a traditional vaccine.

    All Cells Look a Little, or a Lot, Like a Fried Egg:

    Under a microscope, all cells appear a little like fried eggs. Almost all of them have the same basic plan, the yellow yolk being the nucleus; the white of the egg, the ‘cytoplasm;’ and the outer margin of the fried egg (the crispy brown edge) being the ‘cell membrane’ or wall surrounding the cell. To learn the basics of how genetic vaccines work, we need only refer to this analogy, but we must understand our ‘egg’ a little better before we put the toast on.

    The yellow yolk, or nucleus, contains all of our DNA. To understand what DNA looks like, imagine your fly, not the one buzzing at the window, but the zip on your trousers. It is composed of two sides or strands that are linked together when your zipper is up, and separated when your zipper is down.

    DNA is like an extremely long length of closed zip. Imagine this super long ‘zip’ coiled into individual space-saving packages, like neat balls of wool. Each of these little packages is called a chromosome and (with the exception of sperm cells and egg cells) the nucleus of each of our cells contains forty-six of these little balls of wool; twenty-three from mum, and twenty-three from dad.

    All forty-six are packed into the nucleus, the yellow yolk of our analogous egg. When we, or one of our cells, needs something; a protein, a hormone, a replacement part etc., the information to make what the cell needs (the recipe for all of life’s necessities) is coded for in that length of closed zip, our DNA.

    Each of the ‘teeth’ along the length of the zip strands, represent a single letter of the genetic code. An entire message may contain many letters, or teeth, along a specific length or piece of the zip. The lengths of zip that contain messages (or recipes) are called our ‘genes.’

    The ‘message’ within a gene is like a recipe in a cookbook. It contains a coded instruction for how to make the protein, enzyme etc., or whatever it is that the cell wants or needs. The DNA code is in the nucleus, and the basic ingredients are located in the cytoplasm, and it is in the cytoplasm (the egg-white) where the item required is assembled and manufactured. The raw materials for manufacture get into the cytoplasm, when they are absorbed across the cell membrane (the crispy brown bit at the edge of our fried egg). These raw materials are the amino-acids, sugars and vitamins etc., that we receive in our diet.

    To kick off the process, when a cell needs to make something, a signal is sent from the white of the egg (the cytoplasm) into the nucleus. That signal makes its way to the ball of wool or chromosome that contains the particular recipe, or code for the ingredients that will make up whatever is needed by the cell. When the signal reaches the chromosome containing the particular recipe or gene, the ball of wool is loosened slightly, and a relatively small length of closed zip (or DNA containing that recipe), is unzipped. One side of the opened zip is then copied into a piece of mRNA.

    That copy of one side of the unzipped zip is called messenger RNA. In most textbooks it (the mRNA) looks exactly as I have described it: a single side of a zip. This messenger RNA then exits through pores in the nucleus.  It enters the white of the egg, where this mRNA ‘recipe’ is then read or translated, and whatever it is the cell needs can now be manufactured within the cytoplasm or the white of the egg.

    The Ribosome

    When the strand of messenger RNA leaves the nucleus and enters the cytoplasm it is immediately found by a fascinating little cytoplasmic protein called a ‘ribosome’. The ribosome attaches to the mRNA. It then slides along this single strand of zip, and as it does so, ‘reads’ the code, and then makes a little strand, like a bead of pearls (a polypeptide). That strand of polypeptide then curls and folds itself into a little ball or blob; and this little blob of protein, is the very thing that the cell was looking for in the first place.

    It might be a structural protein, an enzyme, a building block, a replacement part, or whatever. When the ribosome slides along the piece of mRNA it makes this new little string that will ultimately fold upon itself to become the required product. This wonderful orchestral process is as ancient as life itself and is called ‘translation.’

    It is one of the rare occasions when jargon makes sense, for the little piece of mRNA, has indeed been ‘translated’ into a protein or ‘final product’ by the ribosome. The cell has now manufactured the thing that it needs, and after a few translations, the mRNA then degrades. No more ribosomes can attach to it, and no further product can be manufactured from it. If the cell wants another product it must send another message into the nucleus and call for another mRNA copy to be made in the nucleus and sent into the cytoplasm. It is a beautifully organised process, integral not simply to human life but to all life on the planet.

    How Does a Genetic-Vaccine Work?

    If you got all of that, you have grasped some of the fundamentals of cell biology and we are now able to ask: how does a genetic vaccine work?

    Most of us have seen an image or an artist’s impression of what a coronavirus looks like. A little ball, covered in spikes, like a medieval weapon swung from the end of a chain. Inside this little ball are the virus’s own genes. These genes are in the form of strands of RNA; the same type of RNA that is made in the nucleus of our cells, and sent into the cytoplasm for the manufacture of all ‘things’ that the cell needs.

    SARS-CoV-2

    The main difference between the RNA strands within a coronavirus, and those that naturally emerge from the nucleus of our own cells, is that coronavirus RNA does not code for ‘things’ that our cells might need. On the contrary, it codes for pieces that make up the coronavirus itself.

    When a coronavirus binds to the outside of one of the cells in our respiratory tract, it releases its RNA into those cells – into the white of the egg – and there, instead of making proteins that are needed by our cells, our ribosomes attach to their viral RNA and begin to manufacture (or translate) proteins that make up the physical structure of the virus. The host cell has now becomes a virus-making factory; the cytoplasm swells with viral particles; the cell bursts, and thousands of new viruses (virions) are released into the bloodstream, or the fluid that lies outside of the cell membrane.

    A genetic vaccine looks like, and functions, in almost exactly the same manner as the coronavirus itself. If a genetic vaccine could be visualised, it would look like a little sphere that encapsulates a piece of viral RNA or DNA (depending on which of the four vaccines we are considering). The role of the sphere is to protect the RNA or DNA inside the vaccine, and, most importantly, to bind it to human cells in a manner that will allow the piece of RNA or DNA to enter host cells at the site where the ‘vaccine’ is injected.

    For an RNA containing vaccine (Pfizer & Moderna) once the vaccine RNA gets inside our cells, our ribosomes attach and translate the RNA into a piece of the virus (one of the spike proteins). The host cell will then swell with spike proteins, and release them into the blood stream or body fluids outside the cell. There, the spike-protein will trigger the same immune response that Jenner and the traditional vaccines make use of.

    For DNA vaccines (Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca) the vaccine-DNA makes its way into the nucleus of our cells where it begins working (and is treated the same as our own DNA). It is copied into a piece of mRNA that will then travel into the cytoplasm and be translated by ribosomes into spike-proteins. Because genetic vaccines cannot infect cells, the process whereby a genetic-vaccine enters host cells is referred to as ‘transfection’.

    It is only after the transfected host cell releases spike-protein into the blood stream that our genetic-vaccine begins working in the ‘traditional’ way. In reality, it is the cellular process for the manufacture of things which has been hijacked, and the ‘traditional vaccine’ is being made inside one’s own cells. The ‘vaccine’ is released into our blood stream in the same way that a cell infected with a virus releases new virus into the blood stream or tissues.

    The final result might be the same, however, where a genetic-vaccine is different is in its mechanism it operates inside cells at a level of intimacy that Jenner could never have imagined. Because DNA vaccines enter the nucleus of our cells, and are treated as our own DNA, they come with a risk of damaging our own DNA, causing mutations, including, potentially, cancer. The potential is indeed an established fact. It is no less established than the fact that there is a link between smoking and cancer.

    Consider when a piece of synthetic DNA comes within intimate proximity of a relatively enormous coiled ball of DNA that is dynamically unwinding and unravelling in response to the daily activities of the cell. Is there a chance that this relatively small piece of synthetic DNA might become incorporated into or interfere with the normal function of our own DNA? Before Covid, the answer was an emphatic yes. However of late, the mere suggestion will undoubtedly be treated as something of a ‘conspiracy theory’.

    It is for this and other reasons that genetic-vaccines have not been previously licensed for use in humans prior to the current crisis. Thus, a 2013 paper[xiii] published in Germs, the respected Journal of Infectious Diseases lists the established disadvantages of DNA vaccines.

    Crossing the Rubicon

    At this point the reason critics refer to current Covid-19 vaccines as ‘gene therapy’ should not be too difficult to understand. It is important to bear in mind that as the cellular process of translation can be hijacked to produce a ‘vaccine’, it can also be hijacked to produce a myriad of other potential pharmaceutical therapies.

    Very limited forms of gene therapy are available in the treatment of terminal cancers. However, pharmaceutical companies have not been able to market this form of medicine, outside of the laboratory, on human populations.[xiv] A cynic might reasonably argue that companies are exploiting the current crisis in order to expedite safety trials and open the market for ‘gene-therapy’.

    There is nothing new here, this type of therapy, whereby patients are administered the gene for a missing or desired product, has been in development for several decades. The major difficulty for pharmaceutical companies has been how to get it out of the laboratory and past the paralysis of safety trials. It is certainly easy to see that if our cells are programmed to make and release spike-proteins, they can also be programmed to release other kinds of proteins, drugs and potential therapies directly into the human blood stream or tissues.[xv] Getting this type of therapy past regulators, and avoiding meaningful debate, has, (for better or worse), clearly been accomplished within the context of the current crisis.

    From a simple economic perspective, if human cells can be programmed to take on the role of manufacturing the ‘drug’, numerous difficulties in respect of production, costs, delivery, and even safety trials, are relatively easily overcome. The paradigm shift that resulted from Jenner’s development of vaccination could pale into insignificance compared to the potential game changer of genetic-vaccine.

    Ah go on. You’ll be grand!

    If, indeed, these vaccines are going to protect people from Covid-19, and they come with the added benefit of paving the way for novel therapies, why are people like me getting our proverbial knickers in a twist?

    Again the answer is not that complicated. The cellular process of ‘translation’ that is being ‘hijacked’ by the relevant pharmaceutical companies, does not belong to them, to our respiratory cells, or even human cells. As mentioned already, it is a process that belongs to ALL cells, in ALL species. In essence it ‘belongs’ to all living things in Nature.

    If anything happens to go wrong, the consequences are not limited to human beings, as the process being ‘hijacked’ is not exclusive to us. It ‘belongs’ to all life on Earth. The consequence of error, may extend further than a little nausea or swelling at the injection site.[xvi] Potential consequences extend to all cells that utilize the same process, and come in contact with the manufactured DNA or RNA.

    DNA or RNA? Red or White?

    Whilst the potential for either of the two available DNA vaccines to integrate into, or damage, human DNA is well established; there is an argument being made that this cannot possibly occur with the two available RNA vaccines.

    Generally speaking within our cells once RNA is copied or made in the nucleus it moves into the cytoplasm. It does not travel backwards. RNA does not move back inside the nucleus and incorporate into our DNA. However, the key words here are: ‘generally speaking.’

    Nature (generally speaking) blocks this possibility because the copied RNA that exits the nucleus, is different to DNA. It is an RNA copy of the DNA, the RNA cannot bind or interact with DNA. In the first instance RNA is a single stranded copy of one side of the zip. In the second instance the ‘teeth’ on the newly copied RNA are slightly different. They are tweaked with a sugar molecule called ribose, they are ‘ribosylated’ and therefore cannot readily recombine with DNA. (The ‘R’ in RNA simply means Ribosylated Nucleic Acid.)

    The RNA does indeed code for the same message that is contained within the DNA, but the teeth, or the letters of the RNA code, are slightly different. RNA does not travel backwards and interfere with DNA. Generally speaking they are incompatible, and cannot interfere with each other. Therefore, when the vaccine makers insist that the pieces of RNA that they have transfected into our cells do not interact with our DNA; well, they aren’t spoofing. It doesn’t normally happen that RNA interferes with DNA.

    So that’s what it says on the tin. However, there are two points that must be considered before we take this claim at face value. The first is a question of ‘precedence’ and the second is a question of scale.

    Does it happen in humans and in Nature that RNA can travel backwards into the nucleus and interfere with or incorporate into DNA? The simple answer to this question is a definite yes! RNA can and does travel backwards to incorporate itself into our DNA. This retrograde move, (where RNA sequences become incorporated into DNA) is called reverse-transcription. The reason for the use of ‘retro’ in the word retrovirus, is because retroviruses, and many other viruses, make use of reverse-transcription, converting RNA into DNA that will then integrate into our own DNA.

    HIV and HTLV (a human virus that causes t-cell leukaemia) are examples of viral infections, where RNA is converted backwards into DNA which then ‘interferes’ with our own DNA inside the nucleus of our cells. These viruses contain RNA, and they also carry an enzyme called ‘reverse transcriptase’. This enzyme converts RNA backwards into DNA. Retroviruses and other viruses (such as Hepatitis B) introduce the reverse-transcriptase enzyme into our cells when they infect them.[xvii] Furthermore, our own cells normally produce and use this enzyme (reverse transcriptase) inside the nucleus, where it has some ‘house-keeping’ roles in maintaining our own DNA.[xviii]

    Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that within the human genome some 8% of our DNA is composed of DNA that was originally viral RNA. Infections with RNA viruses whose genes have since become permanently incorporated into our own DNA. These sequences are called ‘Human Endogenous Retroviral Sequences’ or HERVS.[xix] Many of them persist within our genome because they may code for proteins or things that are likely to be of some benefit to us; genes brought into our genome from outside the cell, via the natural, dynamic interaction between viruses, retroviruses and human DNA.

    Many more of these endogenous retroviral (originally RNA) sequences are mysteriously redundant, and science is yet to learn of their function in sickness or in health. The fact remains that they are present; been present for countless millennia; may be integral to our evolution as a species; and are certainly with us ‘until death do us part.’ They should serve to remind us that there is a long established history of communication between viral and human genetics; an interaction that we should attempt to understand before it is blindly manipulated.

    Interconnectedness

    Too often viruses are portrayed as static structures, distinct from our own genetic material and distinct from one another. This is quite simply a rather primitive concept, the same kind of thinking that removes human beings and the consequence of our actions from Nature. It is part of the reason we remain largely incapable of seeing and appreciating the vast web of interconnectedness that dependently joins us to whales, rain forests, and even viruses.

    We depend upon viruses for our genetics, as we depend upon yeast for our beer. Often viruses depend upon each other to cause infection. In certain instances, if a particular virus is missing something, a part or component (without which it is defective or deficient), the missing part is supplied by another helper-virus. There are helper-viruses, and there is an entire family of viruses (dependoviruses) that are entirely dependent upon assistance from helper-viruses. For example, in Humans, Hepatitis D virus is activated, only in the presence of Hepatitis B virus. Essentially, in order to function, the D-virus ‘borrows’ some missing parts from the B virus.

    In short, viruses are not ‘monogamous recluses’: interacting with each other; helping each other; interacting with our genetic material within the cytoplasm and within the nucleus. It does not matters if that genetic material has come from the nucleus of our own cells, or been synthesized in the labs at Johnson and Johnson.[xx]

    A Question of Scale

    There is no such thing as a ‘perfect process’. Do something for the first time and you might do it right,  do it right enough times, and you will eventually do it wrong. 

    When vaccine RNA or DNA hijacks a natural cellular processes and transforms the cell to vaccine or spike-protein production; how many times does this ‘event’ occur in the tissue of the person who has thus been vaccinated? Thousands, or several thousands of times? How many times has it occurred when several billion people are vaccinated? I don’t know the answer to this question. However, when a process is repeated billions of times, mistakes are no longer ‘possible’, they are inevitable. Such mistakes or mutations are not only inevitable but are essential, lying at the heart of evolution itself.

    The End is Nigh?

    There is certainly a mountain of spin and delusion on either side of the ‘genetic-vaccine’ or ‘gene-therapy’ debate, and we must keep matters in perspective. Genetic modification is here to stay, for better or for worse. The argument in respect of unforeseen genetic consequence to ourselves and/or other species is an old one. It began with ‘Dolly’ the sheep, and has raged for some time around the desirability of genetically modified foods.

    Ironically, the introduction of synthetic genes into vegetables, created something of an international furore, yet the transfection of synthetic genes into millions of regular human beings has created far less controversy. Debate or discussion on the subject of genetic modification or therapy, its necessity, utility, or potential harm, is long overdue; although perhaps it might be a case of too little, too late.

    Today, many of the foods we eat have been genetically modified to some degree. Genetically modified food is, however, met with and processed by the acid and digestive enzymes in our guts. The synthetic genes in GM products do not (as far as we know) enter our cells, they do not attempt to manipulate our own cellular or genetic processes.

    There is clearly an urgent need to revisit this debate in light of these new vaccines. The battle may have been lost in respect of GM crops, but there is a reasonable argument to be advanced this time round as ‘human genetic processes’ are being tampered with, rather than sheep, beetroot or soya beans.

    The Right Hashtag?

    In recent years discourse and protest have become strangely predictable, organised around or stimulated by whatever happens to be trending on social media. It seems the right hashtag hasn’t been developed for ‘debate’ in respect of current pandemic policy, even as that policy extends into the function of our own cells.

    How many people in Ireland, or around the world, know how a Covid vaccine work? How many clinicians are aware for that matter? When debate does erupt in relatively small pockets around the country it is hijacked by extremists or dismissed as being organised and attended by extremists. Social media appears to be moderating our behaviour to a greater degree than even genetics.

    The health of our society depends far more on constructing a more honest and happier version of ourselves. We need to re-evaluate materialism, define happiness, reduce consumption, eat less (or no) meat, take plastics out of our food chain and ecosystems, restore and preserve habitats, protect and understand a biodiversity upon which we are entirely dependent. All of this, and more, is not contingent on genetic modification, no more than it is dependent on us getting to Mars.

    Therefore, for the reasons I have outlined, I would not inject a healthy animal with an experimental genetic-vaccine, never mind a healthy human being.

    [i] Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer, ‘How the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Works,’ New York Times, March 22nd, 2020,  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine.html

    [ii] Smriti Mallapaty, ‘The coronavirus is most deadly if you are older and male — new data reveal the risks’ August 28th, 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2

    [iii] Adam W. Gaffney, ‘We need to start thinking more critically — and speaking more cautiously — about long Covid’ Statnews, March 22nd, 2021, https://www.statnews.com/2021/03/22/we-need-to-start-thinking-more-critically-speaking-cautiously-long-covid/

    [iv] Conor Pope, Vivienne Clarke, ‘Vaccination rollout in nursing homes almost complete, HSE says,’ February 12th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/vaccination-rollout-in-nursing-homes-almost-complete-hse-says-1.4483250

    [v] CSO. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-covid19/covid-                                                19informationhub/health/covid-19deathsandcasesstatistics/

    [vi] Moderna Announces First Participants Dosed in Phase 2/3 Study of COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in Pediatric Population https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/moderna-announces-first-participants-dosed-phase-23-study-0

    [vii] CSO. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-covid19/covid-                                                19informationhub/health/covid-19deathsandcasesstatistics/

    [viii] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=covid+deaths+ireland

    [ix] ‘Immune evasion means we need a new COVID-19 social contract’, The Lancet, February 18th, 2021, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(21)00036-0/fulltext

    [x] Jeremy Divine, ‘The Dubious Origins of Long Covid’, Wall Street Journal, March 22nd, 2021,  https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dubious-origins-of-long-covid-11616452583

    [xi] Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, ‘86 percent of the UK’s COVID-19 patients have no symptoms,’ News Medical Life Sciences, October 9th, 2020, https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201009/86-percent-of-the-UKs-COVID-19-patients-have-no-symptoms.aspx

    [xii] The History of Vaccines, Chinese Smallpox Inoculation, https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/early-chinese-inoculation

    [xiii] Germs. 2013 Mar; 3(1): 26–35. Published online 2013 Mar 1. doi: 10.11599/germs.2013.1034/

    [xiv] Kristina Fiore, ‘Want to Know More About mRNA Before Your COVID Jab?’ Medpage Today, December 3rd, 2020, https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/89998

    [xv] Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 17, pages261–279(2018)

    [xvi] Nicola Davis, ‘Covid vaccine side-effects: what are they, who gets them and why?’ The Guardian, March 18th, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/18/covid-vaccine-side-effects-what-are-they-who-gets-them-and-why

    [xvii] Medical Microbiology. 4th edition (Chapter 62).Galveston (TX): University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston; 1996.

    [xviii] Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Apr; 83(8): 2531–2535.
    doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.8.2531, https://www.nature.com/articles/1205081

    [xix] PMCID: PMC7139688 PMID: 32155827 Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs): Shaping the Innate Immune Response in Cancers.

    [xx] Knipe, David M.; Howley, Peter M. (2007). Fields Virology (5th ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 126–7.

     

     

  • Covid-19 in Ireland: Landfall

    In August of last year I wrote an article pointing to the impending consequence of the Irish government’s rolling lockdown policy, ‘The Perfect Storm’[i] gathering on the horizon over the country. By that I meant a significant second wave of Covid-19 – to hit this winter. I made that prediction based on the following factors:

    An elevated number of potential viral hosts, which is a consequence of suppression of natural-immunity.

    Increased life of the virus in the external environment due to decreased daylight

    Raised levels of social anxiety and subsequent susceptibility to illness/infection

    Continued persistence of the virus at low levels within Irish society

    The ‘storm’ made landfall at the start of January, leading to the imposition of an extreme lockdown for the third time – with children denied their constitutional right to an education –  amid renewed fears the hospital system would be overwhelmed, as many elderly in care homes passed away once again.

    Sadly, this ‘third’ wave actually commenced in week 48 of 2020 (22/11/2020), while the country was still under Level 5 Lockdown restrictions, according to a report by the HSPC.[ii]

    Could additional deaths have been averted if the Taoiseach had not sought ‘a meaningful Christmas’; or if NEPHT’s advice had been followed to the letter – permitting house visits rather than opening restaurants and gastropubs[iii] at the start of December? Based on the HSPC report that seems doubtful. And I would question whether most Irish people would have willingly foregone sociability throughout the depths of winter – there was certainly no political clamour to cancel Christmas – having endured near-constant lockdown since March. But you never know.

    Furthermore, without a Christmas spending spree many indigenous retailers and restaurateurs might have been forced out of business – to the unrestrained joy of Jeff Bezos, Tescos and the rest.

    But in Ireland, as ever, we desperately need someone to blame third time round; anyone other than NPHET that has managed to preserve a reputation for scientific insight despite the damage it is doing to the country. So, instead of questioning the government’s response, youngsters – who may have availed of a brief chink of light to socialize – are scapegoated.

    Other than that we find talk of selfish immigrants returning home over Christmas to see loved ones. And now attacks on those who escaped the overwhelming doom and gloom for a post-Christmas break. Yet, whatever one’s thoughts on the sustainability of flying, it is notable that just 1% of cases since the pandemic began have been traced to travel abroad.

    Lockdown Policy

    In the midst of any crisis scientific arguments compete to establish the best way forward. In the case of Covid-19 in Ireland ‘the argument’ has been remarkably one-sided. Discussions in the media are generally over the severity of lockdowns to be employed – this hitherto unheard of public health intervention with enormous collateral damage, which has somehow been normalised.

    From the outset I have been convinced that the Irish government at the prompting of the WHO – along with most other Western governments – adopted an erroneous approach, based on a flawed epidemiological assessment, which led Leo Varadkar to suggest there could be a staggering 85,000 deaths[iv] in Ireland.

    Virtually alone in Europe, the Swedish health authorities (relatively free of political interference) stood apart, refusing to lockdown in March, 2020. I would argue that this softer approach has been to the benefit of the vast majority of people living there – and may even lead to a lower death toll in the end – compared to the trauma of lockdowns experienced by citizens in most other European countries.

    Notably, during the first wave almost 92% of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in Ireland were among over sixty-five-year-olds,[v] and when this Irish cohort is compared to Sweden’s considerably older population a very different picture emerges; in contrast to the usual truck of ‘deaths per capita’ and ‘deaths per million.’

    Hats off to the impressively organised states of Norway and Finland, where Covid-19 mortality has remained very low indeed, but vigorous track and trace strategy operating in these countries have proved ineffective elsewhere; even Germany is floundering this winter, having been locked down for months.

    Revealingly, in March 2020 the Director-General of the Norwegian Institute for Public Health Camilla Stoltenberg[vi] recommended that her government should keep schools open – as in Sweden – and was advocating last June for a softer approach in the likely event of a second wave.

    Now, as the death toll from Covid-19 in Ireland steadily converges with Sweden’s – especially when adjusted for the relative age of each population – it remains to be seen whether much-vaunted, but still experimental, vaccines will significantly alter the respective death tolls.

    I maintain that a policy of keeping the Irish population under rolling lockdowns until the whole population is vaccinated will have a worse impact on the nation’s long-term health than any mortality or morbidity that may be avoided.

    Zero Covid Utopianism

    The frankly bizarre ‘option’ of Zero Covid-19 that has been grasped by some on the left, and the right, in Ireland is a form of Utopianism. It ignores the virtual impossibility of eradicating an aerosol, sub-microscopic pathogen such as Covid-19 from Ireland. Moreover, we remain one of the most globalized societies in the world with over half-a-million foreign born resident in the country[vii] and an Irish-born diaspora of three million;[viii] rely on international trade for most commodities; besides having a porous border to the North.

    Moreover, New Zealand and Australia are currently enjoying summer, when respiratory viruses retreat. This seasonal effect is enhanced by a depleted ozone layer over the Southern Hemisphere – causing the world’s highest rate of skin cancers[ix] – which elevates the level of UV light that destroys viruses. Both countries are also insulated from the rest of the world by vast oceans and an uninhabited landmass. Even still, outbreaks occurred in New Zealand and Melbourne last winter, prompting draconian responses.

    Notably, however, the maximum number of cases that Melbourne – with a population almost the size of Ireland’s – experienced in a single day was just seven hundred, and it required an extreme 112-day lockdown[x] – and/or the arrival of spring before an apparent elimination. In contrast, case numbers in Ireland have exceeded eight thousand in a single day.

    Covid-19: Southern Dreaming

    A Zero-Covid approach assumes the island of Ireland is sealed hermetically. Good luck with telling the DUP that they have to follow the rules of the South! And ‘success’ would presumably give way to a permanent state of siege against the viral dangers posed by the outside world.

    At this point even New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has had enough, acknowledging the long-term impossibility of pursuing Zero Covid she recently said: ‘Our goal has to be though, to get the management of Covid-19 to a similar place as we do seasonally, with the flu. It won’t be a disease that we will see simply disappear after one round of vaccine.’[xi]

    Comparing Ireland to East Asian countries may also be inappropriate as, Wuhan apart, no single country in that region has experienced a significant outbreak. Notably, Japan, which has avoided locking down throughout the crisis experienced forty times as many flu and pneumonia deaths during that period. This suggests other factors – East Asia has been the geographic origin of several modern coronavirus epidemics – may be inhibiting the spread of Covid-19 there.[xii]

    Yet this message has not trickled either left or downwards into popular opinion as the Irish Times continues to print articles in support of ‘the plan’.[xiii]

    ‘Zero Covid’ is as much a vote-winner, as a zero tolerance for crime or any other virtuous objective, but it’s political claptrap from an taxidermized left and a neoconservative right, furnished by scientists that seemingly have no conception of biological realities.

    Reality Bites

    The success of any institution might be summed up by the notion that it is only as good as its ability to predict the future. Throughout human history we have had two powerful methods of prediction: science and religion. If not religion, we might define this in terms of ‘faith,’ or an ‘unscientific’ belief system of some kind or other.

    If the Romans, the Egyptians, the Spartans, or the Native Americans, had done a ‘better’ job predicting the future, the world would be a different place. Thus, the success or persistence of any individual, nation, or civilisation, is based on an ability to reliably predict the future. Our faith in science is strengthened solely by this condition, and undermined when predictions go awry.

    Galileo Galilei, 1636 portrait by Justus Sustermans.

    Galileo’s prognostications in respect of the Earth and the Sun led him into conflict with the dominant powers of his day. The accuracy of his predictions disturbed the established cosmic order, as any heresy does. The predictions of Einstein had a similar effect on Newtonian Physics, and now Quantum Mechanics has become the sacred cow. Final judgements on the success or otherwise of policies are, of course, made through the prism of hindsight.

    Two Schools of Thought

    At present around the world there are two broad scientific schools[xiv] of thought in respect of how to respond to Covid-19. On one side there is a dominant view: that we are in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, where humanity is dealing with a virus that will kill, and perhaps permanently incapacitate, many millions more than it has already done; and that the correct response for any government should be to impose a lockdown and mandate masks until the ‘scientific cavalry’ arrive, carrying their novel genetic vaccinations as shields to save the day.

    On the other side there are the conspiracy theorists, Covid-deniers, and a minority of scientists who consider most most masks in use to be ineffective, and who argue that restrictions and lockdowns cause more harm than good. These scientists have advocated protecting the vulnerable and permitting an equilibrium of natural immunity to emerge within the non-vulnerable majority as the least harmful way forward.

    The question for ordinary people and politicians, then, is where does the truth lie? Or, more accurately, who is correctly predicting the future?

    When the dust settles in a few years, perhaps we’ll see that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. An appreciation of a middle way, or synthesis, is evident in Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell’s acknowledgement in June that mistakes were made in the first wave.[xv]  Such concessions to human fallibility seem to be the preserve of Scandinavian leaders. This may explain why increased restrictions have been introduced in Sweden during their second wave, though its government has refrained from imposing a lockdown, and the emphasis is still on personal responsibility.

    By the start of February, without a lockdown, Sweden appears to be sitting pretty with the death toll falling precipitously during the month of January, suggesting a herd immunity threshold may have been reached.

    [An earlier version of this article read: “surveys indicate that at least forty percent of the [Swedish] population now have antibodies to the virus,[xvi]” We have sought corroboration from Sebastian Rushworth MD @sebrushworth, having been advised that this claim is unreliable]

    Likewise, there are positive signs that India has now reached a herd immunity threshold,[xviii] without recourse to vaccines.

    Benefit of Hindsight

    Last April I resigned my position on the Irish Medical Council to the shock of family, friends and former colleagues. I did so because I believed a catastrophe was immanent, and that hundreds of nursing home residents would die as a consequence of political ineptitude and mass hysteria. As it transpired, 62% of deaths in Ireland occurred in this setting during the first wave of the pandemic, the second highest proportion in the world.[xix]

    I take no comfort that my fears were realised, and have since also resigned as a contracted employee of the HSE. I could no longer, in good conscience, enforce guidelines upon staff and patients I do not consider either efficacious or ethical.

    I would argue that a failure to conduct a proper inquiry into the decision-making that led to this carnage has led to avoidable mortality in this second wave in the care home setting. Any enquiry would surely have highlighted the inadequacy of safety protocols in these settings, and the absence of real expertise on NPHET.

    Before my small Covid-19 rebellion, in March 2020, I circulated a paper on the response to Covid called The Mismanagement of Covid-19 in Ireland. Its premise was (and remains) quite simple: that Covid-19 is a viral illness with a mortality confined to a relatively small and manageable subset of our population.[xx]

    I argued that Ireland’s gross demographic – the youngest population in Europe – is (and was) the key to navigating a safe path through the crisis. With a relatively low population of over sixty-fives – approximately 650,000 – this amounted to a manageable population of those truly vulnerable.

    I also noted how, unlike during influenza pandemics of the past, children and young adults were not dying of this disease, and that the vast majority of adults without serious underlying conditions were also relatively (if not entirely) immune to significant consequence.

    Long Covid

    A current cause for concern with Covid-19, which may be deterring our governments from permitting younger people from resuming their lives is so-called ‘Long Covid,’ or Covid ‘Long Haulers’ as this is referred to in the U.S..

    This is a condition that appears to fit within the category of a post-viral syndrome, or post-viral fatigue;[xxi] which is ‘a sense of tiredness and weakness that lingers after a person has fought off a viral infection. It can arise even after common infections, such as the flu.’

    In October one of the leading advocates for Long Covid patients, and a firm advocate of draconian policies, Oxford University’s Professor Trish Greenhalgh clarified that Long Covid is only very rarely a long-term affliction:

    The reviews we’ve done seem to suggest that whilst a tiny minority of people, perhaps one per cent of everyone who gets Covid-19, are still ill six months later, and whilst about a third of people aren’t better at three weeks, most people whose condition drags on are going to get better, slowly but steadily, between three weeks and three months.[xxii]

    But a paper from 2017 gives an idea of the pre-existing scale of chronic and post-viral fatigue syndrome in the U.K.:

    Fatigue is a symptom of a number of diseases—anaemia, depression, chronic infection, cancer, autoimmune disorders and thyroid disorders among them. But no apparent cause can be found for a state of extreme and disabling exhaustion that has acquired a number of names, the most generally accepted worldwide being chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). In the UK, where it is (often incorrectly) known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis), 150 000 people are said to be affected. Other terms used for the condition are postviral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) and chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS).[xxiii]

    So, we can conclude that Long Covid is hardly a new phenomenon, and while the pandemic is likely to create an additional burden on health services, the extent of the problem needs to be put in context: perhaps one percent of sufferers are still ill after six months.

    Moreover, the impact of Covid-19 is significant heightened by environmental factors such as air quality[xxiv] and poor nutrition. I would argue, therefore, that the threat of Long Covid is insufficient grounds for closing universities and denying young people the chance of a social life beyond walking the block.

    Indeed, the obesity pandemic that leads to a wide range of morbidities is a far greater challenge to this nation’s health, and a crucial indicator of an individual’s risk of severe case of Covid-19 .[xxv] Yet there has been no serious attempt since the Covid-19 pandemic began to address how Ireland fails to adopt international best practice for addressing obesity.[xxvi]

    Seasonality

    In my March paper I also observed that Covid-19 is a member of the coronavirus family responsible for many common colds,[xxvii] and that such viruses are seasonal, in that they are eliminated especially by increasing UV light (and the population’s tendency to retreat indoors). These were hardly earth-shattering revelations, and have been noted by many other doctors and scientists around the globe.

    I also compared the population of over sixty-five-year-olds in Ireland, to the equivalent cohort in the U.K., noting there are roughly twenty-times the number of over sixty-five in the UK (while the overall population is less than ten times that number); so I assumed U.K. mortality would be in the region of twenty times that of Ireland’s.

    In this respect, Ireland has performed significantly better than the U.K., but other factors such as population density and an elevated risk of severe disease among BAME groups[xxviii], may account for the  higher relative death toll there. It should also be emphasised that the U.K. has almost the highest rate of mortality in the world.

    ICU Capacity at the beginning of the pandemic.

    Like many other doctors and scientists, I argued that in the absence of a proven cure or vaccine at that time for Covid-19, humanity is (or was) very much operating at the whim of nature. Thus, without a cure we were (and to a certain extent still are) subjected to natural forces, as I assumed this virus would spread widely through the population. All we could do, then, was ‘flatten the curve,’ protect the vulnerable, and await a safe vaccine.

    At the outset of the crisis that was the mantra behind which the public united. Flattening the curve would reduce the rate at which the vulnerable would present for treatments in hospitals. This would protect the system form being overwhelmed, bringing an increased chance of survival for those badly afflicted.

    ‘Protect the NHS’ from collapse was a similar cry across the water. That made sense at the outset of the crisis. The reiteration of these ‘priorities’ might now illicit a yawn, as our national health authorities did not use the flattened time and space to increase ICU capacity substantially, which brings the ‘necessity’ of recurring lockdowns.

    Hysteria

    Since March of last year events have taken a strange turn. With fear and hysteria at the helm politicians lost their nerves. The mantra shifted from ‘flatten the curve’, to ‘protect everyone from this deadly disease,’ despite it becoming clear that the infection fatality rate (IFR) is considerably lower than the 0.9% assumed initially. Now a paper on the WHO website states that the infection fatality rate for the disease is less than 0.2% ‘in most locations.’[xxix]

    Perversely, children have become the focus of inordinate efforts; locked indoors, locked out of school and forced into wearing masks. We have insisted upon protecting them from a disease that has not caused a single child death in Ireland throughout the entire crisis.[xxx]

    Troublingly, when Covid-19 panic gripped the nation, politicians and mainstream media listened only to the scientific ‘authorities’ that fed the hysteria and justified everything from political incompetence to profligate expenditure. Hospitals were emptied in preparation for an approaching ‘tsunami’ of illness, as tens of thousands of deaths were incorrectly predicted by politicians and esteemed professors, all of whom continue to profess, and have even grown in esteem.

    Covid patients were dumped from hospitals into Nursing Homes, and tests were withheld from residents lest they run short for the healthy-hysterical. The vulnerable were not only abandoned, but too many of them were crushed in the stampede.

    Thus, there is the shocking case of a resident in a Meath care home discovered to have had a maggot-infested a wound.[xxxi] What began as a campaign to protect the vulnerable, had turned into nothing short of a manslaughter machine.

    At the End of the Day

    The natural endpoint for viral infection in respect of many viral pathogens is of course ‘herd immunity.’ This is the point where a sufficient proportion of a population have been exposed to and develop full or partial immunity to a particular pathogen, such that its rate of reproduction is below 1 most of the time.

    With insufficient hosts, a virus can no longer spread easily. This is not full elimination but an endemic equilibrium within the population, with a certain annual death toll tolerated – such as is the case with influenza, which kills up to a thousand people a year in Ireland, despite the availability of a vaccine.

    This natural evolution, or pathogenesis, is also helped along by the seasonal shift from spring to summer. Increasing daylight reduces the level of viral particles, and people spend more time out of doors, or ventilate their living spaces in warmer conditions. This is how nature brings an end to seasonal colds and flus. Yet curiously this basic piece of natural science was largely ignored in March. Talk of UV light became highly politicised and thence poisoned.

    The Swedes

    Sweden provided a template for a country acting within the bounds of common sense and science. From the outset health authorities there endeavoured to protect a vulnerable aged cohort, leading to a natural-immunity developing within the population. In permitting this to occur they also took the precaution of doubling ICU capacity[xxxii] which, like Ireland’s, had been among the lowest in Europe when the pandemic began.

    Comparison between Sweden and Ireland cannot be made on a like-for-like basis, any more than the Irish can be compared to any other national group; however, some relevant comparisons can be drawn in respect of population demographics.

    Sweden has twice Ireland’s population, but 3.2 times the number of over sixty-five-years-olds. Ireland has not quite experienced just over a third of Sweden’s mortality (11,815 v 3,418); but while Ireland’s death rate from Covid-19 has been steadily increasing over the month of January, Sweden’s has flattened to point where, according to the WHO, Sweden’s death toll has been in single figures since the start of February, while Ireland has been experiencing daily deaths over one hundred.

    Source: WHO

    There may be a further uptick in Covid deaths in Sweden once schools reopen – and even a third wave – but the hopeful signs are that the country is now reaching a herd immunity threshold – one that has brought less suffering overall when compared to other jurisdictions.

    A similar comparison can be drawn between Sweden and most other European states, implying, in most situations, that mortality is not significantly reduced by lockdown policies. Yet invariably whenever one reads about Sweden in mainstream Irish media[xxxiii] comparisons are only drawn with best-in-class Scandinavian neighbours, where lockdowns have also been, for the most part, avoided.

    Lockdowns are likely to increase mortality through missed cancer screenings, dysfunctional health services, serious mental health impacts, besides the ‘shadow-pandemic’ of domestic violence that has occurred under lockdown.

    The writing on the wall?

    What of the good people on the opposite side of the Swedish argument? It is fair to say that lockdowns can flatten the curve. This is apparent if we compare mortality graphs on the Euromomo website that tracks excess deaths across Europe. It shows that Sweden did not see the same kind of spike on their graph of mortality during the first wave as in other countries that locked down, but experienced a steady decline, which in July led the New York Times to state prematurely that ‘Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale’[xxxiv]

    Source: Euromomo.

    The question is whether the short-term benefits of lockdowns in terms of averted-deaths are worth the cost? Or, were lockdowns necessary, and will they ultimately translate into lives being saved rather than simply deferring deaths? Perhaps the truth lies in the middle of these arguments but I know which side I lean.

    Lockdowns do not prevent deaths, but slow the rate of infection and mortality. They can only ease the burden on hospital or tertiary care services. The purpose of lockdown should be to insure that the sick can access the best treatment available, and should not be ‘a primary means of controlling the virus’[xxxv] according to leading authorities in the WHO, as we are experiencing in Ireland.

    Although the mortality figures in Ireland still lag behind Sweden’s I suspect this is deferred mortality and does not represent patients who have been cured or saved. The curve has been flattened. Thus far, lockdown policies have had the beneficial effect of decreasing mortality by less than 20% compared to Sweden’s when adjusted for our respective age profiles. In my view, however, what may simply be deferred mortality, cannot justify the burden of lockdowns on the wider population.

    Only when the crisis has passed, and with the benefit of hindsight, will it be possible to determine if the Swedes broadly got things right. Although, it is more appropriate in the context of a disease that has killed thousands of people – and caused suffering to most of the rest of the population – to state that some countries will have managed it better than others. For sure, no one will have got everything ‘right’.

    Assuming vaccines do not represent a panacea, if it transpires that most Irish mortality is confined to the nursing home sector, and that all lockdowns accomplish is to preserve a larger number of potential hosts for successive seasonal resurgences then the pandemic will have been a more painful and long-running saga in Ireland than it might otherwise have been.

    [i] Marcus de Brun, ‘The Perfect Storm’, Cassandra Voices, August 19th, 2020, https://cassandravoices.com/science-environment/covid-19-the-perfect-storm/

    [ii] Epidemiology of COVID-19Outbreaks/Clustersin IrelandWeekly Report Prepared by HPSC on25thJanuary 2021, https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/covid-19outbreaksclustersinireland/COVID-19%20Weekly%20Outbreak%20Report_Week032021_25012021_WebVersion_final.pdf

    [iii] Digital Desk Staff, ‘Opening hospitality will mean limiting Christmas gatherings, Nphet warns’, November 26th, 2020, Extra.ie, https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/nphet-strongly-opposed-to-parts-of-governments-lockdown-exit-plan-1042387.html

    [iv] ‘Up to 85,000 Irish people could die from coronavirus in worst-case scenario, Taoiseach indicates, as three more diagnosed’ John Downing, Eilish O’Regan and Gabija Gataveckaite, Irish Independent, March 9th, 2020, https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/up-to-85000-irish-people-could-die-from-coronavirus-in-worst-case-scenario-taoiseach-indicates-as-three-more-diagnosed-39029363.html

    [v] COVID-19 Deaths and Cases, Central Statistics Office, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/br/b-cdc/covid-19deathsandcases/

    [vi] ‘Norwegian health chief: we advised against closing schools’, 10 June, 2020, Unherd, https://unherd.com/thepost/norwegian-health-chief-we-advised-against-closing-schools/

    [vii] ‘Census of Population 2016 – Profile 7 Migration and Diversity’, https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp7md/p7md/p7anii/

    [viii] Ciara Kenny, ‘ The global Irish: Where do they live?’, February 4th, 2015, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/generation-emigration/the-global-irish-where-do-they-live-1.2089347?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Flife-and-style%2Fgeneration-emigration%2Fthe-global-irish-where-do-they-live-1.2089347

    [ix] American Institute of Cancer Research, Skin cancer statistics, https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/cancer-trends/skin-cancer-statistics

    [x] Phil Mercer, ‘Covid: Melbourne’s hard-won success after a marathon lockdown’, 26th of October, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54654646

    [xi] Luke Malpass, ‘Jacinda Ardern declares 2021 ‘the year of the vaccine’’, January 21st, 2021, Stuff, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124012148/jacinda-ardern-declares-2021-the-year-of-the-vaccine

    [xii] Ramesh Thakur, ‘The West should envy Japan’s COVID-19 response’ January 10th, 2021, Japan Times,  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/01/10/commentary/japan-commentary/west-japan-coronavirus-response/

    [xiii] Gabriel Scally: It is essential Ireland tightens borders in fight against Covid-19, January 30th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/gabriel-scally-it-is-essential-ireland-tightens-borders-in-fight-against-covid-19-1.4471283

    [xiv] Sarah Bosley, ‘Covid UK: scientists at loggerheads over approach to new restrictions’, September 22nd, 2020, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/22/scientists-disagree-over-targeted-versus-nationwide-measures-to-tackle-covid

    [xv] Rafaela Lindeberg, ‘Man Behind Sweden’s Controversial Virus Strategy Admits Mistakes’, Bloomberg, June 3rd, 2020,  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/man-behind-sweden-s-virus-strategy-says-he-got-some-things-wrong

    [xvi] Sebastian Rushworth M.D., ‘Here’s a graph they don’t want you to see’, 25th of January, 2021, https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/01/25/heres-a-graph-they-dont-want-you-to-see/

    [xvii] Sheena Cruickshank  ‘A new study suggests coronavirus antibodies fade over time – but how concerned should we be?’ October 27th, 2020, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-suggests-coronavirus-antibodies-fade-over-time-but-how-concerned-should-we-be-148957

    [xviii] Amy Kazmin, ‘India’s tumbling Covid cases raises question: Is the pandemic burning itself out?’ February 1st, 2021, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/india-s-tumbling-covid-cases-raises-question-is-the-pandemic-burning-itself-out-1.4472406?mode=amp

    [xix] Fergal Bowers, ‘High percentage of virus deaths in Ireland’s care homes highlighted in comparison report

    [xx] Mismanagement of Covid in Ireland’ May 27th, RTE, https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0527/1143036-covid-deaths-ireland/

    [xxi] ‘What to know about post-viral syndrome’ Medical News Today, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326619

    [xxii] Jennifer Rigby, ‘Why long Covid can be really grim, but is rarer than you think’, October 3rd, 2020 The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/long-covid-can-really-grim-rarer-think/

    [xxiii] Postviral Fatigue Syndrome, Science Direct, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/postviral-fatigue-syndrome

    [xxiv] Matt Cole et al, ‘Air pollution exposure linked to higher COVID-19 cases and deaths – new study’, July 13th, 2020, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/air-pollution-exposure-linked-to-higher-covid-19-cases-and-deaths-new-study-141620

    [xxv] Meredith Wadman, ‘Why COVID-19 is more deadly in people with obesity—even if they’re young’, September 8th, 2020, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/why-covid-19-more-deadly-people-obesity-even-if-theyre-young

    [xxvi] Shauna Bowers, ‘Irish policies to tackle obesity ‘fall behind international best practice’ – report’, November 9th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/irish-policies-to-tackle-obesity-fall-behind-international-best-practice-report-1.4403921?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fhealth%2Firish-policies-to-tackle-obesity-fall-behind-international-best-practice-report-1.4403921

    [xxvii] Anthony King, ‘Coronavirus family now a prime suspect in previous pandemics,’ February 4th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/coronavirus-family-now-a-prime-suspect-in-previous-pandemics-1.4463053

    [xxviii] Tom Kirby, ‘Evidence mounts on the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic minorities’, The Lancet, May 8th, 2020, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30228-9/fulltext

    [xxix] Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data

    John P A Ioannidis, WHO, September 13th, 2020, https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-265892/en/

    [xxx] (According to the CSO there have been 20,402 confirmed cases of Covid amongst the age group 0-24yrs, during the period from Feb 2020 to December 2020 and not a single recorded death in Ireland. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/br/b-cdc/covid-19deathsandcasesseries18/

    [xxxi] Simon Carswell, ‘Widow ‘outraged’ by footage of husband’s facial wound’, August 26th, 2020, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/widow-outraged-by-footage-of-husband-s-facial-wound-1.4338831?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fhealth%2Fwidow-outraged-by-footage-of-husband-s-facial-wound-1.4338831

    [xxxii] Emma Lofgren, ‘’The biggest challenge of our time’: How Sweden doubled intensive care capacity amid Covid-19 pandemic’, June 23rd, 2020, The Local, https://www.thelocal.com/20200623/how-sweden-doubled-intensive-care-capacity-to-treat-coronavirus-patients

    [xxxiii] Suzanne Cahill, ‘Coronavirus lockdowns are still a step too far for Sweden’, February 3rd, 2021, Irish Times,  https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/coronavirus-lockdowns-are-still-a-step-too-far-for-sweden-1.4473119?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fcoronavirus-lockdowns-are-still-a-step-too-far-for-sweden-1.4473119

    [xxxiv] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html

    [xxxv] Michelle Doyle, ‘WHO doctor says lockdowns should not be main coronavirus defence’, October 12th, 2020, ABC, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/world-health-organization-coronavirus-lockdown-advice/12753688

  • By Hook or By Crook

    People shouldn’t look at the balance sheet all of the time they should think of the future.
    Cyril Collins 2016

    A friend sent a video link to me recently about a community-based project that took place in Ballina in County Mayo. The community turn a wasteland into a forest and then, over time and slow work, they transform the forest into a community walk, allowing residents and visitors to access beautiful Belleek forest.

    The paths offers a space to exercise in a natural wonderland. In these strange COVID-19 times this arrived as a blessing to those from the area. Cyril Collins, the main driver of the forest park, expresses wise sentiments about not worrying about the balance sheet. Instead he urges us to think of the long term, and the benefits of any work to future generations.

    Listening to the story I was reminded of my favourite dive site on the east coast of Ireland, and the evolution I have watched take place there. It is over twenty years since I first dived ‘the Hook’.

    In 1996 the famous Lighthouse was about to be automated, as was the case with so many of the great lighthouses around Ireland at the time. Personnel were no longer needed to keep watch over lifesaving lights. The arrival new technology meant lights could shine automatically, without the oversight of a permanent keeper on site.

    With evidence of structures on this site on Hook Head dating back fifteen centuries, by this point there was no need for a human lookout. Since then the local community – working hand-in-hand with different state bodies – has taken over the empty structures and turned them into a tourist attraction that includes a popular café. This work, along with the enchanting beauty of the place, makes it one of most visited tourist attractions in the country.

    Over the course of many dive trips to this area I have always received a warm welcome from the local community, and in the seas around this ancient lighthouse experienced some incredible dives.

    The Céad míle fáilte that we divers received in the late 1990s, in what was then a lonely spot remains undimmed today, with upwards of 200,000 visitors arriving from every corner of the world most years.

    Two Ways of Diving

    There are essentially two types of diving: shore diving and boat diving. Most people learn to dive through shore diving, i.e. via direct access from the shore. The second type is from a boat, and is known as boat diving.

    Most training dives – in Ireland at least – are shore dives. This allows new divers to walk directly into the water, uncomplicated by any need to have an understanding of the protocols required when diving off a vessel.

    Although there are distinct disadvantages to diving off the shore, as some of the more spectacular sites are inaccessible, it also has clear advantages. A buddy team is not reliant on a club or dive centre to provide a manned vessel, and there is none of the timing requirements, or costs, associated with boat diving.

    Spread out along the 5,500 kilometres of Irish coastline there are some well-trodden paths that divers take to access the underwater world.

    Hook Head

    The peninsula of Hook, located at the southernmost end of county Wexford, is among my favourite underwater playgrounds, which I make sure to visit every season at least a couple of times.

    It is a distinctive peninsula, marking the end of the narrow straits of the Irish Sea, with the three sister rivers of the Nore, the Suir and the Barrow converging on the southern side. The peninsula is an integral part of the tourist route known as Ireland’s Ancient East.

    Journeying down through Wexford every few miles one meets signs for ancient castles and stately country homes. It speak of a bygone era, when every other Wexford man and woman’s home seems to have been a castle!

    Arriving on the thin peninsula, dotted around the Lighthouse within a few kilometres of each other there are a multitude of dive sites easily accessed from the shore.

    As the area contends with strong currents divers exploring the area must take care. Thus, diving with someone who knows the area is strongly recommended. It is, however, a relatively shallow part of the coastline, meaning basic level divers can enjoy all of the dive sites without exceeding the PADI open water level eighteen-metre mark.

    The sedimentary rocks of the peninsula are festooned with fossils of long departed sea creatures, which creates a very special ambience. These soft rocks have been pounded by violent waves, where the Irish Sea meets the mighty Atlantic.

    The Ocean swells have sculpted a labyrinth of gullies and rock walls, encrusted with a cornucopia of multi-coloured sponges and anomies. This unique topography, mixed with the clear waters around the Hook, gives the diver an impression of being on a flight through a surreal landscape.

    Three Main Sites

    There are three main shore dive access points, all of which have ample parking space. I break them down below into three sites, but from these three entry points there are multiple dives available. There are other dive sites along the Hook peninsula, but I am sharing three of the best, which offer some of the most unique shore diving in Ireland.

    Slade Harbour is located on the north side of the peninsula. You get there by taking a left turn at the last roundabout coming up to the Lighthouse. The road takes you to a small fishing harbour that empties out completely at low tide, and where you can park a car. From there divers can reach a number of access points.

    By far the most impressive site is Solomon’s Hole, which is an incredible sea arch that acts as an entry point into a ten metre gully. This gives the diver a safe exit into deeper water regardless of the swell. The gully leads into kelp gardens where shoals of mackerel are regular visitors during the summer months.

    This side of the peninsula is the easiest to access, and is rarely blown out like the other dive sites. Facing north it is sheltered from the main swells that pound the peninsula, although it is not quite as dramatic as the other sites.

    Hook Lighthouse and Blowholes

    Hook Lighthouse is situated under the main Lighthouse and contains a number of dives that never fail to blow new divers away. With multiple entry points and ample parking, divers are a regular sight, usually seen carefully working their way to the water’s edge.

    Beneath this ancient Lighthouse there are a warren of gullies and caves that offer a labyrinth to explore. With clear water and masses of life about, it’s a rare diver that surfaces without a brimming smile across their face.

    One of the most exciting features is a clear rock pool containing a cave at the back that links to the sea. Coming out of the dark cave into a incredible gully system it is as if one is entering a secret garden below the waves.

    Approaching the Lighthouse there is a pebble beach to the right. Most drive by the Blowholes Dive without even noticing it, there eyes transfixed by the ancient structure ahead.

    Following the coast west from the beach there are a multitude of dives for those who know the way. Underwater there are incredible caves and blowholes to explore, with stunning cathedral lighting, offering divers sites I believe are unparalleled anywhere in the world. There are also multiple shipwrecks scattered in this area that over time have been broken up by the winter storms.

    A Beacon

    Over fifteen centuries this unique site has acted as a beacon to passing ships. Now the contours of the rocks – hewn by raging seas – along with the aged buildings instill a sense of a living past, accessible to the many visitors it attracts.

    When visiting Hook Head I always make sure to stop at the Lighthouse and enjoy the great coffee, nourishing food and incredible views from the café, which has been running on the site for over twenty years now.

    A significant workforce drawn from the local community still mans the Lighthouse. Today instead of errant boats they welcome tourists and divers to the area. This thriving business is now a beacon to passers-by, demonstrating what can be accomplished when the resources of the State are invested in local communities, and the multiplier effect of positivity comes into play.

  • Covid-19: Questioning the Three Mantras

    The three mantra for this pandemic in Ireland are: wash your hands; socially distance; and wear a mask. Stated repetitively with suitable gravitas the guidelines have been internalised by most of the population. Fears around the spread of the ‘deadly’ virus are even driving people to police one another. The valley of the squinting windows is alive and well.

    But what are the inherent costs to these three injunctions? And why shouldn’t we keep measures in place when this pandemic abates, as has recently been argued?

    Throughout this pandemic we have witnessed very little meaningful scientific debate in Ireland. Irish experts are drawn from a small circle of academics, some with vested interests, supporting the government’s highly successful publicity campaign. In other countries, in contrast, there are heated public debates between scientists as to whether to adopt a dominant approach of blanket policies, or one of shielding elderly populations.

    But in Ireland Nobel laureates and professors from prestigious universities around the world are routinely dismissed with smart quips by gullible journalists. But let us examine the three mantras in a dispassionate way that acknowledges each of their adverse impacts.

    Wash Your Hands

    The first injunction to ‘wash your hands’ is sound advice, which unless you are living on another planet you will be aware of by now. Do we always follow this injunction? Probably not. Are we all dying of ghastly flesh eating infections or coughing up great globules of blood stained mucus? No we are not. Why? Because very few of the billions of micro-organisms with which we share our bodies are actually pathogenic.

    We have existed as a species for approximately a quarter of a million years, and as part of the great evolutionary flow of life for over four and half billion years. In that time adaptation to adversity has been the rule; hence homo sapiens is now thriving, sadly often to the detriment of the rest of the natural world.

    In the advanced economies at least, most of us are now almost invincible until old age. Thus, over the past two hundred years improved nutrition, housing and sanitation have brought life expectancy up to almost eighty years in many countries.

    Medical science, including antibiotics and vaccines, has contributed to this longevity, but not to the extent some of us doctors would have you believe. The authors of The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition and Human Development in the Western World since 1700 (Floud et al., Cambridge, 2011) state:

    it would be easy to exaggerate the importance of scientific medicine when one considers that much of the decline in the mortality associated with infectious diseases predated the introduction of effective medical measures to deal with it

    So yes washing your hands regularly is a good idea. Soap and water should be the principle means, not the bactericidal or viricidal gels we now find on entering every shop or building, some of which are to be avoided – especially the 52 sanitation products the Department of Education has told schools to refrain from using.

    Our skin harbours myriad micro-organisms – that form a part of the human microbiome – all vying for space to live, raise a family and grow old peacefully in a quiet stable neighbourhood. They generally live harmoniously with us in what is referred to as a state of homeostatic balance.

    What happens when we kill off all the good micro-organisms, repeatedly, just in case there is a bad micro-organism on our skin? First, these agents damage our skin’s protective oil barrier, and kill micro-organisms with which we live symbiotically, contributing to our health and wellbeing.

    These ‘good’ bacteria and other microorganisms are easily replaced by ones that are resistant to the effects of the gels, and who can then run amok when given the chance.

    Prior to this pandemic, excessive hygiene measures against infections has given rise to the hygiene hypothesis, according to which ‘the decreasing incidence of infections in western countries and more recently in developing countries is at the origin of the increasing incidence of both autoimmune and allergic diseases.’ So let us be on our guard against excessive hygiene.

    “Social” Distancing

    Hannah Arendt in 1933.

    The second part of the mantra and perhaps the most dystopian is the injunction to distance ourselves socially. It recalls Hannah Arendt’s warning in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) that ‘The evidence of Hitler’s as well as Stalin’s dictatorship points clearly to the fact that isolation of atomized individuals provides not only the mass basis for totalitarian rule, but is carried through to the top of the whole structure.’

    This “safe” distance is anywhere from the depth of the average grave – two metres – to imprisoning ourselves in our homes and limiting the number of fellow humans we allow to enter that space, which is no one from another household under current ‘Level 5’ Irish regulations; or previously an arbitrary number such as six, a figure no doubt chosen after repeatedly employing the reading of the runes technique.

    Not seeing anyone at all would be ideal, but the illuminati could not depend on the imbecilic general public abiding by their lofty standards, or reverting to having sex online to limit the spread of the virus, and so some meagre concessions have been made to human frailty, with the advent of support bubbles.

    Yet social isolation is a potential pathway to madness and a lonely death. We are social creatures and in solitary confinement few can flourish. A Screen New Deal is a recipe for Surveillance Capitalism, and enrichment of the billionaire class. Human touch brings emotional balance and better health.

    A person may be technically alive but is he or she really living without conversing directly with others, dancing, or otherwise demonstrating his love and empathy? We are not avatars in a complex, visually stunning computer game. We are connected physical beings. Those connections extend back into the past, embrace the present, and reach forward into an unknown future.

    It is impossible to tell whether the shocking spate of domestic homicides and suicides that occurred in the last week of October in Ireland, just as stricter measures were introduced, are the product of isolation, but the UN has described the worldwide increase in domestic abuse as a ‘shadow pandemic’ alongside Covid-19.

    Irish incidents include a murder-suicide in Cork involving a father and two sons; the apparent murder of a mother and her two children in Dublin; and the death by suicide of a Dublin nurse along with the death of her young baby through asphyxiation.

    Moving forward, we just have no idea what effect the injunction to “socially” distance – and the attendant loss of touch will have on us – a very tactile people.

    Recall that in shaking hands we make character judgements based on grip and duration; we embrace and kiss those we love with warmth and energy, and those we like with fleeting touching cheeks; we cup the faces of babies and ruffle the hair of cute children – especially if they possess more than us.

    We are now ordered to stop doing all of that, but for how long? Is there any evidence to suggest ‘the virus’ passes from one healthy person to another when we hug? Hasn’t common sense always dictated that we avoid hugging when we are under the weather?

    In this precarious age, however, it is necessary to assume we are guilty of being ‘asymptomatic’ into what seems like an interminable future, and either hug with extreme caution, or not at all. I fear these tactile behaviours will disappear altogether given Covid-19 is very unlikely to vanish.

    Mandatory Masks

    The third and final of the government’s mantras is perhaps the most pernicious: the mandating of masks. It has infantilised the population and turned people into part-time police officers.

    We’ve heard Irish and other experts overturn forty years of science, allowing celebrity doctors to demonstrate to the Irish public, with a cheeky Charlie smile, that masks will prevent contagions. In fact, the only masks that offer real protection are N95 masks or similar respirators. The popular cloth masks are of little more than symbolic value in preventing contagion.

    Instructively, in Norway, which has had among the lowest incidence of Covid-19 in Europe, but where case numbers have increased in recent weeks, the latest national measures do not include a requirement to wear masks in public, although this option is left open to municipal authorities in the event of high infection levels.

    Yet in Ireland journalists and ‘social influencers’ have accepted as self-evident that masks are a form of panacea; failing to recongise that approach is not backed by experimental data, and is in fact the lowest form of evidence.

    Now armed with the received wisdom – mumbling ‘I follow the science’ – righteous members of the public are on the lookout for slackers, and woe betide anyone not wearing a mask when shopping or travelling on public transport; it has reached a point of such absurdity that some even wear them while alone in their cars.

    But you might ask: what is the cost apart from mild to medium, or even extreme, discomfort, depending on how long it has to be worn? And as most of us don’t have to wear them other than when we enter shops then what of it?

    Masks hide our faces so that we have difficulty recognising and communicating with each other. Indeed, our brains have evolved to recognise faces. We see faces in clouds, bushes and cracked tiling, a phenomena called pareidolia. I have yet to hear of such an occurrence where the face is obscured by a mask.

    Pareidolia

    Our face has a remarkable forty-two muscles and is the site from which we deliver most of our body language. Ask a mother of a new born to stare at her child without changing her facial expression for more than a few moments and the baby will become distressed and cry. This is how hardwired our need is to read faces.

    Facial coverings – called surgical masks for good reason – are useful in clinical settings to prevent bacteria, hair, skin cells and mucus from falling into open wounds, but hardly when worn by unruly schoolchildren in class. The best reason to wear one now is simply to make people comfortable who believe they confer protection.

    Asians, have worn masks for various cultural and environmental reasons, including non-medical ones, for decades. In Japan people who feel ‘under the weather’ wear them to be polite.

    But there is no reliable scientific evidence to support widespread use, as Professor Carl Heneghan of Oxford University pointed out to the Dáil Committee on Covid-19 Response. There have only been three registered trials on the use of masks in the community: one in Denmark, one in Guinea Bissau and one in India – but none have reported outcomes so far.

    Now let us for a moment indulge in that age old technique of the thought experiment. Viruses are measured in nanometres. If we looked at the material from which most of these facial coverings are made under an electron microscope we would see more holes than material.

    A virus leaving your mouth, journeying out into the big bad world, is like a football passing through your front door. The football could hit the door frame and bounce back, but this is unlikely. The pseudo-scientific argument is that the virus travels first class in a large globule of spit and this globule gets jammed in the doorway, “proving” the efficacy of masks.

    Ahh, but wait a minute, mask are often worn for hours by kids and cashiers in shops, so what about all the other graduating viruses and their globular carriages? I doubt they are all just clinging for dear life on to the mask for fear of upsetting the Irish expert.

    Instead the globule eventually evaporates, after all it is mostly water vapour, the front of the mask dries and the viruses, being virtually weightless, just waft off on their merciless way.

    Other Approaches

    Now when I hear the mantra ‘wash your hands, social distance and wear a mask,’ I consider: are we running the risk of undermining our society to preserve some cherished scientific authority? We are supposed to be entering the second wave of a pandemic, yet while hospitals in countries such as Italy are under severe pressure – as was the case last February – few Europeans countries are now showing excess deaths. Yet the doomsday models that were wildly inaccurate last time around are being revisited.

    Excess mortality in Europe source since 2017: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#excess-mortality

    Shouldn’t our health authorities, especially in Ireland – which has had among the most stringent measures in the world throughout the pandemic – also be conscious of maintaining our humanity, and recognising the huge value – in terms of our health and wellbeing – of being able to gather, kiss, hug, talk, sing and laugh with abandon, without fear of breaking the law? We especially need to explain to our children that the world they currently live through is not going in a normal phase.

    In preventing infections with a respiratory disease such as Covid-19, we might look back on what the great American polymath and Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once observed:

    From many years’ observations on myself and others, I am persuaded we are on a wrong scent in supposing moist or cold air, the cause of that disorder we call a cold. Some unknown quality in the air may perhaps produce colds, as in the influenza, but generally, I apprehend they are the effect of too full living in proportion to our exercise.

    Franklin observed  a connection between succumbing to an infectious disease and poor dietary choices (“too full living”) and a lack of physical exercise that contributes to obesity, which we know significantly increases the likelihood of death from Covid-19.

    He also had the following to say on the benefits of being outside into the fresh air:

    I hope that after, having discovered the benefit of fresh and cool air applied to the sick, people will begin to suspect that possibly it may do no harm to the well. I have long been satisfied from observation, that besides the general colds now termed influenza (which may possibly spread by contagion, as well as by a particular quality of the air), people often catch cold from one another when shut up together in close rooms, coaches, et cetera, and when sitting near and conversing so as to breathe in each other’s transpiration, the disorder being in a certain state.

    During this pandemic, and moving forward, we should thus be addressing a pre-existing obesity pandemic that is being exacerbated by some of the current restrictions on sports especially. Franklin also seemed to have recognised the importance of adequate ventilation in buildings.

    Image (c) Daniele Idini

    Thus addressing the underlying conditions exacerbating the Covid-19 pandemic may prove to be the optimum response, as the editor of The Lancet Richard Horton has argued:

    we must confront the fact that we are taking a far too narrow approach to managing this outbreak of a new coronavirus. We have viewed the cause of this crisis as an infectious disease. All of our interventions have focused on cutting lines of viral transmission, thereby controlling the spread of the pathogen. The “science” that has guided governments has been driven mostly by epidemic modellers and infectious disease specialists, who understandably frame the present health emergency in centuries-old terms of plague. But what we have learned so far tells us that the story of COVID-19 is not so simple. Two categories of disease are interacting within specific populations—infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and an array of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These conditions are clustering within social groups according to patterns of inequality deeply embedded in our societies. The aggregation of these diseases on a background of social and economic disparity exacerbates the adverse effects of each separate disease. COVID-19 is not a pandemic. It is a syndemic. The syndemic nature of the threat we face means that a more nuanced approach is needed if we are to protect the health of our communities.

  • Jewel Anemones Crowning the Irish Coast

    Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
    Oscar Wilde

    One of the most dramatic dives I have ever completed was the awesome Fastnet lighthouse off the west Cork coastline. As a young diver of barely sixteen I was on a dive trip with forty other to explore that stretch of coastline.

    Blessed by one of those rare days when the might of the Atlantic Ocean is transformed to a glass like surface we braved the journey out to this rock known as ‘Ireland’s tear drop’ to Irish emigrants: it being the last view of their homeland before the dangerous journeys to a new life in the Americas began.

    Fastnet Lighthouse, 2005 By Tom from Aberystwyth, Wales. Wikicommons (cc)

    Fastnet lighthouse is located thirteen kilometres off the Cork coastline and is an incredible feat of human ingenuity. Built to withstand the mighty swells that normally pound this part of the coastline it towers forty-five metres above the Atlantic Ocean.

    First constructed in 1853 after a shipping disaster involving the loss of ninety-two lives, it was rebuilt by the Irish Lights in 1897 in its current form, using 4,300 tons of dovetailed Cornish granite.

    This was the dramatic backdrop to a dive that even a quarter of a century on stands out in my memory as something truly special. To my naive young self it seemed that dives like this were the norm, as opposed to an event of great note. I have yet to return to this site, with mighty Atlantic swells forcing me back more than once.

    I surfaced from the dive blown away by the walls that dropped from the surface heights down to depths of eighty meters, with a shipwreck also noticeable in the depths below. The sheer cliff faces was dressed in colours reminiscent of the Bermuda shorts I had worn as a youngster in the 1980s.

    Neon colours of pink, yellow and green dressed the sheer faces that in the crystal clear waters of the Atlantic lent me an unmistakable feeling of flying.

    A French photographer that was diving in the group with us surfaced raving about the colours of the Jewel anemones colonies. I was instantly intrigued at how such colourful creatures could survive and thrive in such a remote and windswept location.

    At that point I had only taken a few underwater images, mainly with disposable cameras, so the French photographer’s excitement in response to these colourful creatures left an unmistakable imprint on my younger self. As my underwater photography career expanded, the subject I have always sought out has been this beautiful and colourful creature clinging to the most exposed rocks in the most remote locations.

    Jewel anemones are asexual, reproducing by splitting into two identical species connected by a thin sliver. They form colonies of identical creatures on rock faces up to eighty meters in depth. They thrive in high energy zones, where the waters of the Atlantic wash over them with great force.

    Their method of reproduction means you normally find patches of colour fighting for real estate. Neon Green battles with neon pink for prime locations on the surface of underwater cliff faces. Rarely seen on the east coast, they are to be found in all of the most dramatic sites I have dived along the Atlantic coast.

    As well as finding them on cliffs they can be found clinging in a similar manner to shipwrecks, fighting the same battles of colour for the best seats on the exposed sides of sunken vessels.

    Over my time diving whenever I have had the chance to dive with a camera in hand I have sought out battles of different colours, and tried to capture the beauty that the colour imparts on the final image.

    In showing the image to non-divers I relish their disbelief that such colours exist below the waters that surround this country. It is assumed that only in the tropical zones where coral reefs bloom can such vibrant colours exist. This notion is shattered by the beautiful vibrant colours of these incredible rock clinging creatures.

    When training new divers the images of jewel anomies always brings an audible intake of breath as they realise what to expect on future dives. Dive sites around Ireland are actually filled with colour, but the nature of water and the way it absorbs light means that in order to bring these colours out in their true glory the underwater photographer requires powerful strobes, or flashes, to reveal the vibrant colour.

    As a diver setting out, one of the first pieces of equipment to acquire is a torch. In recent times the technology driving the underwater torch has gone through a massive innovation cycle with the introduction of LED torches.

    Now for relatively little money a powerful torch can be purchased that only a few years ago would have required a suitcase battery to power it.

    Some of the best underwater photographers in the world describe the technique of capturing underwater imagery as painting with light. The placement of the light or strobes will completely change the final imagery with the true colours being brought out through the introduction of artificial light, which was absorbed by the water column on to the subject.

    The colour patterns that these amazing colonies produce across the walls, spread out around the Irish coastline, are truly dramatic and the battles between the different colonies make for the most amazing and dazzling splashes of colour, unique to the geographical location of the dive.

    The translucent nature of the species means they can bring incredible colour to either macro or wide-angle photography, like imagery of flowers above water. The colours bring a light into even the darkest of moods.

    Another dive season has ended along the Irish coastline in recent weeks, and thankfully it has coincided with the return of travel restrictions, so although 2020 was a much shorter dive season I had the opportunity to get some exciting dive trips in during a truncated season.

    As the Atlantic storm cycles move quickly through the alphabet of names the waters are churned, with visibility dropping to only a few feet, and so the number of divers entering the water drops dramatically. Although there are many dive sites dive open throughout the year the restrictions on travel means divers are unable to travel to these sheltered locations. As the seasons in our marine environment moves into the winter stage only the bravest of divers head into the seas to get their fix of the underwater world.

  • The Bonds that Hold Society Together

    I am a father, a husband, a son, a friend, a doctor, an athlete, a traveller, a student and a citizen. Although just one person, I nonetheless occupy many nodes in the complex networks that make up society. These extend into the past, traverse the present and reach towards the future.

    Over the past few months I have been deprived or diminished in many of these roles. Had I been asked if I wanted to relinquish the responsibilities inherent to these roles I would have declined, but I may have wanted to increase my responsibilities in some areas.

    I am just one person in a vast network of people whose lives have contracted in the past six months. This makes me consider the extent of the wastage across society.

    Why? Policies were adopted by an unelected government on the erroneous advice of experts listening to other experts, who predicted an enormous death toll from Covid-19 that has not come about anywhere on the globe. These same experts are now doubling down on initial errors and inflicting incalculable harm on the delicate fabric of society.

    I don’t think these experts took into account people like a patient of mine, eighty-five-year-old Joe, who was married to Mary for sixty-years. They were forced to separate, partly because of her dementia when she had to go into a care home, but then because of public health restrictions. Mary resides in a nursing home and Joe visits every day, but the last time he held her hand was on their sixtieth wedding anniversary in March.

    Previously Joe would cry when recounting his visits to Mary. Then he realised that if he spoke to her about their early days he could bring her back to life; at least for an hour or two. This stanched his tears. He was happy to have a small piece of the woman he married return to him.

    His last such conversation was in March. Until recently he was still visiting her and looking and waving at a woman who didn’t recognise him. If the day was bright and sunny all he’d see was his reflection in the window. Joe managed to see Mary this week; to hold her hand and speak to her, but unfortunately she was unconscious. She stayed that way until she died a few days later.

    The experts never asked Joe how he and Mary would like to live out their last days, nor sought the opinion of the thousands of elderly people whose children live abroad and who had planned perhaps their last trips to a wedding, a graduation or a funeral. Instead a paternalistic decision was taken, after a shameless use of the national media for propaganda purposes, inculcating a fear of imminent death in the elderly if they did not comply with the rules.

    Yes Covid-19 is a very dangerous illness for an elderly person, with a mortality rate of perhaps ten percent for over seventies, but at a certain point people should be allowed to make informed choices about how they want to spend their last days.

    The past is being separated from the present and the future, as grandchildren now avoid grandparents for fear of being harbingers of contagion and death.

    Perhaps most egregious of all is the passing away of a generation deprived of family and friends in the final moments of life. No last words of forgiveness, reconciliation, gratitude or love can be expressed. Such pronouncements on death beds have always nourished the generations to come.

    As a people we traditionally celebrate death in a very communal way. We wake our dead. We toast their memory. We keep them alive in stories. We form processions to accompany their coffins to the church and the graveyard, where we huddle against wind and rain to say our final goodbyes. Then we gather for soup and sandwiches as a family, making sure to thank all those who have remembered. How dare they take this away from people indefinitely.

    Our bonds are being ripped asunder. Our young in schools are now sitting in alienating environments, their every move regimented.

    For anyone in university, the experience of academia will not be much better than watching a documentary on YouTube. The vital experiences of college life that sustain us for a lifetime are rarely found in books, but are the product of societies, sporting events and the parties that bring lasting bonds of friendship. These are all human connections that come about through proximity and touch.

    What of this year’s Leaving Cert cohort? Students have been deprived of completing their fourteen years of school in a way so many generations before them have done. They are deprived of rites of passage that include the exams themselves, the celebration of results, and then on to the debs. Little wonder nearly 50% of the class of 2020 have reported high levels of depression or anxiety.

    And what of the many small businesses, run by the parents of those young people that have been told to pull down their shutters? Who are these people that have the right to tell someone to cease trading and potentially permanently damage sources of livelihoods, and the future prosperity of their families?

    Severing social threads by ending sporting activities, indefinitely shutting pubs and restaurants and restricting travel has already taken many formative experiences away from young people, while future encounters may well be tainted indefinitely by a fear of contagion.

    And as to the future, are we supposed to believe the oxymoronic slogan of staying together by staying apart. How can this fortify social bonds?

    They have instilled fear and paranoia where once there was social capital, infantilising the population with lockdowns.

    This is a population that had grown restive about injustices and was developing a growing awareness and intolerance of homelessness, poverty, inequality, sexism, environmental damage and racism. Now the only of most politicians seems to be to keep their jobs, while maintaining social distancing, wearing face masks and eschewing all forms of human contact and connectivity.

    To what end? To protect the vulnerable or the health service? The hypocrisy of this is astounding. Since when has an Irish government dramatically altered our society in such a short space of time to protect the vulnerable, or our health service?

    Why can’t they admit they got it wrong – that they over-reacted and panicked when the initial grossly erroneous estimates were published? Instead they continue in the same vein. Isn’t it clear by now that the damage that has been caused, and will be caused, is far greater than any perceived health crisis.

    Perhaps buried within their spuriously scientific reasoning is the fact that politically this crisis was fortuitous. It came at a time when the electorate had rejected the current government, and become radicalised and deserved a second election, but where are the opposition now?

    They should end these arbitrary rules, lockdowns, based on specious and selective use of science purveyed by celebrity scientists. They should listen to international experts and use international data to inform decisions and stop preventing people, young and old, from leading meaningful lives.

  • Seal the Deal

    it is difficult enough for the fishermen to make a living but because of inaction with seal culls, they are now suffering very seriously … What is needed is to dramatically reduce the amount of seals in our water in the same way as we have to reduce our deer population … There is no nice way to do this – the hard core facts are we need a seal cull and we need it immediately and nothing less will be sufficient.
    Michael Healy-Rae, T.D. for Kerry, February, 2019.

    I have rarely agreed with Michael Healy-Rae’s, or others from his Kerry dynasty, views on anything, but the colourful manner in which they impart their message has always brought a smile.

    I respect their support for the people of Kerry, while disliking a partisan style which pits one part of the country against another. They are undoubted masters of public relations and gaining valuable media coverage, delivering messages in a way that seemingly makes them loved in Kerry, if not by the Dublin medja.

    This time, however, it’s personal. Healy-Rae has attacked friends of mine, having called for their death in the usual lurid language.

    Among the dive community a petition to stop licences being granted to cull seal colonies along the coast was quickly arranged. Within days it garnered 5,000 signatories, a number which is still climbing, as divers voice their anger at the prospect of an attack on one of the most popular of Ireland’s coastline animal communities.

    Dalkey Days

    I spent my teenage years bringing groups of children out to meet the seal colony on Dalkey Island. Snorkel camps run weekly during the summer months out of Dun Laoghaire always culminated with a much loved boat trip to Dalkey Island to swim among the resident seals.

    Some of the first underwater images I took with a disposable underwater film camera were of these playful sea creatures interacting with children from around south county Dublin. It was always hard to determine who was more playful the children or the seals, who seemed to have a number of games they liked to play, including hide and seek, tag and their constant favourite of fin chomping without being seen.

    The playful nature of seals reminds any snorkeler of a dog looking for affection from its owner. So listening to news stories where people are saying the best solution to the problems afflicting the fishing community is to take a high powered rifle to these playful creatures filled me with rage and frustration around the management of our coast, and what the future holds for it.

    Of course it is a complex issue replicated across the world and our history, where human appetites come into direct competition with other predators in the natural world.

    The Grey Seal 

    The Grey Seal – one of the two seal species found along our coastline – holds an auspicious distinction of being the first animal to be protected by law against hunting back in 1903.

    By that time the Grey Seal had become nearly extinct in Irish waters, having been hunted for both their meat and fur. Now, thanks to conservation efforts their numbers are estimated to have reached over five thousand around Irish waters, with nearly 300,000 worldwide.

    Although this sounds like a fair number, they are actually fewer in number than the African Elephant, another endangered species more wildly known for being at risk of extinction. With Ireland home to just over one per cent of the worldwide Grey Seal population, we have a great opportunity to help conserve this incredible marine animal for future generations.

    Hunter Gatherers

    The fishing industry has been under threat for as long as I can remember from all sides. In a way it is the last remaining among the hunter-gatherer professions, so it’s easy to understand why the call for seals to be culled has come from this quarter.

    Fishing quotas introduced at a European level can seem deeply unfair to those who support their family from fishing. Catches often have to be thrown back into the water on account of it being a species which cannot be sold due to quotas. On the other hand, the playful seal does not have these caps inflicted on it, and is able to hunt for fish to its heart’s content.

    Technological advances have allowed super trawlers to travel thousands of miles to hoover up fish stocks, with implications for small scale fisheries. The recent restaurant closures due to the Covid restrictions has seen a collapse in demand in local markets for their produce.

    Like so many business, fishermen are facing a very difficult year while the playful seal watches on, oblivious to the stresses of running a business in the era of Covid-19.

    This is not a new battle between two communities, with the fisherman receiving enough support in the 1960s and the 1970s to allow culls of seal colonies. Yet it is all too easy to blame the fishermen for cruelty, while ignoring the methods required to provide affordable fish for supper.

    Joy and Wonder

    As a diver, meeting a seal under water brings great joy and wonder, although on rare occurrences seals take a dislike to the bubble trail divers surround themselves with. Ironically, it’s easier to encounter a seal on a snorkel and held breath, as they don’t perceive a threat from the diver’s bubbles.

    Seals are wrapped up in Irish mythology and lore, with stories of the ‘Selky featuring prominently among most coastal communities.  A Selky is a shape-shifting seal that comes ashore and is transformed into a beautiful woman.

    Lucky fishermen could win themselves a wife by capturing the seal skin and hiding it from the Selky. If the captured Selky found her skin only then would she be able to return to her underwater lair, leaving the fisherman alone and holding the baby!!

    Anyone who has heard the melodic calls of the seals around Dalkey island can well understand why such myths sprang into existence. Seals provide a human tone that could easily deceive the ear. In protecting them around our coastline we are also preserving a part of our own cultural inheritance, as these tales would mean very little we were to drive this species from our waters again.

    Quite recently, while bringing an open water diver on a final dive for their open water course we had the pleasure of being joined on the dive by a playful Grey Seal. The seal stayed with us for over five minutes and watching my student’s eyes I could tell this magical encounter would stay with him for the rest of his life. Hopefully through this interaction a new diver also became a new guardian and advocate of the seal population.

    Farmers Replacing Hunters

    Sandycove in Dublin, beside Dun Laoghaire, like Dalkey Island is home to multiple seals colonies, but with the welcome new cycle lanes divers can no longer park cars near this space, meaning these interactions are frustratingly difficult to avail of. Hopefully a resolution can be found, as divers cannot transport equipment without a vehicle.

    Almost every diver includes stories of encounters with seals among their favourite dives, so it is easy to see why a petition to save the seals would garner such support from within the dive community in such a short time.

    Every year I make a point of revisiting the seal colonies on Dalkey island to see how these friends from my teenage years are getting along. In the last few years I have been delighted to observe the population increasing with nearly forty Grey Seals counted this year.

    If you haven’t had the pleasure of spending time on Dalkey Island yet I again highly recommend it in these pandemic times. It offers an opportunity to see wild animals in their natural habitat while exploring a nature reserve, without leaving the confines of the county.

    In this time of rampant extinction events the playful Grey Seal communities in Ireland stand out as an example of how, with the right steps taken by our political leaders, we can preserve species from extinction. It is also a clear sign that once steps are taken continued care is needed to ensure these creatures survive and thrive.

    The grandfather of scuba diving Jacques Yves said: ‘We must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about – farming replacing hunting.’

    Perhaps other ways to earn a living from the sea may in time become available to fishing communities, and a compulsion to hunt in a destructive manner will decline.

    Hopefully steps can be taken so that a balance can be struck between fishing communities and the seal communities that co-exist along our incredible coastline.

    If you believe in preserving these seal communities that have so recently come back from extinction along our coast please sign the petition by clicking here.

    All Images by Dan Mc Auley, read more of his articles on Ireland’s marine life here.

  • Shipwrecks: Ireland’s Manmade Reefs

    In his first article Dan Mc Auley revealed some of the hidden secrets below Dublin Bay, and a looming threat to that environment. In this article Dan takes us to the mysterious world of shipwrecks around the Irish coastline, of which there are a remarkable 18,000, two of which he has been taking photographs of for nearly twenty years.

    When divers receive their initial certification as Open Water Divers under the PADI training system the next step is the Advanced Diver Programme. This teaches the many different disciplines available in the diving world, including Drift Diving, Photography Diving, Drysuit Diving and Night Diving. There are, therefore, many options available to the newly certified aquanaut, but without doubt the most popular and sought after certification is in Wreck Diving. Wreck Diving offers a snapshot of history on the ocean floor.

    With the combination of a long history of maritime traffic and often quite ferocious seas, it comes as no surprise that the Irish coastline is strewn with shipwrecks, many of which date back hundreds of years. Each one provides a fascinating porthole on a bygone age, telling stories that are often of historical significance, as well as allowing divers a chance to encounter what are often quite intriguing new environments for marine life.

    Shipwrecks are formed when human ingenuity is defeated by the raw force of nature, and often tell a tragic tale.

    Julia T.

    18,000 Shipwrecks

    According to the Underwater Archaeology Unit (UAU), there are over 18,000 shipwrecks along the Irish coastline, which is more than enough to keep even the most gun-ho of ‘wreckies’ (wreck divers) satisfied for a lifetime.

    Obviously not all of these are diveable, or even worth exploring, as their journeys don’t end when they reach the sea bed: the relentless ocean keeps working on these vessels.

    Sometimes in shallow waters they can be quickly broken up into smaller and smaller pieces as waves pummel the steel or wood of the ship against the sea bed. If a ship runs aground in deeper water, however, a slower process begins, as nature slowly reclaims the ship: firstly by turning it into a reef that becomes a refuge to marine life clear of the sea bed.

    This offers a treasure trove of subjects for an underwater photographer, concentrated in an area easily dive-able on one tank.

    As the process of disintegration continues apace, cargoes are often shifted across the sea bed. The story continues with different species of marine life taking up residence in the hulls of the ship, just as sailors had enjoyed that privilege above the surface.

    Hook Head Wreck.

    First a Confession

    With such an array of shipwrecks around the coastline to choose from, it is tough to decide which stories to tell in a single article; I will therefore focus on my two favourites, and explain what makes this pair special to me.

    Before doing so I must confess that I am by no means a true ‘wreckie.’ Rather, I relish the opportunity to photograph the marine life these wrecks attract. This natural profusion is my true love, as opposed to the history of the wrecks themselves.

    A true wreckie would probably want to hear about the Cunard ocean liner RMS Lusitania that was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915, eighteen kilometres off the Old Head of Kinsale, killing 1,198 and leaving 761 survivors. This appalling loss of life was among the reasons why the United States eventually joined the Allied side during World War I.

    Others would be drawn to SS Laurentic, another British ocean liner of the White Star Line that was converted into an armed merchant cruiser at the beginning of World War I. That vessel sank after striking two mines near the Inishowen penninsula north of Ireland on January 25th 1917, with the loss of 354 lives. She was carrying about 43 tons of gold ingots at the time, and, intriguingly, twenty bars of gold are yet to be recovered.

    Instead the wrecks I have chosen are two that I have dived nearly every year for the past twenty years, and have had a chance to watch at intervals their continued journeys below the waves.

    Julia T.

    Julia T

    The wreck of the Julia T is located in a top secret location off the variegated Mayo coastline, known only to initiates to one of Ireland’s top dive centres, Scuba Dive West.

    A shroud of mystery continues to lie over what brought it to the sea bed. This perhaps emanates from a curious indifference on the part of the Irish state to the value that wrecks offer to divers when these become man-made reefs on the sea bed.

    As a result, nobody knows precisely what caused this ferry to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in an ideal location at exactly the right depth and area for divers to explore. What we do know is that the ship sank without any spillages or casualties and without causing any environmental damage on July 4th, 1998, while under tow to be decommissioned after a lifetime supplying the Islands communities of Inish Boffin and Inish Turk off the Galway coastline.

    Julia T.

    At over thirty meters in length it was the last in the line of the Clyde-built boats (so-called Clyde Puffers) with a flat bottom to allow for beach landings, which now allows it to sit perfectly upright on the sea bed.

    I have been lucky enough to dive it nearly every year since it first sank over twenty years ago, with each dive offering fresh insights into what happens to a ship once it descends below the waves.

    Situated at an ideal depth for advanced divers of twenty metres, it has provided a perfect training ground for imparting the skills essential for safely exploring wrecks; whetting the appetite of many a newly blooded wreckie to explore other sites along the coast.

    Julia T.

    A Profusion of Life

    Since sinking to the sea floor it has become a safe home for thousands of marine critters, amidst the might of the Atlantic Ocean. In excess of forty exquisite nudibranch, a soft-bodied, marine gastropod mollusc, have been recorded on the wreck on a single dive. Nudibranch appreciation clubs now travel annually to the site of the wreckage to spot these elusive and colourful creatures.

    Shoals of mackerel and cod also often take refuge from the raging seas in the large hull of the ship, while varied species of brightly coloured wrasse fish use the wreck as a nursery for their young, before heading out to deeper water.

    The mighty conger eel has also been spotted lurking in the darker parts of the wreck, along with passing thornback rays on the sea bed around the wreck.

    Over the years more and more filter feeders, like the plumose anenome have carved out a niche in the wreck, as well as the awe-inspiring jewel anenomes that bring a vivid colour to the rust-coloured exterior of the wreck.

    Given the extent of this cornucopia of marine life it is hard to see just where the man-made structure ends and nature now begins. Indeed, the monetary value of the material constituents of the wreck is now a tiny fraction of its value as a dive location, and for marine life. The site now draws hundreds of international divers, and is regularly listed as one of the top dive destinations in the world.

    Julia T.

    Unnamed Trawler

    The second wreck I visit each year is located in much shallower water, barely eight meters below the surface by the beautiful Hook Penninsula in county Wexford. Very little is know about the first incarnation of this unnamaed trawler that sank in the 1960s, as is often the case with ships before they meet the ocean floor.

    This shipwreck lies in the surge zone – constantly pounded by the southerly swells that carved the Hook peninsula itself – meaning its ageing process is starkly different to that of the Julia T.

    On my annual descents I have observed just how rapidly nature is able to reclaim what is left by man. The metallic shell of the wreck is regularly hit with such concussive force that the base elements have actually melded into the stone shoreline, with only the strongest parts now recognisably part of a ship.

    At this stage the engine block sits proudly on the seabed, with the propeller and its drive shaft streaming out of it, giving the impression of a skeleton of a prehistoric sea creature.

    The engine block is an occasional home to spider crabs that come to shallower waters every year to mate before returning to the deep sea.

    Each year offers new insight into the ferocity of the winter storms, demonstrating how the incredible caves and blowholes have been carved over millennia into the unique Hook peninsula.

    This dive, although accessible from the shore, requires divers to go by foot for half-a-kilometre in full scuba gear before taking the plunge. It’s certainly an endurance test, but at least the coastline is a feast for human eyes.

    Hook Head wreck.

    Mapping Underwater

    Over the last few years a project has been completed by the team at Infomar to map the entire under water sea bed in Irish territorial waters, an area which is over ten times the size of our land-based territory.

    This incredible feat harnessed the most recent technological advances, and is an achievement that few other countries can lay claim to. It offers remarkable insights into the wealth of marine life along our coastline, which will hopefully be preserved for future generations to encounter.

    All of this data is easily accessible via Infomar’s website, and anyone with an interest in the secrets below our seas should take a look. So far they have released 3D imagery and articles on 65 of the 18,000 shipwrecks.

    In terms of other resources, there is also a wealth of knowledge contained in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland in Dun Laoghaire, with recovered artefacts on display from what are often tragic shipwrecks. For just a few euros aspiring wreckies can learn about the history of the wrecks they intend to visit.

    Important Insights

    As an underwater photographer shipwrecks will always hold a fascination. Perhaps the most important insight I have drawn from my many visits to these manmade reefs is how quickly nature reclaims the structures that we discard, rapidly transforming our waste into natural capital. Once barren sea beds can even be transformed into incredible ecosystems by what may initially seem to be the intrusion of an alien vessel, practically overnight.

    As we struggle to feed the many billions of human beings on our planet sustainably, it is perhaps worth considering the speed at which the sea converts our waste ships into nurseries for marine life. This process demonstrates how little we really understand about life below the ocean’s surface.

  • Covid-19 in Ireland: Elusive Facts

    No facts without Judgment

    Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.
    Mr Gradgrind from Charles Dickens’s Hard Times (1854).

    These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.
    Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1955).

    The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that ‘facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth-century invention.’ The term is derived from the Latin ‘factum,’ meaning ‘a deed, an action and sometimes in scholastic Latin an event or occasion.’ MacIntyre was not dismissing the importance of gleaning evidence from sources, or deriving conclusions from scientific studies, but asserting that no fact is ever ‘independent of judgment.’[i]

    Over the course of the current pandemic, as a recent opinion piece in the British Medical Journal puts it:

    uncontested facts—things that are ascertainable, reproducible, transferable and predictable—tend to be elusive. Most decisions must be based on information that is flawed (imperfectly measured, with missing data), uncertain (contested, perhaps with low sensitivity or specificity), proximate (relating to something one stage removed from the real phenomenon of interest) or sparse (only available for some aspects of the problem).

    Similarly, the historian E. H. Carr considered facts to be ‘like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home and cooks and serves them.’ Thus partisan outlooks have always coloured understandings of historic events. Carr recalls: ‘Our picture of Greece in the 5th century BC is defective not primarily because so many of the bits have been accidentally lost, but because it is, by and large, the picture formed by a tiny group of people in the city of Athens.’

    Journalists and editors in writing ‘the first rough draft of history’ therefore make judgments in determining facts. Unsurprisingly, during a global pandemic Covid-19 deaths and diagnoses are given greater factual weight than the equivalent statistics for heart disease, cancer or influenza. This is quite apart from deaths in developing countries from tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria, which are set to double this year in part owing to the intense focus on Covid-19 – particularly in Africa which by mid-August had experienced just 23,000 deaths from Covid-19.

    Any journalist’s judgment in determining facts is not necessarily a product of sinister machinations, but orthodoxies and received opinions are easily enshrined in news organisations that are patronised, or owned outright, by vested interests, which throughout history have ‘manufactured’ consent.

    Moreover, as Noam Chomsky put it in a famous interview with Andrew Marr, there is ‘a filtering system’ that starts in kindergarten which ‘selects for obedience and subordination.’ Chomsky intimates that most journalists that rise to the top of major news organisations are conformists, including Marr.

    The pandemic has exposed the fragility of contemporary journalism in the era of the Internet, which, arguably, has exhibited over-deference to scientific authority, even where those authorities have proffered accounts that have proved wildly inaccurate, or contradictory. This passivity seems to be a feature of what Nick Davies has described as ‘churnalism’, whereby journalists become passive processors of ‘unchecked, second-hand material, much of it contrived by PR to serve a political or commercial interest.’

    Fake News

    In the Internet era we have witnessed an onslaught of so-called ‘fake news,’ which are accounts departing from journalistic convention that enter the realm of fiction and outright distortion.

    This is not, however, entirely novel. It is axiomatic that truth is the first casualty of war, a metaphor constantly applied to this pandemic. Journalists embedded in power structures have long spun outright falsehoods. We need only cast our mind back to uncritical coverage of claims around Weapons of the Mass Destruction prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, or the misleading accounts of Cuba in the U.S. press.

    Nonetheless, in this context such claims have become more outrageous, and even comical, with social media – Facebook in particular – acting as a conduit for misinformation from non-mainstream outlets, granting individuals unprecedented platforms to project fears, fantasies and delusions that are often manipulated by shadowy agencies, such as Cambridge Analytica.

    An apparent antidote to fake news has arrived in the form of fact-checking websites. While these may succeed in exposing outright falsehoods – which is undoubtedly important in an era of climate change – we should also examine which facts are being checked and also, why there are discrepancies in mainstream accounts. The funding for such sites also merits scrutiny. The facts do not speak for themselves.

    #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance

    In March this year the Irish online news website, www.thejournal.ie announced it had ‘joined a worldwide project of factcheckers debunking claims about Covid-19.’ According to their report: ‘This project, called the #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance, comprises more than 100 factcheckers around the world and it is the largest collaborative factchecking project ever,’

    That global alliance was launched in January by the Poynter Institute:

    when the spread of the virus was restricted to China but already causing rampant misinformation globally. The World Health Organization now classifies this issue as an infodemic — and the Alliance is on the front lines in the fight against it.

    This global response is in line with a war-gaming exercise for a global pandemic (coincidentally a fictional coronavirus: Coronavirus Associated Pulmonary Syndrome) called Event 201 organised by The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In this exercise where no one has immunity from that virus, the model predicts the pandemic will only end when 80 percent of the world’s population has been infected, which takes 18 months and results in 65 million deaths.

    The participants addressed the issue of disinformation and misinformation from ‘state sponsored groups’ and specifically pointed to the importance of ‘fact-checking efforts.’

    Notably, the Poynter Institute has received charitable donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of $382,000 in 2015, earmarked for improving ‘the accuracy in worldwide media of claims related to global health and development.’ The organisation now receives donations from, among others, Facebook, Google News Initiative and climate-change denying Charles Koch.

    Died ‘From’ or ‘With’?

    Most of www.thejournal.ie’s investigations into online claims result in slam dunks, where obvious fake news is dismissed. This may indeed be in the public interest; although it is questionable how many people actually believe claims such as that children are going to be taught how to masturbate as part of their education, or that Bill Gates briefed the CIA in 2005 on a vaccine against religious fanatics. This latter claim, interestingly, was also debunked on other fact-checking sites, demonstrating that www.thejournal.ie is a small cog in a global campaign.

    More relevantly to Ireland, in carrying out its fact-checking remit www.journal.ie has bolstered the Irish government’s emphasis on the serious danger posed by Covid-19 to all age groups. Consolidating government messaging during a pandemic may be considered a civic duty, but it can also over-simplify “elusive” facts that merit revisiting.

    On July 24th, Radio DJ Niall Boylan’s tweet from July 14th claiming just eight people under the age of sixty-five had died from Covid-19 became the subject of a fact-checking inquiry.

    The relevant fact checker, Rónán Duffy, recalled that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre had recorded a total of 1,763 deaths related to Covid-19, of which 113 related to people under the age of 65. Duffy thus concluded that ‘At the time that Boylan shared the original tweet on 14 July, the number of Covid-19 deaths among people under 65 was 113, not eight’

    In response to a request for clarification, however, Boylan said he specifically used the term ‘from Covid-19,′ not ‘with Covid-19′. He went on to argue that it was important to distinguish deaths among people with and without underlying health conditions, ‘in other words people who had died from coronavirus.’ He claimed the figure of eight people was a direct quote from a statement made by Independent T.D. Michael McNamara, who said at a sitting of the Special Committee on Covid-19 that only eight of those under the age of sixty-five who died did not have an underlying condition.

    Duffy concluded the claim was ‘misleading because it omits crucial details that may lead to readers forming an incorrect conclusion.’

    Boylan’s tweet may indeed have been unsatisfactory, but the original death toll was itself a simplification: a bald statistic that omitted to mention that the vast majority of those who died were afflicted with underlying conditions. Perhaps some of these were patients would have succumbed to a respiratory infection in an ‘ordinary’ year, considering influenza or pneumonia are the cause of up to a thousand deaths a year in Ireland.

    A Covid-19 infection may not have been the primary cause of death; or an infection could have accelerated by a short time that mortality. Any death comes as a shock to those left behind, and all reasonable efforts should be undertaken to preserve life, but it is not uncommon for patients weakened by long-term illness to succumb to respiratory infections, such as Covid-19, rather than the chronic degenerative disease to which the cause of death is ordinarily ascribed. Members of the public unacquainted with medical science may not be aware of this. According to one G.P. consulted in researching this article attributing cause of death is never an exact science.

    A more thorough fact-checking exercise might examine the nature of comorbidities or underlying conditions. Conditions are described in papers, but a loose definition can easily yield to wild claims around the number of those in the Irish population who are at risk of death from the virus.

    https://twitter.com/DonnellyStephen/status/1303632455107260422

    Yet a recent article in Nature emphasises that age is by by far the strongest predictor of an infected person’s risk of dying :

    For every 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus who are under the age of 50, almost none will die. For people in their fifties and early sixties, about five will die — more men than women. The risk then climbs steeply as the years accrue.

    The suggestion that 1.5 million among an Irish population of less than five million that is the youngest in the E.U. are susceptible to death from Covid-19 is a wild exaggeration.

    All 1,777 deaths?

    In another recent article Fact Checker claimed: “the virus was a factor in all 1,777 deaths.”

    Yet HIQA reported in July:

    Excess mortality was found to be 1,072 (95% CI: 851 to 1,290) between 11 March 2020 and 16 June 2020 inclusive. The officially reported number of COVID-19 deaths for the same period was 1,709. Therefore, the estimated excess mortality is less than the officially reported COVID-19-related mortality by 637 cases.

    Similarly in the U.K. Dr Jason Oke of the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford has found that almost one third of Covid-19 deaths in July and August were ‘primarily caused by other conditions’. There is therefore significant doubt over whether the virus was the primary factor in all 1,777 of these deaths.

    Also, the coroner’s office was not conducting post-mortems on suspected cases and testing was pulled from the entire care home sector for three weeks at the height of the pandemic, meaning in many cases doctors were making educated guesses that Covid-19 was the cause of death.

    Then CMO Tony Houlihan also acknowledged: ‘Clinically, the “index of suspicion” for the disease would be “a good deal higher” than would normally be the case for flu.’

    RTÉ’s Feargal Bowers

    The Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ says that ‘nine out of ten people in Ireland say RTÉ has been their main media source for accessing information on Covid-19.’ The broadcaster recently launched an initiative against fake news entitled: ‘The truth matters at RTÉ – here’s why,’ claiming:

    Now that society is grappling with the challenges of a pandemic, and the inescapable anxiety that comes with it, the potential for manipulation of the facts is huge.

    But RTÉ has at times provided an unreliable account of the danger posed by Covid-19 to the Irish public. Throughout the pandemic RTÉ’s health correspondent Feargal Bowers has pointed to the exceptional danger posed by Covid-19, which fits within what Nancy Tomes has called the “killer germ genre of journalism”.[ii]

    Bower’s describes a Grim Reaper that is redolent of the character of Death from Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal:

    This virus could visit any of us, at any time, in our homes, or in work.

    It does not make an appointment.                                                        

    Going outside involves a certain roll of the dice.

    Inside you may also encounter this intruder.

    Like any lottery, there are things people can do to improve their chances.

    And hold onto the most valuable prize of all – your life.

    In fact, we are dealing with a virus with an infection fatality rate below 1% according to Nature magazine, or ‘possibly as low as 0.2% or 0.3%,’ according to Lone Simonsen, a professor of population health sciences at Roskilde University in Denmark who has worked at the CDC and National Institutes of Health in the U.S.; others such as Professor Johan Gisecke, a member of the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH) previously suggested a figure as low as 0.1%. The IFR has varied from region to region, with New York, Madrid, London and Lombardy particularly badly hit, but in Africa, as indicated, the IFR appears to be exceptionally low.

    With better treatments – especially the use of the generic drug Dexamethasone – and protection of vulnerable groups, chances of survival have improved since the early stages of the pandemic. This seems evident from the relatively low death toll currently witnessed across Europe, including in Ireland, despite rising case numbers. Many of us also harbour T-cell immunity from other coronaviruses, as we will see.

    Yet Bowers has continued to make factually incorrect claims in a succession of articles, including on September 5th, which stated: ‘The World Health Organization says data to date suggests 80% of Covid-19 infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical, requiring ventilation.’

    Ventilators are now used sparingly in the treatment of Covid-19, and large orders were cancelled in April.

    Remarkably, Bowers seems to have copy and pasted that information from a WHO Situation Report from March 6th, stating ‘data to date suggest that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation.’[iii]

    The continued use of data from March undermines RTÉ’s credibility and should be a source of embarrassment.

    IFR or CFR?

    In a widely circulated tweet at the height of the pandemic then Minister for Health and current Minister for Higher Education, Simon Harris confounded the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), which is the percentage of deaths from diagnosed cases, with the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), which is the percentage who die after contracting the virus. This surely elevated fears around the ‘deadly’ virus.

    More recently Fianna Fáil TD Cathal Crowe displayed the same confusion when he called a TikTok video ‘almost treasonous’ and ‘only a step or two away from being culpable for manslaughter.’

    He added:

    And at a time when those who contract Covid – there’s a fatality rate at the moment in this country of 6.2% of those who contract Covid – I think their actions in trying to draw the Covid virus onto themselves and pass it onto others, I think it’s only a step or two away from being culpable for manslaughter.

    Reference to the CFR may give the impression the virus is more lethal than we now know it is. Raising alarm bells may serve a short term end of confining people to their homes, but will ultimately only lead to distrust as reliable scientific information is now easily accessible.

    A similar caution should apply to emphasis by the current Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly on so-called ‘Long Covid.’ In June the UK’s Covid Symptom Study indicated that ‘one in ten people may still have symptoms after three weeks, and some may suffer for months.’ But the study fails to distinguish between asymptomatic and symptomatic cases, implying this is a reference to only confirmed symptomatic cases. Anecdotally, one Dublin GP consulted said he had not encountered a single case in his practice.

    Long Covid appears to fit into the category of a post-viral syndrome, or post-viral fatigue which ‘refers to a sense of tiredness and weakness that lingers after a person has fought off a viral infection. It can arise even after common infections, such as the flu.’ The prevalence at this stage is unclear.

    Mortality Projections

    The medical historian Mark Honigsbaum writes: ‘by alerting us to new sources of infection and framing particular behaviours as “risky,” it is medical science – and the science of epidemiology in particular – that is often the source of … irrational and often prejudicial judgments … knowledge is constantly giving birth to new fears and anxieties.’[iv]

    Epidemiology cannot be an exact science as it projects into an uncertain future. Michael Levitt has claimed that epidemiologists see their function, ‘not as getting things correct, but as preventing an epidemic. So therefore if they say it is 100-times worse than it’s going to be, then it’s ok.’ This approach may explain why a senior Irish health official told the Sunday Business Post in March that ‘1.9 million could be infected and become sick with the new coronavirus.’

    But crying wolf with claims that prove wildly inaccurate over the course of a long pandemic cannot easily be repeated. It corrodes trust in scientific authority, which is an important consideration in an era of climate change.

    Among the scientists that have risen to prominence over the course of the pandemic is Professor Sam McConkey. On March 11th he predicted ‘there could be between 80,000 and 120,000 deaths in Ireland from coronavirus.’ McConkey has not been adequately held to account for the inaccuracy of this prediction, yet his projections continue to be circulated:

    https://twitter.com/AodhanORiordain/status/1305613309752864771

    The main go-to-man among Irish scientists for the Irish media has been Trinity Professor of Immunology Luke O’Neill. On June 22nd he claimed that Ireland would have had 28,000 deaths if there hadn’t been a lockdown.

    Yet in a long Twitter thread data analyst David W. Higgins provided a compelling argument that mortalities peaked prior to the nationwide lockdown at the end of March.

    Higgins recalls the country went into lockdown in two stages. ‘The “first measures” were on March 12th with school closures, social distancing and a ban on large gatherings …. Then on March 28th, we began the ‘full lockdown,’ with non-essential workplaces shut and the 2km rule.’

    Higgins worked from the assumption that symptoms manifest after five days, and that deaths, on average, occur after twenty. He calculated that ‘the March 28th lockdown should have led to a peak in deaths taking place over 20 days later, any date after April 17th,’ which he said is ‘pretty much what the headline data shows. April 20th saw the largest number of new deaths.’

    ‘However’, he added, ‘we know that the date of death being announced is several days *after* the death actually took place,’ which, he reckoned, was typically about two days. Therefore, ‘the peak is more likely around April 15th.’

    ‘The problem is’ he said ‘that’s 2 days before the March 28th “full lockdown” should have had an effect.’ His conclusion was that ‘the full lockdown wasn’t the main cause for peak deaths!’, the implications of this were ‘profound’ he argued. He argued that ‘the social distancing alone (between March 12th and 28th) was the main driver of #FlattenTheCurve.’

    Based on Higgins’s assessment, the laws introduced on March 12th provided sufficient space for hospitals to handle a surge in cases that could have led to avoidable deaths from hospitals being overstretched. One may question O’Higgins’s assessment, but at least he has crunched the numbers, unlike O’Neill it would appear, who has offered no proof for his claim.

    Forming Memories…

    Another scientist to have gained a platform has been, Dr Tomás Ryan, a Trinity colleague of O’Neill’s, who is widely touted as an expert authority on this pandemic, despite being a neuroscientist, with no publications listed on Google Scholar related to contagious diseases or public health. Nor does he have a medical background. A recent paper, from June 2020 is entitled: ‘Memory: It’s Not a Lie if You Believe It.’

    Ryan has been among the leading advocates of ‘Zero Covid’ Ireland, dedicated to ‘Crushing the Curve’, a global initiative of the Wellcome Trust that also supported Ryan’s thesis work. Ryan has written a number of articles for both the Sunday Business Post and the Irish Times, which does not appear to mount a paywall for his contributions.

    Advocating a suppression of the virus in ‘the paper of record’ on June 10th, Ryan claimed that a strategy of ‘living with the virus,’ would involve:

    a cycle of successive lockdowns [which] would need to continue four to seven times until we reach a stage of herd immunity, with at least 60 per cent of the population infected. The health cost of this approach would be about 50,000 deaths.

    Ryan makes no reference to any study on which he bases this mortality claim. He seems to be referring to the epidemiological assessment of Imperial College’s Niall Ferguson, the methodology of which has come in for serious criticism. In March Ferguson’s ‘best case outcome’ for the U.S. was a death toll of 1.1 million, rising to 2.2 million in a worst case scenario.

    On March 17th, 2020, Mark Landler and Stephen Castle in the New York Times wrote: ‘It wasn’t so much the numbers themselves, frightening though they were, as who reported them: Imperial College London.’ Due to the professor’s WHO ties, the authors noted, Imperial was ‘treated as a sort of gold standard, its mathematical models feeding directly into government policies.’ Yet despite a chaotic response from the Federal authorities, the U.S. death toll from Covid-19 remains below two hundred thousand, with daily deaths decreasing according to the New York Times.

    Contrary to Ryan’s stark warning, Ireland has registered just over fifty deaths, as of September 20th, since the start of July.

    A More Nuanced Approach

    One-sided reporting of ‘facts’ around Covid-19 in Ireland is consistent with a concerted global effort emphasising the unprecedented danger posed by Covid-19. This account is predicated on the assumption that a reliable vaccine is the only way to bring the pandemic under control.

    As mentioned, however, the pessimistic projections of Professor Niall Ferguson and others have proved unfounded, and recently the WHO’s Mike Ryan warned there is no guarantee that a vaccine will ever be found.

    This leaves us in a position of zugzwang, a term which Emeritus Professor of Public Health at Edinburgh University Raj Bhopal borrows from the game of chess, meaning when the obligation to make a move in one’s turn leaves one in a serious, often decisive, disadvantage. He concludes:

    The balance between the damage caused by COVID-19 and that caused by lockdowns needs quantifying. Public debate, including on population immunity, informed by epidemiological data, is now urgent.

    Hearteningly, after a relatively heavy death toll in the spring, having avoided lockdown, Sweden’s case numbers have remained below the European average throughout September – lower even than its high-performing Scandinavian neighbour Norway.

    This supports an hypothesis that a herd immunity threshold could lie at around 10-20%, ‘considerably lower than the minimum coverage needed to interrupt transmission by random vaccination,’ according to the University of Strathclyde’s Professor Gabriela M. Gomes et al. Professor Sunetra Gupta’s group at Oxford University have put the figure as low as 10%.

    The scale of pre-existing immunity to Covid-19 is discussed in a recent article in the British Medical Journal. The authors remind us that the ‘research offers a powerful reminder that very little in immunology is cut and dried.’ Yet there has been little debate on the crucial question of herd or population immunity in the Irish media. This would involve an age-targeted strategy that takes account of the significant health impacts of lockdowns, especially on younger age groups.

    We are now beginning to witness the emergence of a recognisably left-wing opposition to lockdowns as herd immunity ceases to be a dirty word; while Bill Gates has acknowledged: ‘the initial vaccine won’t be ideal in terms of its effectiveness against sickness and transmission. It may not have a long duration.’

    Lack of ICU Capacity

    Facts around Covid-19 remain keenly contested among scientists. It may well be that the extreme precaution advocated by the Irish government is indeed justified, but it is incumbent on the Irish media to validate carefully all claims, and permit frank debate to occur. Politicians can be forgiven for erring in not giving an accurate picture at the height of a pandemic, but more honest conversations are necessary as we move forward. It is incumbent on journalists to hold politicians, and scientists, to account.

    Unfortunately Ireland’s dysfunctional system of public health creates additional risks that discourages any change in approach, and perhaps explains an apparent faith in a reliable vaccine being produced.

    At the start of the pandemic Ireland had half the number of ICU beds and staffing compared to other E.U. countries. By the start of May, however, according to Feargal Bowers (who presumably can be relied on in this instance) there were 417 units; but by the start of June, that figure was 381; July 252; August 276. At the start of September it was 356. But, as of mid-September the number of ICU beds open and staffed is 278. Under questioning from Michael McNamara in the Dáil, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that just twenty-three had been added since the start of the pandemic.

    The pandemic has compounded a pre-existing health crisis, with 700,000 awaiting medical appointments by the end of May. Now restraints due to the pandemic are accelerating the highest rate of obesity in the E.U., with one in four adults falling into this category. But a recent study warns that any vaccine may not work effectively on someone who is obese.

    Under-resourcing of the health system might best explain the ultra-cautious and draconian approach adopted by the Irish government, which is increasingly out of step with most its European partners, where social life has been permitted to resume under restrictions.

    Feature Image: Daniele Idini

    [i] MacIntyre, Whose Justice: Which Rationality?, University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana, 1988, p.357.

    [ii] Mark Honigsbaum, The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris, C Hurst, London, 2020, p.75.

    [iii] Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Situation Report –46, March 6th, 2020,
    https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200306-sitrep-46-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=96b04adf_4

    [iv] Mark Honnigsbaum, The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris, C Hurst, London, 2020, p.viii.

  • Dublin Bay’s Unsettled Future

    Jacques Cousteau, the inventor of the aqua-lung which finally allowed human beings to roam freely under water once said: ‘The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.’

    Like many other kids growing up in Dublin, I first learned to swim in the two-hundred-year old man-made harbour of Sandycove. Gifted a birthday present of a rubber diving mask by an adventurous uncle I was immediately mesmerised by an incredible world that didn’t follow the predictable conventions of dry land, with shimmering shoals of white bait and sand eels darting among the stunningly beautiful kelp forests that surround Sandycove.

    Like Jacques Cousteau, the sea had caught me in its net and my early love of underwater Dublin Bay led me to become first a snorkeler and then a scuba diver. I qualified as a scuba-diving instructor in 1998, and since then I have been working with the fantastic team in Oceandivers, who have had the pleasure of introducing thousands of divers to the incredible underwater world on our doorstep in Dublin Bay.

    Hook Head Wexford.

    Underwater Photography

    I took up underwater photography soon after becoming a dive instructor. Since then I have been bringing a camera along with me on dives as much as possible. I began shooting on 35mm film with an amphibious camera, and have kept up as much as possible with the fast moving technology over the past twenty years.

    Bringing electrical equipment into salt water is never a smart idea, let alone cameras that cost thousands of euros! I have had more than a few teary endings to dives as water snuck past a vital rubber barrier.

    Saint John’s Point Donegal.

    I have spent hundreds of hours photographing some of the country’s most dramatic landscapes, hidden away from most of the population, and am constantly on the look out for new audiences for the beautiful underwater scenes I am lucky enough to capture.

    Being underwater is not something our body can endure for long without the assistance of technology, primarily the aqualung that Cousteau invented in the 1940’s, which heralded the arrival of the underwater sport of scuba diving. With over ten thousand certified scuba divers now in Ireland, we have a substantial number of active amateurs and professionals diving regularly all year round, all along our incredible 5,500 km of coastline.

    Divers on Dublin Bay.

    These divers are rewarded for braving our cooler waters with incredible scenes of raw nature, and dramatic underwater scenery that rivals any of the best dive locations in the world.

    Cousteau himself rated some of the sites he dived in Ireland as being among the best in the world. The west coast in particular offers a multitude of islands and sea cliffs in deep clear Atlantic water, interspersed with the wrecks of unfortunate vessels that ran aground in the oft wild conditions. To explore every dive site on the west coast would take a lifetime, with new sites being discovered every season by intrepid divers.

    Horn Head Donegal.

    Dublin Bay

    Due to the density of population in our capital city, Dublin Bay is one of the most well-dived locations in the country, despite at times having less than ideal diving conditions.

    Divers trade in ‘Viz’ or underwater visibility. As a rule, the clearer the water the better the dive. Divers depart from Dun Laoghaire Harbour to the south and Howth harbour in the north, finding adventures around Dalkey Island or Lambay Island; or surveying shipwrecks off the Old Bailey Lighthouse or on the Kish sandbank.

    The silt and sandy bottom around Dublin Bay is in a state of constant motion, drawn by the strong tidal flows moving down the east coast of the country. These massive sand banks are also easily disturbed by strong southerly or easterly winds, leading to dramatic drops in visibility when a strong wind blows. Unlike the deep water off the west coast, Dublin Bay is a relatively shallow body of water with a primarily sandy bottom.

    Coral Garden Dalkey Island, Dublin Bay.

    The sediment and sand along the northern half of the Bay is particularly plentiful, meaning the dive sites there are extremely poor, with visibility rarely rising above a metre or two. But on the southern side of the Bay there are sites where visibility regularly reaches beyond five metres, providing reasonable conditions for divers to train in.

    Hook Head, Wexford

    Sandycove is among the few locations in the Bay where divers can regularly access clear water with the depths required to train new divers in safe conditions.

    Recently, under the guise of Covid-19 prevention measures, divers were denied vehicular access to the site as a result of a poorly designed bike track. This removes one of the last accessible dive sites within the city, and hopefully a solution can be found.

    Dalkey Island, Dublin Bay.

    Dalkey Island

    The rocky outpost of Dalkey Island, jutting proudly out of the sandy sea bed, offers the best of the boat dive sites in Dublin Bay, with an incredible ecosystem flourishing just a stone’s throw from the capital.

    Watched over by a thriving seal colony along the surrounding coastline, Dalkey Island offers a thriving marine environment, which is fed by rushing tidal flows as the waters empty from Dublin Bay and are funnelled through the two sounds between the island and the mainland.

    This incredible wilderness is close to the heart of the city, but alas so few take the opportunity to visit it either above water or below. Yet DART services run every few minutes from the centre of the city out to Dalkey (a less than 30 minute ride), from where a ferry leaves for the unspoilt Island.

    The Bills Rocks off Galway.

    Dead Zones

    As indicated, a few natural factors deny Dublin Bay the crystal clear water that divers can find along most of the west coast. This sand and silt in Dublin Bay is easily stirred up by wind so visibility can drop from ten meters to under a meter in the space of a few hours. Moreover, as you move along the coast from the north to south numerous large rivers carry silt into the low depths of the Irish Sea, with the same process occurring along the Welsh coastline; the distance between Dublin and the island of Anglesey, where the port of Holyhead is located is barely a hundred kilometres.

    Killary Fjord, Galway.

    Looking to the future for Dublin Bay, the biggest concern is that what has happened in the Baltic Sea will be replicated on the Irish Sea, including Dublin Bay.

    Dead zones form when an excessive level of nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, enter coastal waters and fertilize algal blooms. When these algae die and float to the bottom, they provide a rich energy source for bacteria, which in the act of decomposition absorb oxygen from surrounding waters.

    The Irish Sea has already numerous dead zones recorded around river estuaries, especially from the large rivers in the south east. The worry now is that these will expand and overwhelm more of the Irish Sea’s thriving wildlife.

    Over the last forty years the Baltic Sea has transitioned into a near holistic dead zone, as divers watched on in horror, and the relevant authorities in different countries failed to act.

    Killary Fjord, Galway.

    A similar fate is not inconceivable for the Irish Sea, if sufficient care is not taken of this precious resource. Although we have the advantage over the Baltic Sea of an opening onto the wild Atlantic on either end – allowing a flushing effect from the tide – what we do above ground will ultimately makes its way into the Irish Sea

    Decisions made by our farming, construction and logging industries, along with our waste water handling, will decide whether we preserve this unique ecosystem – the last remaining great stretch of wilderness on our doorstep.

    Conservation will also requires the same level of commitment from our near neighbour across the water, as we share a guardianship of this body of water, and the decisions we make in Ireland will be insufficient.

    All Photographs are taken by Daniel Mc Auley from Dublin Bay, Donegal and Co Clare.