Steve McGookinWelcome to Northern Slant’s weekly round-up of local virus-related items you might have missed.
This is our final update and previous updates are here, for the weeks ending:
- 7 August, 14 August 21 August
- 3 July, 10 July, 17 July, 24 July, 31 July;
- 26 June, 19 June, 12 June, 5 June;
- 29 May, 15 May, 8 May, 1 May;
- 24 April, 17 April, 10 April.
You might like to read the thoughts of some of our contributors – and perhaps add your own – on ‘Hopes for Northern Ireland.’
See Also:
- Will Mental Health Issues Be The Next Wave? by Kevin McAteer – 7 July
- Putting Wellbeing at the Centre of a ‘Build Back Better’ Recovery – 6 July
- Surgery and Trauma: A Junior Doctor’s Perspective of Lockdown and Why We Can’t Repeat it – 18 June
- Lockdown lore, from Newry to Indonesia by Fionnbharr Rodgers – 16 June
- How churches can continue to function during lockdown by Jason Sime – 6 May
- The impact of Covid-19 on farming and food production by Ben McAteer – 5 May
- From ‘Flattening the Curve’ to ‘Bending the Curve’? Lessons from responses to Coronavirus for addressing our planetary emergency by John Barry – 21 April
And read a first-person account from the beginning of the pandemic by NS contributor Callum McNeill here:
- Escaping The Coronavirus – 9 February
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Schools go back as Covid rate rises again
The first Northern Ireland children went back to school this week, with a total of some 80,000 pupils due to return to classes at the beginning of September. There have been some concerns among parents, despite assurances from the Chief Medical Officer that it is safe to return.
Meanwhile, the Executive’s Chief Scientific Adviser said there had been an “almost 15-fold increase in daily cases” since the beginning of the summer and that the infection rate – or R number – is currently between 1 and 1.6.
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Challenges ahead for local Economy
Economy Minister Diane Dodds warned that 100,000 people or more could be unemployed in Northern Ireland by the end of the year. “We need to face the fact that there will be difficult days ahead,” she said. Her department’s top civil servant, meanwhile, cautioned that the full effect of the crisis on the local economy had not yet begun.
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Other virus news items this week
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Calls for hope and calls to action
Northern Slant aims to highlight some of the good news stories happening all around us. We’ll also show how communities are responding to the crisis, sharing details of how you might be able to get involved yourself.
Calls for Hope
Calls for Action
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Information and Resources
Keep up with the latest updates from the Northern Ireland Department of Health here.
And from Belfast City Council here.
Thanks for reading our Virus Updates over the past few months, we hope you found them useful. Have a good weekend.