Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Updated 10.35pm
THE RED CROSS has demanded access to a rebel-held enclave near Damascus where Syrian jets have been raining bombs in a four-day blitz that has killed more than 300 civilians.
The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres described the death and devastation that has engulfed Eastern Ghouta since Sunday as “hell on earth” while France called for an immediate truce.
Fresh air raids on several parts of the enclave killed at least 40 civilians and wounded 350.
Many of the region’s hospitals have also been targeted, leaving many out of service.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the situation was so dire that its teams should be allowed access to Eastern Ghouta to help overwhelmed doctors and nurses.
“The fighting appears likely to cause much more suffering in the days and weeks ahead, and our teams need to be allowed to enter Eastern Ghouta to aid the wounded,” said Marianne Gasser, ICRC’s head of delegation in Syria.
Syrian warplanes have this month intensified their strikes on the area, which lies just east of Damascus and is home to around 400,000 civilians.
UN vote
The UN Security Council is expected to vote, probably tomorrow, on a draft resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire in Syria to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations.
Sweden and Kuwait, which drafted the measure, requested the vote “as soon as possible,” the Swedish mission said, adding that it will likely be scheduled for tomorrow.
It remained unclear whether Russia would resort to its veto to block the draft resolution.
Overwhelmed medics
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, around 1,500 people have been wounded since Sunday in the one of the bloodiest episodes of Syria’s seven-year-old war.
Many of today’s victims were killed when barrel bombs – crude, improvised munitions that usually cause indiscriminate damage – were dropped on the town of Kfar Batna.
The hospital in Douma, the largest town in Eastern Ghouta, is still functioning but the influx of wounded is such that doctors and nurses cannot save everyone.
The UN and an NGO said at least seven hospitals were bombed on Monday and yesterday.
“The regime claims that it’s targeting armed groups and terrorists, but the truth is that it only targets civilians,” said Doctor Ahmad Abdulghani, at he Dar al-Shifa hospital in Hammuriyeh, heavily damaged by a strike.
This is a hospital that treats the sick and civilians, why target it?
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said at least 72 children were among the 312 people killed in strikes since Sunday.
Syrian state news agency SANA said 18 people were wounded in Damascus by rebel shelling.
‘Pretext’
Guterres told the UN Security Council he was “deeply saddened by the terrible suffering” of civilians in Eastern Ghouta where he said people “live in hell on Earth”.
He called for an immediate humanitarian truce, as did French President Emmanuel Macron who accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of using terrorism as a “pretext” to attack civilians.
Russia, which is Assad’s main backer but denies direct involvement in the Ghouta strikes, called for a Security Council meeting on the issue.
Anti-regime groups, mostly Islamist factions as well as Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate, have controlled the area since 2012.
With the Islamic State group’s once sprawling “caliphate” now wiped of the map, the regime looks bent on completing its reconquest.
Ghouta, on the outskirts of the capital, is a key target.
Enough already. Let’s try and move on
@Niall Gannon: Just because you dont like to hear about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
@Niall Gannon: calm down 99.99% of us are. Only those with long term and are currently ill or in ICU need time. The only people saying “we need to move on” are people like you here.
@Niall Gannon: not whole Tony is st the wheel!
@Paul Furey: no…I am.aswell…sort out the bloody hospitals.
Also some common sense like wasn’t applied previously…protect old and vulnerable as best as possible…
If u feel unwell get tested…if you have covid stay at home…Simples!
@Niall Gannon: i got a bad slap of it first time around. was not so bad 2nd time but im still not 100%, 18 months still not right.
but i could not agree more with you niall
its time to just get on with life
@John Duggan: can’t you get in with life while keeping an eye on covid? No one is saying time for a lockdown.
@Paul Hedderman: that’s why the government voted to close navan a&e next thing they wil say hospitals are over crowded…..
Fatal error with lack of policy on mask wearing in busy public spaces. This is far from over. BA5 is no joke. And those who are ignoring it vs making an attempt to live with it are playing a dangerous game with long term health. Masking/Ventilation should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind to reduce risk where possible.
@icaniwont: Absolute nonsense. Cases plummeted with the lifting of mask restrictions. Germany had a 98% N95 mask wearing compliance while Sweden had none; cases per 100k are almost identical. That’s not guesswork or belief, it’s what actually happened in two population wide situations where infections were rigorously monitored. When a measure has no measurable benefit, doubling down on it is not sensible or beneficial, it’s ideological nonsense. And before you start going on about fatalities in Sweden, measured against the population over 65 fatality rates between the two countries are not widely different, in fact I think Sweden did slightly better than Germany. See also exces deaths in both countries from their respective CSO organisations.
‘Learning to live with Covid’ should involve some learning. Not just pretending it doesn’t exist and hoping it goes away.
We have food safety standards, fire safety standards, smoking bans and drink driving restrictions.
We need air filtration and ventilation standards for public buildings and workplaces.
Where are the antivirals and monoclonal antibodies?
Paxlovid is produced in Cork but Donnelly only ordered 10,000 doses. Moronic.
FFG have managed to convince the population that it’s best to pretend it doesn’t exist rather than do anything useful. Just like Boris has done in the UK.
@CRow: i agree, we have learned to live with other illnesses by cooking food well, washing hands, not mixing raw and cooked meats, getting vaccines, using tissues and not coughing over other people. Many of the things we do automatically are done to.avoid some illness or another. So we may just have to make some changes to reduce the spread and affect of COVID. I remember a time when anti maskers were saying we had to “get on with it and live with covid” without actually realising that getting on with and living with covid could mean living with masks in certain situations. The current background death rate seems to be about one a day. We still need to try to keep as many people alive as practical and possible.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: Mask wearing is a load of old cobblers if the proper masks are not worn. Designer cloth masks, useless, surgical blue masks, useless only the kn rated masks are fit for purpose all others are just virtue signalling. But again it should be down to the individual if you feel your not safe and want to wear a mask then wear it
Long-COVID is life destroying and we need to start providing proper treatment now.
Post-covid clinics in Ireland are a facade so FFG can pretend they’re helping and blow off questions.
We need biomedical treatment, almost no one with Long-COVID recovers without it.
Bring back face masks
The people are bored of covid, so is the leadership in the west. But covid itself is not bored, it is the opposite of bored. Our laziness will be our downfall.
In Germany currently and all public transport people mask up and no crying lack of freedom or time to move on brigade. But everywhere else it’s your choice and it’s working alright enough.
Right now I’m like: so far so good, and following Niall’s cue, enough already. We want to finally go on living our lives. But something’s bugging me, and it’s indications that omicron infections may be incrementally chipping away at immunity – while you’d be expecting immunity levels to be boosted by being infected, there’s seemingly evidence that stacked multiple infections may be leading to negative immunity levels instead, i.e. the whole herd immunity idea might be false. So the only way to keep building up immunity would be artificial, i.e. through vaccination (I’m not antivax incidentally but it’d still suck). This points to a virus with a ‘long-term strategy’ – in contrast to our government (yes I know viruses aren’t conscious so this is metaphorical). I’d like someone knowledgeable to take a look at this link and reassure me that I might be mistaken in my pessimist take.
Quote: “people with no prior SARS-CoV-2 infection who then had omicron showed enhanced cross-reactive immunity to previous variants – with enhanced B and T cell immunity against Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta – but they showed a reduced boosting against the omicron spike protein itself”. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-omicron-infection-poor-booster-covid-.html (link to peer-reviewed Science journal article at the end).
@Mick Tobin: all the links have been done surely mick. Having said that stop following Niall’s cue because niall doesn’t care like you do if ye get me!!
@Paul Gorry: I’m not ‘following’ Niall, Paul, the point is that I understand and empathise with where he’s coming from and that most of us would want what he says to be the case – but I happen to have stumbled upon some evidence by which things might be slightly worse than even the HSPC are reporting. I’m simply asking for a scientist or doctor here to check the linked scientific article and offer their esteemed opinion, because I suspect there’s some extra reason for concern.
@Mick Tobin: Absolutely not mick i was talking about his cue that ye mentioned that’s all.
@Paul Gorry: Aight you’ve a point there mate; I’m actually not literally following that cue but I understand it. People want to finally get on, I get that, but there’s stuff simmering under the surface at the same time most unfortunately.
@Mick Tobin: yeah mick i get your point.
@Mick Tobin: Hope I can explain this in simple terms! First of all, this has nothing to do with herd immunity, that is a separate issue. When the immune system is activated against COVID, it throws up multiple different T and B cell responses, both short term and long term, against a wide range of targets on the viral surface (not just the spike protein). What this work shows is that omicron is weak at generating a potent immune response against itself, particularly against the spike protein (think of it as a poor vaccine against itself, which is why there are so many omicron reinfections), but the responses mounted to other viral targets are quite good at protecting against earlier variants.
The article fails to mention that from July 1st the HSE plan to let go of most of their Covid testers and restrict PCR tests to healthcare workers and immunocompromised people only.
At that point they’ll lose any track of what the actual numbers are.
Look at South Africa their BA.5 wave started approx 6 weeks ago and its finished, rates peaked after 3 weeks, much the same as December there and Jan here, hospital and icu all a fraction of 1st Omicron wave.
have your say