`I don't think we're there yet': Varadkar doubtful on lifting coronavirus restrictions

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Varadkar said it was "totally incorrect" to say that restrictions were not yet being lifted because the testing capacity is not where it needs to be.

"In terms of testing we've done 150,000 tests already. On a per capita basis, on a per head basis, we're sixth out of 27 countries in the European Union in terms of testing. Why we are not reopening at this stage is because of the high number of people in ICU who have Covid, the fact that the number of deaths being reported every day is still very high and the fact that we're still seeing quite a lot of new cases every day," he said.

"And if it were solely a matter of testing, given that we're sixth out of 27 in the European Union, and other countries that have tested less than us are reopening, then we would be reopening."

Mr Varadkar said a number of factors had to be taken into account.

He said: "It is really not the testing - it's the deaths, it's the number of new cases, it's the number of people in ICU that is causing [Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan] and his team to tell us that at the moment anyway it is too soon, but they are going to review that on Friday.

"I don't think I'd be out of school by saying that those numbers just aren't good enough yet. Maybe it'll change significantly by Friday. But as things stand, I don't think we're there yet."

I'm hardly surprised, given my criticism of the Times,  that the Irish Times didn't publish my letter today, and think it unlikely it will be published tomorrow.

Its the sort of topic that dates quite fast and will be overtaken by whatever decisions are taken by the health advisory group on the lock-down, post May 5th.

My money would be on some minor easing, after Varadkar moved to reduce expectations today, perhaps combined with more testing at ports and airports.

But overall I am quite optimistic that community spread has been suppressed, apart from some clusters mainly in nursing homes. Hopefully we will see substantial easing by June.

New cases identified - the peak on 15 April relates to probably or suspected cases unverified by tests which occurred over previous weeks

Hospital and ICU daily admission totals

Deaths per day - the peak on 24th. April represents suspected or probable deaths due to Covid unverified by tests which occurred over previous weeks and was added to the totals in line with new WHO guidelines

Index of Frank's Diaries

Trump's long links to wrestling's carnival of buffoonery

Hours after the coronavirus death toll reached and then quickly passed 52,000, president Donald Trump tweeted his 78 million followers his latest thoughts about professional wrestling.

When any other incumbent of the White House might have felt it timely to dispatch a national message of condolence, empathy or some sort of consolatory acknowledgement of the humanitarian disaster in our midst, Trump decided it was more important to declare "Triple H is a total winner!"

A pre-pubescent fan boy of a leader praising a steroid-fuelled pantomime artist celebrating 25 years of accomplished fakery. The acrid flavour of the times.

On April 1st, Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, went on television and belatedly issued an executive stay-at-home order shutting down all but essential businesses across the state.

Just over a week later, with no fanfare or public announcement, the stringent rules were quietly tampered with so World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) could be reclassified as an "essential" industry.

This freed the company to continue to record live promotions in order to fulfil the exact terms of their broadcast commitments to NBC and Fox. Failing to do so would have meant forfeiting a chunk of $400 million from their annual contracts. The only thing it was essential to is their shareholders' bottom line and the only explanation for it is WWE's weirdly symbiotic relationship with Trump.

DeSantis owed his election in 2018 in large part to Trump's influence and has been in his debt ever since. The same day the governor mysteriously re-evaluated wrestling's place in the commercial universe and somehow reckoned it as necessary for society's survival as a grocery store, Linda McMahon announced that America First, the committee she heads up on behalf of the president's re-election campaign, would be spending $18.5 million in advertising across Florida.

Formerly CEO of the WWE, a position currently held by her husband Vince, McMahon also served in Trump's cabinet from 2017 to 2019. Not even one degree of separation here.

When Trump first jump-started his run for office in 2015, pundits considered the grotesque tone of his outré candidacy and christened it the first WWE presidential campaign. In his bizarro world, no finer compliment.

His links to wrestling's corrupt carnival of buffoonery (the list of performers who end up prematurely dead or addicted to drugs is long and growing) stretch right back to 1988 when he persuaded the McMahons to bring Wrestlemania IV to the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City.

Over the ensuing decade, he featured so often in cameo roles across their various rancid pageants that he was eventually inducted into the company's Hall of Fame, the kind of ersatz accolade that only appeals to the truly narcissistic or imbecilic.

"Populism controlled by strong man" appears to be the globally resurgent system. People like kings. Monarchy is the standard historical method of governing. Nothing new under the Sun.

Gerry Adams illegally held during Troubles, supreme court rules [_link]

— The Guardian (@guardian) May 13, 2020