Forever-Covid hurts young people’s health – and their futures

 My article in today's Irish Independent. The only mainstream media outlet in the world to allow the "Immunity debt" codswallop to be interrogated & debunked, from the start. Thanks to my lovely editor, Tom Coogan, & the Indo for not being afraid of salting the vibes🙏

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/tess-finch-lees-forever-covid-hurts-young-peoples-health-and-their-futures/a58161326.html

“Immunity debt” doesn’t exist, immune damage does. Children are sicker now than pre-pandemic – many with disabling chronic illnesses. This cycle of harm can only stop when we accept reality – there’s no off ramp without cleaning classroom air".

Trigger warning 1: The article contains photos of children wearing fun floral masks. Note to anti-maskers: It's never too late to embrace science.

Trigger warning 2: The masks featured are not respirators (ffp2/3 or N95s), therefore offering little or no protection against airborne viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.

Note to those upset by that: I don't get to choose the photos. Please direct complaints to the chief medical officer for  negligence & dereliction of duty to inform the public that covid is airborne & that cleaning indoor air & respirator masks are proven to protect against all airborne diseases.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/tess-finch-lees-forever-covid-hurts-young-peoples-health-and-their-futures/a58161326.html

Excerpt:

"The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has just cited these studies as evidence that “immunity debt”, a theory to explain the global surge in non-Covid infections since pandemic restrictions were lifted, is being challenged by emerging evidence. BMJ documents the prevalence of bacterial infections, flare-ups of old viruses, and children being hospitalised with diseases not usually seen in young, healthy people.

In the report, Samira Jeimy, an immunologist at the University of Western Ontario, explained that as many infants and toddlers hospitalised with rare infections since 2022 weren’t born when pandemic restrictions were in place, they cannot be experiencing immunity debt.

They were, however, probably exposed to coronavirus, she said.

Prof Jeimy believes that people who are unwilling to consider the possibility of immune system damage are perhaps driven by a fear of what it might mean. As she told BMJ: “Nobody wants to be the one that says, ‘Yes, Covid-19 causes disability’.”

It’s the responsibility of Ireland’s interim chief medical officer, Mary Horgan, to disseminate these BMJ findings. Instead, children have returned again to overcrowded, under-ventilated classrooms amid yet another coronavirus wave, with hand sanitiser and Calpol as their only protections against the dangerous airborne disease".

And

"Ziyad Al-Aly, professor of medicine at Washington University, said: “We worry about kids’ educational attainment, forming friendships, sports. All these facets of normal development could be impaired in long-Covid. This may negatively affect children in their most formative years, leaving them scarred for life.”

Níl na páistí ceart go leor.

Watch Violet Affleck advocate for clean indoor air as a human right, as well as respirator masks, at the UN yesterday🔥

“We are told by leaders that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.” 

TODAY: Disrupt Complicity – Sanction Israel Now! Protest at The Dáil

 Press Release, Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, 18th September

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign is organising a protest Today Thursday 18 September, 4.30pm – 6.30pm at the Dáil to demand that the Government end all complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestine people, apartheid, and illegal occupation of Palestine lands.        

Why? Palestinian civil society organisations - trade unions, human rights and civil society organisations, cultural and sporting organisations - have called for support to end complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people:

“In this most horrific phase of the genocide Palestinian civil society is united in reiterating the call on people of conscience worldwide to channel their immense grief and anger to cut the links of state, corporate and institutional complicity with this genocidal regime and with all the institutions and corporations that enable its crimes. The utmost moral obligation is first and foremost to do no harm, to end complicity.”

Speakers will include: Anas Abusour, Executive Director of Aida Youth Centre in West Bank,  Ghada Ashour, Genocide survivor,  Mary Lou McDonald TD, Leader of Sinn Fein, Ivana Bacik, TD, leader of the Labour Party, Paul Murphy TD, People Before Profit and participant in Gaza Sumud Flotilla, Paul McSweeney, Trade Union Friends of Palestine, Ken Powell, Dubs for Gaza, and Rebecca Heslin, Vice-Chairperson Dublin IPSC

IPSC Chairperson Zoe Lawlor said: “Today is the UN General Assembly's deadline for Israel to end its unlawful presence in Occupied Palestine. Instead genocide, apartheid and occupation continue with impunity. We are protesting to call on the Government to immediately enact the Occupied Territories Bill to ban all trade with illegal Israeli settlements; pass the Settlement Divestment Bill to ensure that no Irish taxpayers’ money is invested in entities that assist or profit from the occupation; pass the Arms Embargo Bill that will prevent Irish airspace and airports being used to transit weapons to Apartheid Israel; ban the export of all dual-use items to Israel; impose a ban on the import or purchase of any Israeli weaponry, military or security items, and security or surveillance tech; and stop the Central Bank from funding genocide through the off-shoring of the approval of Israeli genocide-funding bonds.”

"These are just some of the measures that can, and legally must, be taken in order to help end Israel’s ongoing two-year genocide in Gaza, to remove the impunity Israel has enjoyed for 77 years, to ensure accountability for crimes against the Palestinian people, and to secure Palestinians enjoy freedom, justice and equality in the future. "

ICTU General Secretary Owen Reidy said: "The Irish public is horrified by Israel's genocide in Palestine. With the UN's deadline today, it's time for the Irish government to step up and represent the public's outrage. We saw South Africa treated as a pariah state during the apartheid era, we must now see the same for Israel. Trade Unions will join the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign will protest at the Dáil from 4.30pm – 6.30pm to demand that the Government end all complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestine people, apartheid and illegal occupation of Palestine lands.”

It's official: UN (finally) declares that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

 Member states are legally bound to take action to stop it. ACTION, not strongly worded statements. 

Boycott, Divest, Sanction Israel: Now.

TODAY: Large Regional Protest for Palestine Across Ireland

 TODAY: Large Regional Protest for Palestine Across Ireland

Press Release, Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Saturday 6th September

TODAY Saturday 6th September will see a series of coordinated regional protests in solidarity with Palestine taking place across Ireland, ahead of the end of the Dáil recess on the 17th of the month. 

Large protests organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other groups will take place in Dublin (1pm), Belfast (12pm), Derry (2pm), Galway (1.45pm), Limerick (1pm), Cork (1pm), Waterford (2pm), Carlow (12.30pm) and Navan (1pm) [full details below] as well as a number of smaller protests in various towns.

Speaking ahead of the protests, IPSC Chairperson Zoe Lawlor said: 

"As the leaders of the nuclear armed genocidal Israeli state openly declare they are opening the 'gates of hell' in Gaza, we are calling on people to hit the streets and join their nearest regional protest for Gaza. We called these protests as Dáil gets ready to reconvene to let the government know that we haven’t gone away: we are still demanding SANCTIONS NOW to help end the Gaza genocide and to support freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people!".

Saturday 6th September – Regional Day of Action for Palestine
Dublin – 1pm, Assemble US Embassy, March to Dept Foreign Affairs 
Belfast – 12pm, Assemble Writers’ Square
Cork – 1pm, South Munster Regional March for Palestine, Grand Parade
Galway – 1.45pm, The West Awakes – Regional Rally for Palestine, Burke Park
Limerick – 1pm, North Munster Regional March for Palestine, Bedford Row
Carlow – 12.30pm, South Midlands Regional March for Palestine, Assemble at the Liberty Tree 
Waterford – 2pm, South East Regional March for Palestine, Bullpost, Ballybricken
Derry – 2pm, North-East Regional March for Palestine, Assemble at Bishop’s Gate
Navan– 1pm, Meath Stands with Palestine – Regional March, Assemble at Fairgreen Carpark

Others - Click here

Breaking: Israel Genocide Bonds Forced Out of Ireland!

Proud to have played a very small part in this big outcome💪 

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign has welcomed media reports today that Israel's genocide bond prospectus approval process has been moved to Luxembourg. 

IPSC Chairperson Zoë  Lawlor said: 

"Coming after a year of campaigning by Palestine solidarity activists, today is a huge victory for the people of Ireland who stand resolutely in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

"The Central Bank of Ireland has been forced by to end its shameful complicity in genocide. It has been forced to stop enabling Israel selling its genocide-funding bonds – to stop acting as the lynchpin of Israel’s fundraising in the EU.

"For a year the Central Bank of Ireland and the Irish government stone-walled all calls to end the facilitation of bonds which directly funded the genocide in Gaza, the forced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza, the murder of over 62,000 people in Gaza, daily bombardment and forced displacement and the destruction of Gaza. Finally, this complicity in the funding of genocide has ended.

"People all over Ireland have won this victory for Palestine through marching and organising in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Councils from Dublin City to Kerry to Donegal demanded an end to the approval by the CBI of Israel Bonds. The ICTU, legal experts, opposition politicians, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Israel Bonds, civil society organisations and ordinary people in every town and village have called for the end of the shameful complicity of the CBI in the funding of genocide. We have been joined by amazing artists, musicians and writers in this campaign and very brilliant committed public representatives. From protests to complaints to parliamentary work, this is a huge victory for people power, and for the BDS Movement. 

"The IPSC welcomes the end of the Central Bank’s shameful role in approving Israel Bonds. We believe that the CBI should not have continued to enable Isarel to fundraise for genocide by transferring the prospectus to another competent authority. We ask that the Government confirm that Ireland will have absolutely no further involvement with Israel genocide-funding bonds. Specifically we ask the Government to clarify if Ireland remains the “home member state” for Israel Bonds under the transfer arranged by the Central Bank. And we reiterate the call from the Joint Committee's that the Irish government demand legislative change at EU to end the sale of these bonds throughout Europe.  

"Shamefully, however, many other areas of state complicity with the genocidal Apartheid state of Israel remain, and the IPSC calls for the Irish government to end the use of Shannon airport by the US military, stop the use of Irish airspace for transiting weapons to Israel, end the export of dual-use items, pass the Occupied Territories Bill in full, and join the Hague Group. 

"We are also sure that Palestine solidarity activists in Luxembourg will now take up the baton to cut off funding for Israel's criminal genocide in Gaza - and we will offer them any support we can.

"End Israel’s impunity - Sanctions Now!  Freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people!"