THE WORST THING about Covid is almost certainly the Covid. The second worst thing about Covid, however, is having to talk about – and in turn hear about – Covid.

There is virtually no declarative statement one can make about Covid nowadays that does not provoke ire and wrath from some subsection of the population – whether you are a Covid nay-sayer, doom-sayer, or just generally a sayer of anything about Covid.

Alas, that is the position Ireland finds itself in at the end of this week, with 644 people in hospital testing positive for Covid, and its new, more transmissible Eris variant. 

Yes, Covid is back to screw us once again, but as things stand, it’s fair to say that the HSE’s current tone is not one of urgency.

Speaking on Morning Ireland this week, the HSE’s Chief Clinical Officer, Dr Colm Henry said that the Eris variant makes up a “significant proportion” of the 644 Covid cases in hospital in the past week. Henry was also clear that this variant is not currently thought to be more severe than the strains of Covid that we have already grown to know and deeply despise.

One would imagine that the decision not to restart the vaccination programme despite the surge in hospitalisations would put paid to the idea that the vaccines are actually an instrument of the New World Order, designed to poison us or control our minds, but for whatever reason, I doubt that will be enough to assuage the population of those particular rabbit holes.

Similarly, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that there is no need for restrictions to return, which would be a funny tack for him to take if you sincerely believe that his goal – and the goal of all governments globally – is to render us all sheeplike in the face of a “plandemic”. But I suppose, that is just what a Soros-bought media sheep would say, isn’t it?

Anyway, according to Ireland’s official Covid Data Hub, three Covid-19 deaths have been notified for the week ending Tuesday, 8 August. 

That is self-evidently not enough death for a mass public movement calling for lockdown measures, but it’s still objectively very sad, because three people who may not have otherwise died have died of a cruel respiratory illness.

In the coming weeks, it is likely that more people will die of this illness – indeed, death due to Covid didn’t stop with the press conferences. Though the numbers will be nothing like the darkest days of the disease, it will still be rather dark. There will be discussions of and allusions to the much-hated but widely-accepted-for-the-greater-good lockdown measures of 2020 and 2021, and we’re all going to feel awful about it, because Covid is awful, and talking about it is also awful. 

Shutterstock / RG Wallace Shutterstock / RG Wallace / RG Wallace

So, since there will be plenty of time to talk about Covid in the near future, let’s talk about something else. Something more cheerful. Something breezy, more casual, oh, off the top of my head, a data breach of enormous proportions at the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

A real BrassEye “this is the one thing we didn’t want to happen” story, the PSNI’s truly unbelievable cock-up came about when the organisation accidentally circulated a table which contained the surnames, first initials, locations and departments for all PSNI employees.

In short, it’s an awful lot of toothpaste that will not go back in the tube, and there is evidence that certain elements in the North have already begun to brush their teeth. 

Now, from the threat of possible dissident activity in the North to something similarly Mission: Impossible-esque. That’s right, you read my mind, it’s the student accommodation crisis.

Of course, there is really no form of accommodation in Ireland, be it the mortgage sector, the rental sector, or any subsection of either sector, that is not in some kind of crisis. The latest Daft reported noted that: “On 1 August, there were fewer than 1,200 homes available to rent nationwide. While this marked an increase of over 460 on the same date last year, availability remains extremely tight compared to other years.”

With thousands of students now moving city either to begin or resume their collegiate careers, rental opportunities are at a shortage that Vice President for Welfare of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) Colette Murphy has described as “absolutely insane”. 

Rents in the open-market are now 10.7% higher than they were at the same time last year, meaning that the crushing burden on an already low-earning cohort of the population is, well, absolutely insane. 

Still, better to spend the money on rent than to have it in the bank. It was revealed this week Irish banks are currently the worst at passing on interest rate gains to savers when compared to the UK, the US, the Eurozone and 18 other European countries according to S&P Global ratings.  

While the main lending rate of the European Central Bank now sits at 4.25%, its highest level since 2001, those who bank in Ireland are not seeing those returns reflected on their savings. The average interest rate on a mortgage in Ireland is now over 4%, while the best possible interest rate one can get on their savings according to Bonkers.ie, is 2%. 

Is this going to change? Probably not. 

Speaking to The Journal, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance said the interest rates set by banks is a “commercial decision” for them to make. “It is not something the government can intervene with, it is their decision to make,” the Spokesperson said. 

Oh God, let’s go back to talking about Covid.

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