A memorial in Washington last week for those who died from the coronavirus.Olivier Douliery/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Here’s a jarring thought experiment: If the United States had done merely an average job of fighting the coronavirus — if the U.S. accounted for the same share of virus deaths as it did global population — how many fewer Americans would have died?
The answer: about 145,000.
That’s a large majority of the country’s 183,000 confirmed coronavirus-related deaths.
No other country looks as bad by this measure. The U.S. accounts for 4 percent of the world’s population, and for 22 percent of confirmed Covid-19 deaths. It is one of the many signs that the Trump administration has done a poorer job of controlling the virus than dozens of other governments around the world.
By The New York Times | Sources: World Bank and Johns Hopkins University
The specific numbers are only estimates, of course. They are based on virus statistics that are unavoidably incomplete. Most scientists believe the real U.S. death toll is higher than the official numbers indicate, and undercounting of deaths may be even greater in some other countries.
After the U.S., Brazil and Mexico have the next largest gaps between population share and official death share. They are also countries with less advanced medical systems, where some experts think the actual death toll is vastly higher than the official one. If that’s right, the true gaps in Brazil and Mexico may be as large as the U.S. gap.
But no other affluent country has nearly so big a gap. Canada and several European countries each account for a greater percentage of deaths than population, yet the differences aren’t nearly as severe as in the U.S.
And some countries, like Australia and South Korea, have a positive version of the gap. Japan is home to 1.7 percent of the global population but less than 0.2 percent of deaths. An additional 12,000 Japanese residents would not be alive if the country had merely an average death rate.
As I was putting together these numbers, I started thinking about how Americans should have expected their country to fare — above average, below average or maybe right near the average. The U.S. certainly has had some disadvantages in fighting the virus: It’s an international travel hub, which makes transmission more likely, and it had some of the affluent world’s worst health outcomes even before the virus arrived.
On other hand, the U.S. remains the world’s richest country, with vast medical capabilities, and the virus started on a faraway continent. All of which suggests that there was nothing inevitable about the U.S. performance. It is instead a tragic reflection of the country’s failed response.
Capitol Hill. Monday, August 31, 2020— England’s partition of Ireland is universally seen to bea perfect example of the ” hubris of Empire.” And now there is a video on social media networks to prove it! The Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus is promoting a ONE IRELAND internet Petition :”Ireland, too, has the right to be One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The Petition has been signed by over 15,000 people—with many more to come—dedicated to justice, equality, unity, solidarity and international human rights. Fr. Sean McManus, Caucus president said:”Our Petition is the perfect response to the upcoming 100th Anniversary of England’s disastrous and undemocratic partition of Ireland, enacted Thursday, December 23, 1920. We put up a video, ‘One Ireland Petition’ (3 minutes and 22 seconds) on social media networks on Saturday, August 29, 2020—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlIzvDzNF2Y And today, Monday, August 31, 2020, we put up another video ‘England’s Partition of Ireland’ (5 minutes and 31 seconds)—https://youtu.be/B6Etux7szuc Fr. McManus concluded:” We think signing this Petition this is an excellent and responsible way for Irish-Americans, the Irish in Ireland, and the Irish worldwide to express their feelings about England’s cruel and undemocratic partition of Ireland.” END.
Founded in 1836 with current membership in all 50 states, the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America is the oldest and largest Irish Catholic Organization in the United States. In fact, the AOH is the largest Irish organization outside of Ireland. How does an American, Catholic, Irish fraternal organization continue to thrive for over 184 years? The answer is simple – we are a multifaceted organization that covers everything relevant to Irish Americans.
The giant umbrella of the Hibernians covers all Irish American interests in some way. We are Catholic, we are men of faith, we were founded to protect the Catholic clergy in America and assist our ancestors as they immigrated to the United States in the wake of The Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór). We are advocates for a Free and United Ireland and of improved immigration between the U.S. and Ireland. We are a civic minded organization, supporting our veterans and encouraging civic participation of all members. We are a non-partisan issues-based organization prohibited from supporting or working against any political party or candidate.
What brings all members of the AOH together is our heritage and culture. With such a diverse range of interests it is only natural to have an equally diverse range of opinions. Any such differences are more than compensated for through our tremendous love and devotion for our Irish and Irish-American Culture and Heritage. Our love of Irish music, folklore, sports literature, travel and everything else Irish is the foundation that makes the AOH what it is today. We long to visit the home of our family and ancestors where the faith of our forefathers was molded.
We are the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, Inc., the number one Irish American organization in the world and we invite you to review all that we have to offer to Irish Catholic Americans. Take a look and don’t hesitate to contact us at AOH.COM .
God Bless,
Daniel J. O’Connell National President Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, Inc.
August 24, 2020: Cardinal Dolan delivers the opening prayer for the 2020 Republican National Convention. GETTY IMAGES
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, delivered an opening prayer on the first night of the 2020 Republican Convention on Monday, August 24. By so doing he made clear his preference for the GOP and mixed his religion with politics
Unlike Dolan, John F. Kennedy drew a line in the sand when running for president in 1960.
There were widespread charges that Kennedy would take orders from the Vatican, a hardline anti-Catholic trope. As the first Irish Catholic President, he was under a religious microscope from the very start.
Kennedy responded by making his respect for the separation of church and state evident when he said, “I do not speak for the church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.”
Someone should have read JFK’s message to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, as he cheered for Trump’s presidential campaign by opening the Republican National Convention with a prayer on Monday, August 24.
Church and state, Dolan and Trump, were joined in an unholy alliance that must have made Pope Francis visibly wilt.
The sight of one of his renowned cardinals signing up for duty with the likes of Donald Trump, who stands for pretty much everything the pope opposes, must have shocked the pontiff.ADVERTISING
In an opinion piece for CNN, former Augustinian Catholic priest Brian Frawley wrote: “.. Dolan should understand the power of his presence at the convention and be mindful that this gesture will be seen by many as an affirmation of the President.”
Besides, the mortal battle for the soul of America was not evident in 2012. In 2020, Trump has deliberately set Americans against one another, utilizing racist dog whistles and outright racism.
With so much on the line, not least Trump’s hinting that he might not readily accept the result on November 3rd, Dolan was stepping into a highly charged stand-off and taking sides.
The clear undertone was to vote for Trump, an extraordinary position for a cardinal charged with caring for all his flock, not just those who vote Republican. One wonders what Joe Biden, a committed Catholic, made of the thumb on the scale placed by Dolan.
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In terms of Catholic doctrine, it was truly startling to see Dolan shill so shamelessly for Trump, the three-times-married, accused sexual predator, flim-flam business operator with multiple bankruptcies, and jailer of innocent little children at the Texas and Arizona border.
It was incredible to see Dolan standing there under the Statue of Liberty defending the most anti-immigrant president in recent history.
Dolan also snubbed the African American community, his very presence legitimizing the president who excused the neo-Nazis who marched and killed a woman in Charlottesville three years ago, which afterward, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
I wonder would Dolan agrees with that sentiment, certainly, he seems to have excused it which makes him just as culpable.
Dolan has stated his presence did not constitute an endorsement of President Trump which would match any of the porkies Trump has told. Dolan has done his own reputation enormous damage, a cardinal who chooses a man who prefers conflict to one who seeks to bring people together. He has chosen the exact opposite of the Christian message. Perhaps it is time he retired.
Brian Feeney, Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Michelle O’Neill was indisputably correct when she responded to Boris Johnson’s absurd boosterism about celebrating the centenary of the north as part of “the most successful political union in the world”.
She said there’s nothing to celebrate. The evidence is overwhelming that The North has been, and is, a failed political entity. It’s undeniable. Despite repeated attempts to shore it up with various ingenious devices its institutions lurch from crisis to crisis and stand-off to stand-off: the present executive is dysfunctional.
However, the emphasis on the continuous political mess means not enough attention is paid to The North’s abject failure as an economic region, disastrous for all its people. There’s an interview on YouTube between the economist David McWilliams and the writer Martina Devlin on West Belfast’s virtual Féile on August 6. It should be compulsory viewing for Unionists as McWilliams pulls apart all the false history and illusory assumptions Unionists still believe. Why would they not believe? Their leaders never tell them the truth.
You can see why the millionaire industrialists who ran this place on cheap mass labor a century ago wanted to break away from the rest of the island. In 1920, 80 per cent of the wealth of the island was generated in Belfast and the three adjacent counties. Belfast was the biggest city on the island, a center of industrial technology and innovation. Now the situation is reversed. The North is an economic backwater, like East Germany compared to West Germany before 1989.
The “Union” [ with Britain] has crippled The North whereas independence has enriched the south, especially since 1998. Ironically the peace dividend went south because, as a sovereign state, it can manage its own economy and not depend on handouts from the EU (soon to end) and London. Being attached to an ever centralizing UK government has been profoundly damaging economically for The North just as for Scotland, Wales, and indeed the north of England.
In 1920 the north was twice as rich as the south. Now the north is twice as poor. Check it out. McWilliams pours out the figures, the painful facts. The southern economy is about €300 billion;
The North’s is about €50 billion. The North paid for itself until the 1940s, then after the war industrialism and manufacturing slowly collapsed. Now The North requires an annual £10 billion subsidy from London, the reality of which is disputed by many; that’s about 4 per cent of the Republic’s GDP. The Republic’s economy is four times bigger than The North’s, generated by a workforce only two and a half times bigger. The Republic’s industrial output is ten times larger and its exports 17 times larger. Average income per head in the south is €40,000 compared to €24,000 here. Unemployment benefit in the south starts at €185 a week; here it starts at £58.
In contrast to 1920, Dublin is now three times bigger than Belfast, with a cosmopolitan population of about 1.5 million and home to hundreds of international companies. TikTok is setting up its European HQ in the south in the next year or so. McWilliams has what he calls his ‘Trip Advisor test’ for prosperity and lifestyle. Armagh and Kilkenny, similar sizes, both have city status. Trip Advisor reviews 176 restaurants in Kilkenny but just 73 in Armagh. Coleraine has a mere 58, Antrim 43.
As McWilliams says, partition is like an economic laboratory experiment. You set up two jurisdictions, one independent, one dependent, and see how they fare. The results are in. After 100 years what passes for the economy in The North (and many would deny The North has an economy, so dependent is it) is profoundly worse than the Republic’s. The fact is that The North has everything to gain from economic unity.
Admittedly, not a word of this will convince anyone voting DUP. However, the number of people available to vote Unionist is declining rapidly, a decline which Brexit and demography will accelerate.
A memorial in Washington last week for those who died from the coronavirus.Olivier Douliery/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By The New York Times | Sources: World Bank and Johns Hopkins University
August 24, 2020: Cardinal Dolan delivers the opening prayer for the 2020 Republican National Convention. GETTY IMAGES