{"id":1131280,"date":"2021-12-18T20:34:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T01:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1131280"},"modified":"2021-12-18T20:35:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T01:35:00","slug":"irish-minister-threatens-several-years-of-lockdowns-with-only-periods-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/irish-minister-threatens-several-years-of-lockdowns-with-only-periods-of-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Minister Threatens \u2018Several Years\u2019 of Lockdowns with Only \u2018Periods of Freedom\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Firish-minister-threatens-several-years-of-lockdowns-with-only-periods-of-freedom%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1131280&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">ROME \u2014 Ireland\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister (T\u00e1naiste) Leo Varadkar has warned of a \u201clong war\u201d with the coronavirus, during which the government may allow only \u201cperiods of freedom\u201d for the people.<\/p>\n<p>The number of cases of the Omicron variant will \u201cbreak all records\u201d as soon as next week, Mr Varadkar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leitrimobserver.ie\/news\/covid-19\/708781\/new-restrictions-from-sunday-as-we-fight-long-war-with-covid.html\">claimed<\/a>, based on modelling from Ireland\u2019s National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>In a chilling display of authoritarianism, Varadkar nonchalantly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/news\/ireland\/irish-news\/eu-travel-very-likely-to-require-proof-of-booster-vaccine-next-year-1.4758358\">explained<\/a> that the government may grant people occasional breaks from lockdowns or \u201cperiods of freedom\u201d in the midst of ongoing confinement.<\/p>\n<p>While the future course of the pandemic is difficult to predict, Varadkar said, Ireland is facing a \u201clong war\u201d that could go on for several more years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere may well be a case to say, in this long war, that if it\u2019s possible to have periods of freedom then that might make sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cBecause there will be other variants and there will be other winters and perhaps in advance of those winters and those variants we should try to have periods of freedom and give people a break, an opportunity to de-mob if you like, during this long war,\u201d he said, adding that we may have to accept that we \u201cgo backwards on occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Friday evening, Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Miche\u00e1l Martin introduced a series of coronavirus restrictions, including enforced 8:00 p.m. closing times for pubs and restaurants, which will last at least until January 30.<\/p>\n<p>Despite widespread excitement in Europe over rising numbers of positive cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, less attention has been paid to the harmful health effects of the virus, which may be significantly lower than last year.<\/p>\n<p>In Italy, for example, there has seemingly been no spike in coronavirus deaths like there was a year ago. The number of patients in intensive care as well as the number of coronavirus deaths seem to have been substantially lower than the same period in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>On December 18, 2020, there were 2,819 coronavirus&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/lab24.ilsole24ore.com\/coronavirus\/\">patients<\/a>&nbsp;in intensive care units (ICU) in Italy, whereas on the same day in 2021, the number has dropped to just 953, a 66 per cent decrease.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at deaths from the coronavirus, the numbers seem starker still. On December 18, 2020, 685 persons died in Italy infected with the coronavirus, whereas on this same date in 2021, only 107 persons died with the virus. This represents a 84 per cent decline in deaths from the disease.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian daily&nbsp;<em>Il sole 24&nbsp;ore<\/em> published a superimposed graph Saturday comparing deaths with coronavirus in the two years, which appeared to show that the winter spike in deaths that occurred in 2020 has not been replicated in 2021:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_19182122\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"32\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/coronavirus-in-Italy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19182122\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/coronavirus-in-Italy.jpg\" alt=\"Coronavirus deaths in Italy 2020 vs 2021.\" width=\"760\" height=\"734\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Coronavirus deaths in Italy 2020 vs 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tdwilliamsrome?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @tdwilliamsrome<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROME \u2014 Ireland\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister (T\u00e1naiste) Leo Varadkar has warned of a \u201clong war\u201d with the coronavirus, during which the government may allow only \u201cperiods of freedom\u201d for the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}