The Hard Conversation

It was refreshing to read the views of Dr Ivor Browne in today’s Irish independent. At 93 years of age he has a terrific attitude about death, personal responsibility and living life which we could all learn from. He is a retired psychiatrist with a history of not being afraid to challenge the convention of the day. As a spritely 93 year old with vast experience in mental health our newly formed government would do worse than entertain his views. So far this year 29M people have died worldwide. 500,000 of those have died from COVID-19. On may 20 th this year there had been 320,000 deaths worldwide from COVID-19. Within the same period 3.1M people died of cancer, 5M from all communicable diseases and 1.9M from the effects of smoking. Suicide and mental health issues will only fully manifest themselves over time but nevertheless will be a consequence of the lockdown. Governments across the western world addressed the Pandemic by doing two things. They handed the running of their...

The most significant death that could emanate from this pandemic is that of the free world. To the flat earther's I suggest “maybe the world is round after all “. Extreme levels of fear make us hysterical. Hysteria makes us irrational and leads to the kind of reaction we might expect from people who are prepared to trample on their friends and relatives in order to get out of a burning building. Conversely when we are in control and being rational we make perfectly good decisions every day balancing risk and reward. Will I cross the street here? Will I buy that car? What restaurant should we eat in? we balance our decisions based on whether we might get run down or can I afford that car or will we like the food in that restaurant etc. etc. For the past three months the world has been in a state of hysteria. We are not processing any risk and reward calculations because of fear. Since the fire alarm went off we are convinced that the building is burning to the ground and no...