NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Sam Boal via RollingNews.ie Pictured people social distancing while out on their daily exercise on Sandymount Strand, Dublin. 1 April 2020. Sam Boal via RollingNews.ie

• A further 13 deaths and 402 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Ireland
• Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that a decision will be made at the end of next week on possible restrictions after Easter Sunday 12 April
• Dr Tony Holohan has urged people to seek medical help if they need it after seeing empty waiting rooms and hospital beds during his own hospital admission
• There are over half a million people on either the Live Register or claiming a social welfare payment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, CSO figures show 
• Former senators Rónán Mullen, Lynn Ruane, David Norris, Michael McDowell, Alice-Mary Higgins and Ivana Bacik were returned to the Seanad
• Plans lodged by the Disney Store for a security gate outside its Grafton Street shop to prevent homeless people sleeping rough there have been approved.

WORLD

ABACA / PA Images Aerial view of fishermen in the estuary in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. ABACA / PA Images / PA Images

#TRAGEDY: A six-week-old baby has died in the US, becoming one of the world’s youngest victims of the coronavirus.

#UK: A further 569 people have died in the UK from Covid-19. A total of 33,718 people have tested positive across the UK

#DONATIONS: Country music star Dolly Parton is donating $1 million to help fund coronavirus research. 

PARTING SHOT

Context is everything in the coronavirus pandemic. 

So when we look at an unemployment, or reduced employment rate of 500,000 people…

“Now, to give you some sort of context on that,” economist Dermot O’Leary said today, “relative to the global financial crisis, it took about three years for an increase of that scale. The peak back in 2011 was 450,000.”

Here’s the corresponding chart for the US. At least we’re all in the same boat, I suppose?

Zoe Tabary / Twitter Zoe Tabary / Twitter / Twitter

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