Mid-week reading

Covid-19, Greece's economic crisis and some belated Christmas cheer

In my most recent article, I swam through a sea of statistics to see whether Covid-19 is really as bad as the numbers initially suggest (spoiler alert: yes it is). I used three sites as my sources of data, but the one I recommend as a starting point is the Financial Times. Their coronavirus tracker gives a concise, easy-to-follow overview of the important numbers. It gives a clear picture of where deaths are being reported, as well as summarising the all-important excess mortality.

If, after that, you are still interested in hearing more about Covid-19, I found a newsletter called Covid Explained on Substack. Its content is, as you’d expect, all about Covid-19 and it’s interesting and relevant. The latest article is about what vaccines do and don’t do, and what this means for the spread of the virus.

If you are looking for a break from Covid-19, here’s something completely different. You might remember that my last article mentioned, in passing, that Greece didn’t have a reputation for good governance. When I wrote that, I remembered the years of strife that the Greeks faced following the global financial crisis of 2008. I turned over a few stones about the fiscal crisis that they faced, and I came across this article, which gives a nice overview. I found it particularly interesting, because it went beyond the soundbites and showed that the problem was not that their government was careless with its spending.

Finally, for those of you who love Handel’s Messiah as much as I do, here are two treats. The first is an article which talks about that very first performance in Dublin in 1742. The second is the actual performance that I was part of, at the Michael Fowler Centre, online for you to enjoy.