Denying the elderly access to intensive care units simply because of their age would be “discriminatory, ageist and morally wrong”, a coalition of UK charities for older people has warned.

Decisions over which coronavirus patients receive priority treatment, they say, cannot “be blanket ones, based on age alone or with a person’s age given undue weight as against other factors, such as their usual state of health and capacity to benefit from treatment”.

Governments across the world are developing ethical guidelines and decision tools to help their doctors to prioritise patients for hospital admission and treatment during the coronavirus pandemic.

The signatories of the open letter said that assessments should continue to be made on a case-by-case basis through honest discussion with the patient, their family and relevant professionals.

The open letter comes days after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) issued an “algorithm” to help doctors decide who should be admitted to critical care and who should not. It does not categorise potential patients by age but instead asks doctors to score patients on a nine-point “clinical frailty scale” [CFS].

The scale ranks patients from one [very fit] to nine [terminally ill] and divides patients at a score of five, [mildly frail].

Those with a score of less than five who would like critical care are considered well enough to benefit, subject to a review of any underlying conditions and the severity of their illness.

Those scoring over five are put through a process where doctors must decide if critical care is “considered appropriate” before proceeding.

Robert Clarke, Deputy Director of ADF International, welcomed the clarification and said the RCP had “taken a step in the right direction and pushed back against those who have sought to misrepresent and instrumentalise the 2019 vote to push for a change in UK law”.

“The detrimental effects of euthanasia on individuals and society have become very clear in countries that have already gone down this path. There is nothing progressive about a society that refuses to care for its most vulnerable members. Given what the RCP represents, it would have been disappointing to see the organisation abandon its established opposition to euthanasia – especially when the change is promoted by a small minority with political motives,” he said.

The Catholic Bishops of Northern Ireland are “saddened and dismayed” at the implementation of a radical abortion regime in the North, the regulations for which came into effect on Tuesday. It is even more far-reaching than the law in the rest of the UK where there is one abortion for every three births.

In a statement released yesterday, they say the regulations “go far beyond what is legally required by the Northern Ireland Act (2019), (‘the Act’), and utterly ignore the views of many citizens – women and men – who responded to the consultation exercise last December”.

They add that their “implementation will facilitate one of the most liberal abortion regimes anywhere in the world”.

“During the pandemic when so much is being done to protect lives, these regulations do not reflect the overwhelming will of most people in Northern Ireland to protect the life of every human being.”

The Porn industry’s leading website have given users in Italy, Spain and France free access to its premium service for a limited time in response to those countries strict national lockdowns. Pornhub’s premium service includes high-speed downloads, no ads, faster streaming, increased video quality and “discreet billing,” plus anytime cancellation.

Pornhub also announced that they would be donating a portion of their profits in March to help Italy during the coronavirus outbreak. According to the company, their numbers spiked after the offer of free premium content, and as of March 17 were up 11.6 percent.

Regarding Ireland specifically, figures obtained by the Sunday Independent show Pornhub reported an almost 20pc spike in searches from Irish people during the emergency, peaking on St Patrick’s Day. Searches containing the word ‘coronavirus’ and ‘porn’ on the site have also become 80pc more popular in the last 30 days, with Ireland being in the top three countries worldwide where those terms were searched.

One Sinn Fein Senator also encouraged the use of porn as an alternative to casual sexual encounters. “Social distancing applies to hook ups and sex. So explore other ways to satisfy your needs. Phone sex, cam-sex, reading erotica, watching porn or just plain old masturbation”, Senator Fintan Warfield wrote on twitter.

He also recommended advice from HIV Ireland whose patron is President Higgins and is funded by various State agencies and private bodies. While first recommending porn, they add: “If you continue to hook-up, consider reducing the number of guys you have sex with.” While underlining that the best thing to do would be “to consider a break from hooking-up”, they add: “we acknowledge that not all of us will be able or want to do so. In that situation consider all of the harm reduction tips above.”

The UK Government has amended abortion regulations to allow women to take abortion pills at home after a telephone consultation with a doctor. A similar move has taken place in Ireland. This came after the government had initially said just last week that it would not allow the change due to safety and safeguarding concerns. The changes are the most significant change to abortion in England since the Abortion Act was passed in 1967. The amendment, controversially, comes without public consultation or parliamentary debate or scrutiny.

Ryan Christopher, Senior Policy Officer for ADF International in London said the move puts women at risk: “As a society we should support all pregnant women, especially those in difficult circumstances. No mother should ever be made to feel that she is alone and without hope. Allowing unsupervised home abortions puts women across the UK at risk of going through a difficult experience without much needed care, support, and medical expertise.”

“Additionally, the risk of abortions being forced rises significantly if allowed at home. Rather than permitting this, especially in this time of crisis, the government should be using its resources to support both mother and child. We all want a society in which parents feel able to welcome their children into the world,” he said.

Baptisms, marriages and individual confession will not be held in the diocese of Clogher, it was announced on Saturday, becoming the first Irish diocese to institute such a ban.

Bishop Larry Duffy said he was “saddened to have to take this course of action, but in the prevailing circumstances”, he had no other option. Funeral masses were also banned.

The stricture stands in contrast to the measures ordered by the Italian State on Saturday which said that weddings and baptisms are permitted for tightly limited groups. On weddings, the note from the country’s Interior Ministry said, “Where the rite takes place just in the presence of the celebrants, the couple and their witnesses, and prescriptions regarding distance among participants are respected, it’s not to be considered among the prohibited cases.”

The initiation of a radical new abortion regime in Northern Ireland today has been condemned by the pro-life group Both Lives Matter.

In a statement, the group said the previous law recognised and protected both lives in every pregnancy, saving an estimated 100 thousand people from being aborted.

In its place will be unrestricted abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; abortion on undefined mental health grounds up until the twenty fourth week of pregnancy; abortion for ‘serious disability’ up to birth and only limited conscientious protections for some healthcare workers.

Marion Woods, services advocate for Both Lives Matter said the law has changed but their position hasn’t and both lives in pregnancy will always matter. “These are bad laws created through a bad process and in time, the Northern Ireland Assembly can and should restore lost protections and introduce new laws and policies fit for the 21st century. Rather than continue down this path which dehumanises us as women and our preborn children, we must strive to create something truly humane; a new society where every life matters and all life is enabled, and women aren’t told they need to choose between their life and wellbeing and their own child.”

Health care cannot be rationed based upon the disabilities of patients, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has told hospitals and clinics.

“In this time of emergency, the laudable goal of providing care quickly and efficiently must be guided by the fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and compassion that animate our civil rights laws,” the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) stated in a bulletin on Saturday.

“As such, persons with disabilities should not be denied medical care on the basis of stereotypes, assessments of quality of life, or judgments about a person’s relative ‘worth’ based on the presence or absence of disabilities,” the bulletin states.

On a conference call with reporters on Saturday, the HHS OCR director Roger Severino said that his office had received “several” complaints about state crisis standards of care being developed in response to the new coronavirus pandemic.

As there are now more than 100,000 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S., states are considering “triage” plans in the event that their hospitals and health care systems are overwhelmed by an expected surge in new coronavirus patients.

Such plans would detail how critical care, such as ICU beds and ventilators, would be rationed in such a crisis. However, advocates are sounding the alarm that the plans could be used to deny care to people with disabilities and the elderly, based upon their supposed likelihood of survival.

Texas included a ban on abortions except where a woman’s life or health are at risk. Pro-abortion groups have nonetheless taken a court case to overturn the order. In response, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said “It is unconscionable that abortion providers are fighting against the health of Texans and withholding desperately needed supplies and personal protective equipment in favor of a procedure that they refer to as a ‘choice’.”

“My office will tirelessly defend Governor Abbott’s Order to ensure that necessary supplies reach the medical professionals combating this national health crisis,” he said.

There are over 1,200 cases of coronavirus in Texas, and at least a dozen people have died.

Abortion services will be available without restriction until the 12th week of pregnancy, a provision that does not exist in the rest of the UK, until 24 weeks if there is a risk to the woman’s ‘physical or mental health’, and up to birth if the unborn child is suffering a severe foetal impairment such as Down Syndrome, or if the child is thought likely to die, or if there is a risk of death or grave permanent injury to the mother. In addition, abortion will be decriminalised. In other parts of the UK, it is still a criminal offence in certain circumstances.

The Minister of State to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), Robin Walker MP, said that of the submissions received in a consultation process 79 per cent expressed “a view registering their general opposition to any abortion provision in Northern Ireland beyond that which is currently permitted”.

The North’s first minister, Arlene Foster, said it was a “very sad day for Northern Ireland”.

“I fundamentally reject that Westminster has brought these forward today,” she said. “We have a devolved administration, it should have been a devolved administration that dealt with these issues . . . we will be looking at how we can deal with these issues going forward in the future.”