Trinity is to light up the front facade of College Green tonight in solidarity with the HSE and to support the frontline workers for their dedication during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced on twitter earlier today.
The tweet from College said, “Tonight we will light up green to convey our solidarity with HSE and for all the frontline workers doing our country proud during this pandemic.”
Lighting up the front facade of the campus has been a tradition for the College for a number of years. Green has been used to signify the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, which was downscaled this year to prevent the spread of the virus. In January, the College also used red lights in celebration of Chinese New Year.
The statement from College announcing the decision went on to remind everyone to stay at home to help the frontline workers flatten the curve. This is a sentiment that has been advanced by leaders across the globe in an effort to prevent a large scale spike in COVID-19 cases that could overpower the health care system.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has mentioned on many occasions when discussing measures to prevent the spread of the virus the importance of flattening the curve: “The number of people who have COVID-19 will continue to rise every day, every week, for a couple of weeks. But the objective in a couple of weeks time is to flatten the curve then so that we don’t have a single spike at the same time that would that would overwhelm the health service.”
As of the 9th April, there are over 6,500 confirmed cases of the virus and 263 COVID-19-related deaths in Ireland.
The tweet comes a day after the College revealed a new research centre focused on accelerating the immunology programme to address the pandemic. The collaboration with AIB, who pledged €2.4 million in funding for the project will centre on the design of new drugs and a vaccine for the virus.
The AIB COVID-19 Research Hub will include doctors from St James’s Hospital, Dublin along with other Irish hospitals and existing research partners. The project will be led by the current director of the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, where the hub will be located.
