Juan Convers

According to wikipedia, the Irish population is approximately 6.9 million, but the Irish diaspora is estimated to include 50 to 80 million people worldwide, making it one of the largest of any nation.

Historical factors such as conflict, famine, and economic hardships have spurred emigration from Ireland. People of Irish descent are predominantly found in English-speaking nations, notably Great Britain, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Some significant Irish communities also exist in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, and The United Arab Emirates, but the United States hosts the largest population of Irish descent, while Australia boasts the highest percentage of Irish descendants outside of Ireland.

To all of you, my fellow Irish men and women, whether you reside within the shores of the emerald island or beyond, I wish you a happy St. Patrick's Day in 2024!

A friend of mine who works at the European Union, shared an interesting articule about the Life Expectancy in the different EU regions.

The last data available from 2018, shows that Swtizerland (83.8), Spain (83.5) and Italy (83.4) had the highest life expectancy, as you can see on the map above.

The US has more than 3.7 Million confirmed cases of Covid-19 cases and it's therefore the country with the highest number of those in the world. What it has been in the news lately is how states that rushed up to reopen as quickly as possible such as Texas and Florida, have an steady and exponencial increase on the total number of cases.

Next to California, who has seen also a sharp increase in the number cases, mainly in Los Angeles county, those states are getting closer to match the numbers of New York. It feels like a cautionary tale, that "going back to normal", won't as the precovid-19 normal until there is an effective vaccine or treatment in place.

Fortunately the an mRNA vaccine trial preliminary report in the NEJM stated the vaccine induced anti–SARS-CoV-2 immune responses in all participants, and no trial-limiting safety concerns were identified. Crossing the fingers for the next phases of those promising results.

There have been a some articles in the news lately discusing how the current occupant of the white house is losing ground against his democractic rival including: The remarkable collapse of Donald Trumps polling numbers and States that Trump won easily in 2016 are looking tight for him in November. The news are not surprising, giving the horrible COVID-19 numbers on the USA, its ecnomic impact and the wave of protest againts police brutaliy. The data from realclearpolitics seems to confirm this trend.

I always believed one the main problems with the presidential elections in Colombia, held every four years, is the timing: They always coincide with the Football World Cup!. Football is an extremely popular sport in the country and when the national squad qualifies to the tournament, the country turns the attention away from everthing except to this event.

The previous graph generated with Google Trends Search Data, relate to this point at least on the online sphere: The Colombian people are more interested in searching information about topics regarding the World Cup, than topics related to the presidentials.

The first round of this election will take on the 27th May and the second round on the 17th June (the World Cup starts on the 14th). Just saying ...

Graph with the busiest airports in Europe based on the passenger totals. Data from: Air Passenger Transport Statistics