Health
Citizens’ distrust and lack of consensus: what led to the fiasco of contact tracing apps
European countries have spent months debating what to do with data collected through contact tracing apps. A lack of consensus, as well as the launch of new systems by Apple and Google, lessened the chances of a unified protocol among the bloc. What is clear is that Europe always prioritised the data protection of its own users.
Romania: 25,000 deaths from pollution per year
For years the media have denounced that Romania is becoming the landfill of Europe. Yet, the institutions do not intervene, and meanwhile the European Environment Agency reports that the country ranks first in Europe for deaths caused by pollution.
Covid and prisons in France: interview with Dominique Simonnot
"The epidemic has been contained at the cost of enormous sacrifices for France’s prison population", says Dominique Simonnot, French chief prisons inspector.
Anti-Covid measures in Italian and European prisons
Cramped, often unhygienic, and already characterised by numerous restrictions, many prisons in Europe were hit hard by the pandemic. In Italy, where prison facilities are among the most overcrowded in the EU, the pandemic aggravated a number of preexisting systemic problems.
Prisons contained the pandemic at the expense of human rights
In many European countries, containing the spread of Covid-19 has come at the price of human rights. European prisoners have had to endure extended isolation, suspended visiting hours, and the cancellation of training and recreational activities.
“With the pandemic, it was a prison within a prison”
Aurélie, 27, spent several years in prison. Maxime, 35, was an inmate in the Paris region, where the overcrowding rate is 160%. Like 13,000 other prisoners, he got out thanks to early-release measures enacted between March and May 2020. They told us their stories.
France: The pandemic has exposed a dysfunctional prison system
While the poor state of French prisons led many to fear a serious health crisis in the wake of Covid-19, the worst of those fears have not materialised. However, the drastic lockdown measures have done nothing to benefit the mental health of detainees. Nor have they led to any serious reevaluation of the system itself.
How Europe’s prisons have fared in the Covid-19 pandemic
Prisons make fertile breeding grounds for viruses, yet administrations have revealed little about Covid-19 cases, deaths and vaccinations in Europe’s prisons. Data from 32 countries show the pandemic’s impact on prisons.
The postcode lottery of publicly-funded assisted reproduction in Spain
Many autonomous communities are not providing the bare minimum of provision in Spain’s health service and are using stripped back services, age limits and imposing fees in order to avoid providing the service.
