Off Topic Thread 4.0

pickarooney

Squidgy Black wrote: »

My aul lad decided about 5 years ago to do something similar with our small back garden, pave over the whole lot of it to save himself the hassle.

Except he decided to consult my ma, which lead to Indian sand stone being put down. Which turns out needs about as much maintenance as grass, because it stains and goes green if not thoroughly powerwashed weekly, and has to be resealed and grouted fairly regularly.

Green stone sounds like the perfect compromise

Podge_irl

Buer wrote: »

Some don ludicrous amounts of lycra, purchase a bike worth more than my car and go out for 50km bike rides irritating every driver for miles. Some hit the golf course.

50km is more of a warm up...

Rigor Mortis

Buer wrote: »

Some don ludicrous amounts of lycra, purchase a bike worth more than my car and go out for 50km bike rides irritating every driver for miles. Some hit the golf course.

Scuba is the way to go. Neoprene is even less flattering than lycra. We've seen less of the sea than the moon. The peace is like nothing you will ever experience.

Rigor Mortis

I know a few on here were talking about struggling a little in the last few weeks. The indo has a story about research carried out by a number of the universities which suggests that about a quarter of us are experiencing depression or depression like symptoms at the moment.

Panda Killa

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I know a few on here were talking about struggling a little in the last few weeks. The indo has a story about research carried out by a number of the universities which suggests that about a quarter of us are experiencing depression or depression like symptoms at the moment.

I would say a quarter is a very conservative figure tbh

Buer

Honestly, we're lucky that the weather is incredibly good at the moment of that figure could be significantly higher.

swiwi_

Switzerland relaxing its restrictions as from 27th April

mfceiling

Buer wrote: »

Honestly, we're lucky that the weather is incredibly good at the moment of that figure could be significantly higher.

Genuinely believe the weather is taking the pìss now at this stage.

Bazzo

swiwi_ wrote: »

Switzerland relaxing its restrictions as from 27th April

Any details? Will everybody be going back to work or certain professions?

Squidgy Black

Bazzo wrote: »

Any details? Will everybody be going back to work or certain professions?

Think it's mostly just services like hairdressers and physio's for now, they've a '3 stage exit plan' which would be schools a few weeks after that, and then other retail businesses following it.

Germany seems to have the most aggressive plan in place for reopening retail and schools next month

Zzippy

Squidgy Black wrote: »

.

Germany seems to have the most aggressive plan in place for reopening retail and schools next month

Denmark reopened schools yesterday. Spain reopened construction and some manufacturing this week also.

swiwi_

Bazzo wrote: »

Any details? Will everybody be going back to work or certain professions?

In stages. Initially it’s hospitals back to normal, small entreprises like hairdressers etc. Schools 2 weeks after that. Everything else in June.

TBH hairdressers is a big relief.

Neil3030

I'm hearing noises CA will reopen schools in "the fall", summer classes in all Universities will be online. They're not looking to be out of this any time soon.

hahashake

hahashake wrote: »

On that note, the numbers in Belgium and the Netherlands are shocking per capita. I know it's not apples and apples but imagine their numbers with the population of the UK or USA. Easy to ignore with bigger total numbers coming out of Italy and Spain but cases and deaths per head of population are similar (more so for Belgium).

Following on from this, Belgium now has the 3rd highest deaths per capita, behind San Marino and Andorra (both sub 100k population).

I've seen numbers saying up to 50% of people are asymptomatic - with the bias towards testing those with symptoms, I'd imagine the number is much higher. Which has upsides and downsides, upside being perhaps many people are already unknowingly immune (at least to the current strain).

Neil3030

I'm still to be convinced that looking at either mortality or cases on a per-capita basis is particularly helpful.

Small, densely populated countries will always look terrible with this statistic, regardless of the quality of their testing / response.

Meanwhile large, loosely populated countries will always look great.

Would you rather be in Switzerland (148 deaths per 1m population) or the USA (101 deaths per 1m population) right now?

aloooof

hahashake wrote: »

Following on from this, Belgium now has the 3rd highest deaths per capita, behind San Marino and Andorra (both sub 100k population).

I've seen numbers saying up to 50% of people are asymptomatic - with the bias towards testing those with symptoms, I'd imagine the number is much higher. Which has upsides and downsides, upside being perhaps many people are already unknowingly immune (at least to the current strain).

There was a study in the Netherlands today where they tested blood donors for antibodies, which suggested 3% of the donors had them.

It's overly simplistic, but if 3% of the entire 17m population are immune, that would be ~500k people, in a country that is reporting 28k cases. That's really encouraging.

Bazzo

Neil3030 wrote: »

I'm still to be convinced that looking at either mortality or cases on a per-capita basis is particularly helpful.

Small, densely populated countries will always look terrible with this statistic, regardless of the quality of their testing / response.

Meanwhile large, loosely populated countries will always look great.

Would you rather be in Switzerland (148 deaths per 1m population) or the USA (101 deaths per 1m population) right now?

That's not necessarily true. Singapore & South Korea.

Neil3030

Bazzo wrote: »

That's not necessarily true. Singapore & South Korea.

True, but these countries have additional factors that are likely explaining way more variance in their data; the former is a benign dictatorship that sits on the equator (30C all year round), the latter has a single land border that nobody ever crosses and far more experience in responding to nearby outbreaks.

Like I said, I remain to be convinced that normalizing "per-capita" is helpful. WHO, JHU, CDC,.. none of them seem to focus on it too much.

swiwi_

Podge_irl

Neil3030 wrote: »

Would you rather be in Switzerland (148 deaths per 1m population) or the USA (101 deaths per 1m population) right now?

7 years down the road and I'm still not sure I want to be Switzerland

swiwi_

Podge_irl wrote: »

7 years down the road and I'm still not sure I want to be Switzerland

Yip you sound Swiss now alright, no decisive decisions, everything nice and down the middle of the road. Welcome to the club.

stephen_n

swiwi_ wrote: »

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

The UK’s death toll is nearly two and a half times ours per capita. That’s not including their care home deaths. So I’m not sure why you think that?

swiwi_

stephen_n wrote: »

The UK’s death toll is nearly two and a half times ours per capita. That’s not including their care home deaths. So I’m not sure why you think that?

Cos I’m just lazy and looked at the graphs. Both countries just going up and up and up. TBH I’m sure Ireland IS doing better but maybe not significantly better.

I’m actually surprised how fast Switzerland’s graph is heading down given the situation in neighbouring Italy and France. One thing about the Swiss: if you put out a decree it’s by and large strictly followed by the populace, especially in the German part. Unlike the French who love a good bit of rebellion, strikes, general mayhem.

The WHO seem to be happier with the direction the outbreak is going in Europe but indicated they are still concerned about trends in the UK.

Our hospital admissions are starting to decline which I hope indicates we're at or just over the peak.

stephen_n

swiwi_ wrote: »

Cos I’m just lazy and looked at the graphs. Both countries just going up and up and up. TBH I’m sure Ireland IS doing better but maybe not significantly better.

I’m actually surprised how fast Switzerland’s graph is heading down given the situation in neighbouring Italy and France. One thing about the Swiss: if you put out a decree it’s by and large strictly followed by the populace, especially in the German part. Unlike the French who love a good bit of rebellion, strikes, general mayhem.

By the sounds of things, we messed up with the care homes. Not sure the UK has hit its peak yet or if their official figures are even remotely close to their real total. I’d say it will be long time after this is all over, before we get a proper picture of which countries handled it better.

prawnsambo

Deleted User wrote: »

The WHO seem to be happier with the direction the outbreak is going in Europe but indicated they are still concerned about trends in the UK.

Our hospital admissions are starting to decline which I hope indicates we're at or just over the peak.

At the time of the lockdown and for a week after, we were averaging bang on the 33% curve for new infections. Last weekend, we were averaging 25%. That's based on our first confirmed case being on March 1st.

Former Former

stephen_n wrote: »

The UK’s death toll is nearly two and a half times ours per capita. That’s not including their care home deaths. So I’m not sure why you think that?

Yeah, the UK is significantly underestimating their death toll. If we excluded our care homes, our deaths would fall by 30 or 40%.

I don't know if we're doing anything better than the UK, but we were certainly quicker to realize the gravity of the situation.

thomond2006

This Keelings story is a headscratcher.

Neil3030

Hospital admissions are also a not entirely clean stat of improvement.

Early on, hospitals would bring in anyone struggling to breath, and tube them up if they started showing low blood oxygen levels.

They soon realised this would clobber them in terms of available beds and ventilators.

So they've now started sending more and more people home with a pulse oximeter (really cheap little doodad you can clip on your finger), telling them to lie on their stomach and monitor their blood oxygen levels, and come back in if things get really bad.

This eased the pressure on hospital beds, but the tradeoff is that it is absolutely causing more people to die at home, which is not counted in the official data in many countries.

prawnsambo

Another way of looking at it is to extrapolate a 33% curve based on the first case being reported on the 1st March. By now, the total number of cases would be 66k. :eek:

Squidgy Black

thomond2006 wrote: »

This Keelings story is a headscratcher.

It's so bizarre. There was reports of zero social distancing in the chartered flight to bring them over, and you'd wonder where they're going to be accommodated and how they could apply a quarantine period to them.

And it's only for strawberries as well. I understand it'd probably be a massive income loss to keelings I'd they didn't do it, but it's still mental that 200 non citizens were allowed fly in during the lockdown and just walk straight on through Dublin airport

Panda Killa

Squidgy Black wrote: »

It's so bizarre. There was reports of zero social distancing in the chartered flight to bring them over, and you'd wonder where they're going to be accommodated and how they could apply a quarantine period to them.

And it's only for strawberries as well. I understand it'd probably be a massive income loss to keelings I'd they didn't do it, but it's still mental that 200 non citizens were allowed fly in during the lockdown and just walk straight on through Dublin airport

I don't see an issue.
They advertise every year for Irish workers...they don't apply.
The WHO and EU guidelines were followed on the flight.
It's not easy work...it's a low wage and accomodation is subtracted from pay.
They are all living on site, and not mixing with the general Irish populace.
There were more confirmed cases, and deaths from Covid in 1 day in Ireland than there has been during the whole pandemic in Bulgaria.
They have more to fear from the Irish tbf.

Buer

thomond2006 wrote: »

This Keelings story is a headscratcher.

Is it though? It's food production which is essential services. They need seasonal staff to harvest said food.

Lets be honest, are they going to be able to source a couple of hundred Irish people to pick strawberries in fields in north Dublin even with the current situation? I'd imagine the vast majority of people are going to be much happier collecting their €350 a week and watching Netflix.

I can understand it's far from desirable in the current situation and it gives a vehicle for complaints but I'd think that if they don't get those people in, they risk losing a significant chunk of the crop for the season. The workers are going to be based out on site and aren't going to have much scope to be out and about and mixing with crowds. If they're observing the required guidelines after arrival, I really don't see how Keelings could do anything else other than lose the crop.

DGRulz

https://www.facebook.com/335635313192033/posts/2857910290964510/

So basically ... its a complete non-story and some journo broke it before getting the facts so they could get some clicks?

Buer

Surprised we're not seeing a bigger deal being made of the announcement yesterday that the reproductive rate is now between 0.7 and 1. Forgive my feeble, non-scientific mind but my reading of that is now that active numbers should start to decrease from here if we're maintaining anything below 1?

Obviously, the death rate will probably continue to increase as we've seen the highest number of infections in recent weeks (although the backlog numbers from March are likely to no longer be active cases). It seems the activity and presence of cases within elderly care locations is now the greatest challenge and the ball was dropped here. I was baffled how these locations didn't go into lockdown instantly.

My company has a contract for maintaining a large chain of nursing homes throughout the Leinster area. After the lockdown commenced, these sites were still contacting our company/contractors for techs to come in and carry out elective repairs. On the first Monday after the lockdown (which was announced on Friday, I think), they were insistent that an electrician attend site to look at why there was no power to a television in a room. Crazy stuff.

Buer

DGRulz wrote: »

https://www.facebook.com/335635313192033/posts/2857910290964510/

So basically ... its a complete non-story and some journo broke it before getting the facts so they could get some clicks?

I read the first half dozen comments and now I think I have cancer.

People don't care if they've released a statement. They were already fully primed for outrage and they're not going to let any silly logic get in the way of at.

Im not buyin Keelings evr again. Lik if u agree.

Keelings issue is a non story and the replies on that facebook post are a healthy reminder of the volume of idiots living among us.

This is also a bit of a sore point for your average brexit supporter who were certain this sort of thing would no longer be necessary.

Basically a lot of very low information people have gotten the wrong end of the stick and are upset. Again.

Bazzo

Buer wrote: »

Surprised we're not seeing a bigger deal being made of the announcement yesterday that the reproductive rate is now between 0.7 and 1. Forgive my feeble, non-scientific mind but my reading of that is now that active numbers should start to decrease from here if we're maintaining anything below 1?

Obviously, the death rate will probably continue to increase as we've seen the highest number of infections in recent weeks (although the backlog numbers from March are likely to no longer be active cases). It seems the activity and presence of cases within elderly care locations is now the greatest challenge and the ball was dropped here. I was baffled how these locations didn't go into lockdown instantly.

My company has a contract for maintaining a large chain of nursing homes throughout the Leinster area. After the lockdown commenced, these sites were still contacting our company/contractors for techs to come in and carry out elective repairs. On the first Monday after the lockdown (which was announced on Friday, I think), they were insistent that an electrician attend site to look at why there was no power to a television in a room. Crazy stuff.

Yes, in theory if the reproductive rate remains below 1 the virus will die out on its own. For that to happen it will need to get to that level consistently internationally or Ireland would need to close the borders though. Neither seems likely.

Squidgy Black

Keelings supports the 5g rollout.

You heard it here first.

Podge_irl

swiwi_ wrote: »

I’m actually surprised how fast Switzerland’s graph is heading down given the situation in neighbouring Italy and France. One thing about the Swiss: if you put out a decree it’s by and large strictly followed by the populace, especially in the German part. Unlike the French who love a good bit of rebellion, strikes, general mayhem.

What I find interesting is that the lockdown here was started earlier than UK/Ire but has never been as severe. Groups up to 5 still allowed, no restrictions really on travel within Switzerland. I see a lot of people out on the streets in Geneva, hordes of cyclists when I'm out cycling - though no large groups obviously. As the weather is getting nicer the lakeside is getting fairly busy - probably not as much as normal but still far from empty.

It nonetheless seems to be sufficient to be having an impact.

connemara man

Buer wrote: »

Surprised we're not seeing a bigger deal being made of the announcement yesterday that the reproductive rate is now between 0.7 and 1. Forgive my feeble, non-scientific mind but my reading of that is now that active numbers should start to decrease from here if we're maintaining anything below 1?

Obviously, the death rate will probably continue to increase as we've seen the highest number of infections in recent weeks (although the backlog numbers from March are likely to no longer be active cases). It seems the activity and presence of cases within elderly care locations is now the greatest challenge and the ball was dropped here. I was baffled how these locations didn't go into lockdown instantly.

My company has a contract for maintaining a large chain of nursing homes throughout the Leinster area. After the lockdown commenced, these sites were still contacting our company/contractors for techs to come in and carry out elective repairs. On the first Monday after the lockdown (which was announced on Friday, I think), they were insistent that an electrician attend site to look at why there was no power to a television in a room. Crazy stuff.

A big problem a lot of old folk homes have is agency staff. So homes that required no agency staff (you'll have to forgive my anecdotal evidence for this bit) seem to be ok, as it's just the same people in and out so tracing and containment is easier. 2 care homes I know went into hard lockdown 6 weeks ago.

But if you require an agency nurse you have someone who could possibly be in 3 different wards in different hospitals before getting to you.

Panda Killa

When you see pissant politicians like Ken O'Neil from cork weighing in with his hand wringing rubbish you'd despair of quite a large section of this countries populace..
I can't wait for Gemma O'Doherty to tell us the Bulgarians are in league with the devil and strawberries are the route to our souls

thomond2006

Buer wrote: »

Is it though? It's food production which is essential services. They need seasonal staff to harvest said food.

Lets be honest, are they going to be able to source a couple of hundred Irish people to pick strawberries in fields in north Dublin even with the current situation? I'd imagine the vast majority of people are going to be much happier collecting their €350 a week and watching Netflix.

I can understand it's far from desirable in the current situation and it gives a vehicle for complaints but I'd think that if they don't get those people in, they risk losing a significant chunk of the crop for the season. The workers are going to be based out on site and aren't going to have much scope to be out and about and mixing with crowds. If they're observing the required guidelines after arrival, I really don't see how Keelings could do anything else other than lose the crop.

It's a surprise to me that the flights were allowed. I've no issue with the workers themselves.

Podge_irl

Podge_irl wrote: »

What I find interesting is that the lockdown here was started earlier than UK/Ire but has never been as severe. Groups up to 5 still allowed, no restrictions really on travel within Switzerland. I see a lot of people out on the streets in Geneva, hordes of cyclists when I'm out cycling - though no large groups obviously. As the weather is getting nicer the lakeside is getting fairly busy - probably not as much as normal but still far from empty.

It nonetheless seems to be sufficient to be having an impact.

The big numbers are where this virus becomes a real problem. Once it goes beyond a certain spread it's impossible to track and trace and it will explode on the health service in concentrated pockets like in Italy.

Even the difference of days can stop tens of thousands of people getting infected and make controlling things substantially easier.

I think we (Ireland) were likely a week or so late in the clampdown but still early enough that it looks like we have some kind of handle on the disease spread.

pickarooney

Podge_irl wrote: »

What I find interesting is that the lockdown here was started earlier than UK/Ire but has never been as severe. Groups up to 5 still allowed, no restrictions really on travel within Switzerland. I see a lot of people out on the streets in Geneva, hordes of cyclists when I'm out cycling - though no large groups obviously. As the weather is getting nicer the lakeside is getting fairly busy - probably not as much as normal but still far from empty.

It nonetheless seems to be sufficient to be having an impact.

French people seem to be by and large obeying the rules, at least in the small area I've moved in over the last 5 weeks. It's hard to say if it's having any significant impact.

irishbucsfan

Panda Killa wrote: »

I don't see an issue.
They advertise every year for Irish workers...they don't apply.
The WHO and EU guidelines were followed on the flight.
It's not easy work...it's a low wage and accomodation is subtracted from pay.
They are all living on site, and not mixing with the general Irish populace.
There were more confirmed cases, and deaths from Covid in 1 day in Ireland than there has been during the whole pandemic in Bulgaria.
They have more to fear from the Irish tbf.

Having lived in Sofia for a bit a few years ago I’d be incredibly skeptical of any numbers they put out! Not that I think there’s be a huge number of cases or a giant conspiracy, the population just have a very different relationship with whatever government is in power this week than we’d have over here and it’d make it almost impossible to get anywhere near the same sort of data. All for pretty good reasons to be fair. I’d be shocked if their data for Sofia is accurate, let alone rural areas!

If you’re in public without a face mask there currently you can get fined 5,000 lev on the spot I’ve heard. That’s 4-5 months wages for average people. So I’d say their number of cases are indeed pretty low, and would be across most ex-soviet states where they can get away with that sort of strong armed law making still. But the flip side of that is you’re never going to get people to voluntarily get tested in a country where the government own your labour book.

Rigor Mortis

Saw this response on a FB thread earlier and I want to turn it into a movie

"Dead People Don't Eat Strawberries"

molloyjh

Whiskey brewers dont use strawberries or raspberries either......D*ve!

Zzippy

molloyjh wrote: »

Whiskey brewers dont use strawberries or raspberries either......D*ve!

That was the best facepalm moment of the day!

molloyjh

Zzippy wrote: »

That was the best facepalm moment of the day!

That he kept replying was just as funny!