Galway COVID-19, local news and discussion

shenanagans

2608 today

132 in Galway

shenanagans

shenanagans wrote: »

I don't believe the whole hotel quarantine will come in here. Just here Leo V being quoted on radio, he says 33,000 travelled into Ireland over last week and all were for essential travel.

He can't guarantee that everyone of those 33k were essential travel. Non-sense.

No one should be allowed board a flight here without the test evidence. If they arrive in then mandatory quarantine should be implemented...IMO. I think the public would support mandatory quarantine for people not adhering to the test requirements.

I think you need to go back and read what he said

Also, what do you propose to do about people landing in Belfast?

sgthighway

Some news media are saying numbers are high in Tuam and Oranmore areas. Are these in more specific areas like Nursing Homes of Businesses? If not maybe Gardaí should have more checkpoint in these areas to deter people from mixing outside. I see a lot of Teenager kids roaming the streets; 14-16 year olds.

saabsaab

The border and Belfast are trotted out by those who want these flights to continue. Tourism sector, airlines etc.



Belfast and NI border are a weakness for us but then again how many use Belfast to come south? Stopping non essential flights here or strict quarantine would solve much imported Covid.


It's a bit like saying that because we have a small leak in the roof in one place we shouldn't fix those big holes somewhere else.

JCX BXC

saabsaab wrote: »

The border and Belfast are trotted out by those who want these flights to continue. Tourism sector, airlines etc.



Belfast and NI border are a weakness for us but then again how many use Belfast to come south? Stopping non essential flights here or strict quarantine would solve much imported Covid.


It's a bit like saying that because we have a small leak in the roof in one place we shouldn't fix those big holes somewhere else.

But would fixing the big leak not just make the small leak grow bigger?

As in, if you can't fly to Dublin, people in their masses will go via the north. While it may not be a massive figure at the moment, it would obivously increase several times over.

I don't think a hotel quarantine is enactable here, between the border issue, the free movement of travel and the sheer numbers of travellers. Either stop travel and only allow it for documented essential reasons (this includes turning people back at the border, perhaps under the 5km rule), or just keep going as it is. We're not as isolated as Australia or New Zealand.

Mrs OBumble

saabsaab wrote: »

? Stopping non essential flights here or .

You keep referring to "non essential flights".

How is a flight determined to be essential?

Is travelling to see your dying granny / mother / friend essential?

What about for medical treatment that you could have here, but its so much easier at home where the medical staff speak your native language?

Or returning home after your study in <<>> is finished?

_Whimsical_

Looks like the UK are gearing up for an announcement this evening, speculation is that they might go with enforced quarantine or a cash payment to those who "successfully quarantine themselves". I'd think that we will most likely do whatever they do given the NI situation. It would make sense. I hope it's a hotel quarantine at this stage. The talk of variants is just too worrying.

The economic forecast for Ireland released today is that we can still recover and achieve economic growth this year if the vaccination program is successful. Also we have amassed 13bn in personal savings. We are in a good position to bounce back and flood an economy with money if we have the chance. It's ridiculous to sit back and let this disaster swallow us if we can fight back, no measure should be off the table to try.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

You keep referring to "non essential flights".

How is a flight determined to be essential?

Is travelling to see your dying granny / mother / friend essential?

What about for medical treatment that you could have here, but its so much easier at home where the medical staff speak your native language?

Or returning home after your study in <<>> is finished?

If countries like Australia can manage to determine "essential" and implement these kind of rules then surely we can too?
I know someone who got back into Aus to visit a dying relation but had to provide proof in the form of medical evidence to justify the trip. Seems fair to me.
We aren't talking forever, it's just until we can achieve mass vaccination and hopefully prevent variants for emerging in the mean time. There is an enormous greater good to be served here.

saabsaab

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Looks like the UK are gearing up for an announcement this evening, speculation is that they might go with enforced quarantine or a cash payment to those who "successfully quarantine themselves". I'd think that we will most likely do whatever they do given the NI situation. It would make sense. I hope it's a hotel quarantine at this stage. The talk of variants is just too worrying.

The economic forecast for Ireland released today is that we can still recover and achieve economic growth this year if the vaccination program is successful. Also we have amassed 13bn in personal savings. We are in a good position to bounce back and flood an economy with money if we have the chance. It's ridiculous to sit back and let this disaster swallow us if we can fight back, no measure should be off the table to try.




If countries like Australia can manage to determine "essential" and implement these kind of rules then surely we can too?
I know someone who got back into Aus to visit a dying relation but had to provide proof in the form of medical evidence to justify the trip. Seems fair to me.
We aren't talking forever, it's just until we can achieve mass vaccination and hopefully prevent variants for emerging in the mean time. There is an enormous greater good to be served here.

+1 on this, NPHET advises against all non essential international travel. There ia a false narrative that measures to control travel and enforce mandatory quarantine could not be possible here. It is possible and swift implementation would ultimately be beneficial to us all both in health terms and economically.

_Whimsical_

The number of patients in Intensive Care with COVID-19 in Galway has reached 20 according to the latest HSE.

As of 8pm Thursday there were 18 confirmed cases in the ICU at University Hospital Galway, and 2 at Portiuncula.

There are a further two suspected cases in Intensive Care at Portiuncula Hospital.

UHG has the second highest level of COVID patients in the ICU in the country, tied with UH Limerick and exceeded only by St. James’, which has 22.

There were no critical care beds left available at either Galway hospital at the time of this count.

In total, there were 131 patients hospitalised in Galway as of Thursday night, 120 at UHG and 11 at Portiuncula.

https://www.galwaydaily.com/news/covid-19/covid-19-cases-in-the-icu-hit-20-in-galway/?fbclid=IwAR3QecUQnOS2IR-D3CtemwgygHANTzkU-6ZMqix3hICpEIXipT1aY6O5wCs

https://twitter.com/gardainfo/status/1352639300966473731?s=19

ben.schlomo

saabsaab wrote: »

+1 on this, NPHET advises against all non essential international travel. There ia a false narrative that measures to control travel and enforce mandatory quarantine could not be possible here. It is possible and swift implementation would ultimately be beneficial to us all both in health terms and economically.

Eamon Ryan disagrees with you.

_Whimsical_

UK press conference : scientists saying that the UK variant does cause increased mortality.

saabsaab

ben.schlomo wrote: »

Eamon Ryan disagrees with you.

Dr Tomas Ryan TCD disagrees with him!

kippy

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

UK press conference : scientists saying that the UK variant does cause increased mortality.

It's not as definitive as that

saabsaab

EU leaders consider banning travellers from UK.


see below


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-travel-ban-uk-new-variant-covid-b1790883.html

CruelSummer

saabsaab wrote: »

EU leaders consider banning travellers from UK.


see below


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-travel-ban-uk-new-variant-covid-b1790883.html

This is a British tabloid report. I read reports from the meeting and they discussed ways of coordinating travel restrictions - didn't see anything about a U.K. travel ban

Mrs OBumble

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

If countries like Australia can manage to determine "essential" and implement these kind of rules then surely we can too?
I know someone who got back into Aus to visit a dying relation but had to provide proof in the form of medical evidence to justify the trip. Seems fair to me.

Relatively speaking, their isolation means that there is less travel per head.

Even so, the NZ media still has stories about married couple who've been separated for 9 months and have no idea when they can get together again. If we tried this approach here, the number of such stories would be a LOT higher.

Closing the airports will have zero affect with this kind of carry on. House parties, boy racers and gyms opening in secret. But yeah, airports :rolleyes:

Compliant Galwegians are keeping their distance

https://connachttribune.ie/complaint-galwegians-are-keeping-their-distance-165/amp/

BOY racers, cyclists, gym users and young people attending house parties are among those in Galway who have been issued with Fixed Payment Notices (FPNs) for breaching the Covid-19 travel regulations over the past week.

However, Gardaí in Galway have reported ‘a very high-level of compliance’ from the general public as regards the travel restrictions that are a central part of the Level-5 ‘Stay Home – Stay Safe’ Covid campaign.

Over the weekend, Gardaí issued FPNs to so-called ‘boy racers’ in two separate cases on the Tuam Road outside Galway city and in the Craughwell area.

FPNs – involving a €100 on-the-spot fine – were also issued last week to a number of young people attending house parties in the Galway city area, after Gardaí had been called to the scene.

Two cyclists stopped in the Cornamona area of North Connemara last week, who were 19 kilometres from their homes – and outside their own county boundary – also faced Garda censure.

The cyclists weren’t from the same household; they weren’t wearing masks; and also, were in breach of social distancing regulations.

Gardaí also came across a case of a gym in South Galway being used by a number of people last week – also a breach of the Covid-19, Level-5 restrictions.

While Gardaí also received a number of calls about possible ‘pub-opening’ violations, on investigation, they found no sign of activity on the premises they checked out.

Galway Chief Garda Superintendent, Tom Curley, told the Connacht Tribune that overall, there was ‘a very high level of compliance’ as regards the travel restrictions which was ‘very encouraging’.

_Whimsical_

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Relatively speaking, their isolation means that there is less travel per head.

Even so, the NZ media still has stories about married couple who've been separated for 9 months and have no idea when they can get together again. If we tried this approach here, the number of such stories would be a LOT higher.

Its not often I find myself on the harsher side of an argument like this but I think the stakes are high enough to say that unfortunately individuals would have to bare pain in order for it to work. A separation like that as awful as it would be, is better than people dying alone in hospital, loved ones at home knowing their beloved is going through that utterly alone without so much as a hand to hold, icu staff suffering from ptsd after witnessing this as was reported on tv3 news on Thursday.

If we are looking at having a more deadly variant already here introduced by travel while we sacrifice our lives, jobs, children's education to trying to keep it from overwhelming us, we would be mad to allow the very real threat of another variant in that might undermine a vaccine effort. We will be kissing out futures goodbye. We are a position to self sustain without ease of travel for a year, that might be all it would take. The only thing certain now is that if we do what we have done so far, it will yield the same and worse results.

grbear

In terms of lockdowns and bans on intercounty travel we seem to be doing 90% of the stuff required in order to pursue a Zero Covid strategy so I don't understand the reluctance of the government to take that final step. At this point I think the majority of people would support them if they announced mandatory quarantine periods for incoming travellers. It's not going to make a big difference to current case levels but it could help us keep them low when things start opening up again. It won't be forever either.

https://twitter.com/MaireTNC/status/1345677766402969600?s=19

grbear

Keeping things local, it looks like the relatively slow decline of case numbers in Galway compared to other counties is what was concerning people earlier in the week. A week ago there were eight counties with a lower 14 day incidence rate than Galway. There were 15 yesterday.

_Whimsical_

After the Micheal Martin interview this morning the presenter said they were inundated with messages from people begging the government to do something meaningful about travel.

Jack Chambers on the lunchtime RTE radio show mentioned there are between 1000 - 3000 a day coming into Ireland right now and at one point put forth the argument of "what would we do next week to quarantine the 33,000 people who are projected to arrive here?". Not sure if he fluffed his figures on that or if the 1- 3000 people mentioned earlier was a very conservative estimate.

Even 1000 people a day seems too any to me when you think all are passing through travel hubs full of people who have been all over the world.

JCX BXC

grbear wrote: »

Keeping things local, it looks like the relatively slow decline of case numbers in Galway compared to other counties is what was concerning people earlier in the week. A week ago there were eight counties with a lower 14 day incidence rate than Galway. There were 15 yesterday.

So a slower decline = concerning increase?

Nope, Galway's incidence rate has dropped below 1000 and has remained below the national average since this surge began. Clearly, the numbers are still dropping and there's still no information in the public domain to suggest there was a concerning increase here.

Still very confused about that news coverage.

Happyilylost

JCX BXC wrote:

Still very confused about that news coverage.

End of the day Government/Health officials react to the situation in the relevant hospital. GUH has the second most Covid Patients in ICU in the country. The worry/panic in Galway is due to the situation in the GUH while comparing our case load nationally may be average or below average this is not the case in the hospital.

JCX BXC

Happyilylost wrote: »

End of the day Government/Health officials react to the situation in the relevant hospital. GUH has the second most Covid Patients in ICU in the country. The worry/panic in Galway is due to the situation in the GUH while comparing our case load nationally may be average or below average this is not the case in the hospital.

The situation at UCHG is quite dire, however, say that. Deliberately misleading the public by saying the cases are increasing at a concerning rate achieves what? Mistrust? That's the last thing we need with a public who are growing skeptical.

kippy

JCX BXC wrote: »

The situation at UCHG is quite dire, however, say that. Deliberately misleading the public by saying the cases are increasing at a concerning rate achieves what? Mistrust? That's the last thing we need with a public who are growing skeptical.

What public? What are they growing skeptical of?
For Christ sake the staff in there are under serious pressure, ptsd is on the cards for some no doubt in future. Whatever is needed to keep numbers down is required at this point.
The situation is dire.

Happyilylost

JCX BXC wrote:

The situation at UCHG is quite dire, however, say that. Deliberately misleading the public by saying the cases are increasing at a concerning rate achieves what? Mistrust? That's the last thing we need with a public who are growing skeptical.

Tbh I wasn't aware of it being said that cases were increasing. I saw joint campaign from the HSE/County Council's/The Gardai asking people in the West region to redouble their efforts in helping to reduce covid cases. Cases might be declining and be better than plenty of parts of the country but in relation to the hospital its it's a very serious situation which is worse than nearly any other part of the country.

shenanagans

Happyilylost wrote: »

Tbh I wasn't aware of it being said that cases were increasing. I saw joint campaign from the HSE/County Council's/The Gardai asking people in the West region to redouble their efforts in helping to reduce covid cases. Cases might be declining and be better than plenty of parts of the country but in relation to the hospital its it's a very serious situation which is worse than nearly any other part of the country.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/galway-one-of-few-counties-where-cases-are-growing-rapid-surge-in-covid-cases-causing-alarm-39990798.html

I think this is the report that caused all the confusion. But when you read it it's more about the third wave vs the first wave in Galway. The headline makes it seem like numbers are increasing at present.

JCX BXC

kippy wrote: »

What public? What are they growing skeptical of?
For Christ sake the staff in there are under serious pressure, ptsd is on the cards for some no doubt in future. Whatever is needed to keep numbers down is required at this point.
The situation is dire.

The public are growing skeptical as to the whole lockdown strategy, and mistruths will not help this. Just because there is "serious pressure" does not mean you can mislead people. Not the biggest issue but you can brush it under the table with *whatever is needed*. Lies are never needed.

Some may even call it spreading unnecessary fear.

kippy

JCX BXC wrote: »

The public are growing skeptical as to the whole lockdown strategy, and mistruths will not help this. Just because there is "serious pressure" does not mean you can mislead people. Not the biggest issue but you can brush it under the table with *whatever is needed*. Lies are never needed.

Some may even call it spreading unnecessary fear.

Restrictions work if restrictions are followed. I think the public know that. Restrictions however have side effects.
ICU and the hospital in Galway are under sever pressure. Unfortunately a percentage of people dont appear to appreciate the implications of this.
Unnecessary fear? Are you serious?