Galway COVID-19, local news and discussion

Mrs OBumble

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 general public.

The PR strategy seems be to put out press releases saying Galway's numbers were going up, when it was the hospitalised numbers that were going up, while overall rates had started going down. Presumably they though we were too dumb to notice the difference. But we aren't. It looks like an outright lie to most people, and only the smarter ones will work out that there is actually a point.

Lies won't help.

kippy

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

The general public.

The PR strategy seems be to put out press releases saying Galway's numbers were going up, when it was the hospitalised numbers that were going up, while overall rates had started going down. Presumably they though we were too dumb to notice the difference. But we aren't. It looks like an outright lie to most people, and only the smarter ones will work out that there is actually a point.

Lies won't help.

The end result is the same. People sit up and notice. Either way.
There are still plenty people out there not taking notice.

ben.schlomo

kippy wrote: »

The end result is the same. People sit up and notice. Either way.
There are still plenty people out there not taking notice.

And stuff like that will help them?

irishgrover

I would assume the galway hospital numbers are hight in no spall part to the spike in North mayo?

amandstu

ben.schlomo wrote: »

And stuff like that will help them?

I thought that was probably a baddish mistake but not badly intentioned.

I was trying to figure out how Galway was apparently doing so relatively (in relation to the country as a whole) badly and came to the conclusion that
(a) it was not recovering as quickly as elsewhere and
(b) the situation in the hospitals was getting badly worse.

Maybe someone conflated those two messages in a slack way.....?

grbear

For what it's worth, the website showing Covid infections in each electoral area now has the figures up as far as the week ending the 18th of January. Compared to the week ending the 11th of January there are multiple areas in Galway where things were worse than a week earlier.

Tuam went from a 14 day incidence rate of 560 on 04/01 to 1300 on 11/01 to 1500 on 18/01 which seems the worst hit area.

Galway City Central and East got marginally worse and so did Athenry-Oranmore.
So the three areas Dr. Smyth mentioned in that Irish Independent article had all gotten worse in the week before she gave that interview.

amandstu

grbear wrote: »

For what it's worth, the website showing Covid infections in each electoral area now has the figures up as far as the week ending the 18th of January. Compared to the week ending the 11th of January there are multiple areas in Galway where things were worse than a week earlier.

Tuam went from a 14 day incidence rate of 560 on 04/01 to 1300 on 11/01 to 1500 on 18/01 which seems the worst hit area.

Galway City Central and East got marginally worse and so did Athenry-Oranmore.
So the three areas Dr. Smyth mentioned in that Irish Independent article had all gotten worse in the week before she gave that interview.

Have you the link for that website?

grbear

https://covid19ireland-geohive.hub.arcgis.com/

kippy

ben.schlomo wrote: »

And stuff like that will help them?

Yes - the very fact that we are talking about the numbers in the hospital at the moment is helping highlight the seriousness of the situation.

Mrs OBumble

kippy wrote: »

The end result is the same. People sit up and notice. Either way.
There are still plenty people out there not taking notice.

Some take the wrong sort of notice though, and are swayed towards thoughts that the whole thing is a scam if the see lies being told.

_Whimsical_

Back to the travel issue, Micheal Martin made an interesting/concerning point on the radio this morning. He was asked about the EU meeting on travel and mentioned as an aside that most EU countries just don't have the ability to do genomic sequencing so the reality is that we do not know what variants are in Europe, or even if the EU is spawning it's own variants. Sequencing facilities are woefully inadequate even in countries like Germany, they're just not squencing.

kippy

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Some take the wrong sort of notice though, and are swayed towards thoughts that the whole thing is a scam if the see lies being told.

Of course....this is the thing. Not everyone interprets the message in the ssme way or indeed gets the message at all.
So you literally cannot win.

Sconsey

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

The general public.

The PR strategy seems be to put out press releases saying Galway's numbers were going up, when it was the hospitalised numbers that were going up, while overall rates had started going down. Presumably they though we were too dumb to notice the difference. But we aren't. It looks like an outright lie to most people, and only the smarter ones will work out that there is actually a point.

Lies won't help.

Did you actually read what the doctor is quoted as saying? she was referring to the 14 day rolling average figure which was rising every day up to the day of her quote. So for you to imply she is liar is a bit stupid. The sh1te in that article that the Indo made out of it a different story but to imply the expert is a liar for saying the rate is growing when it was at the time of her quote is ridiculous.

JCX BXC

Sconsey wrote: »

Did you actually read what the doctor is quoted as saying? she was referring to the 14 day rolling average figure which was rising every day up to the day of her quote. So for you to imply she is liar is a bit stupid. The sh1te in that article that the Indo made out of it a different story but to imply the expert is a liar for saying the rate is growing when it was at the time of her quote is ridiculous.

This is the quote from her from your post 4 days ago -"Galway is one of few counties where case numbers continue to grow; the 14-day incidence rate is now 1,082 per 100,000. " Which was posted 5 days ago.

The rate had peaked at just below 1,100 a few days previous to this and had clearly plateaued at the least. It was clearly not continuing to grow, at best this is a misstatement.

I don't have the largest issue with this statement, perhaps it's simply poorly written and thought through with no real thought as to its message other than instilling the seriousness of this situation. However, it did have the obvious implication of being further sensationalised by the media into a proper falsehood.

RTE news : 'Rapid increase' in Covid-19 cases in Galway area

http://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2021/0119/1190808-galway-covid/


This article would make one think the situation in Galway is significantly worse than the national situation. It is worse than the first wave yes granted, but the singling out of Galway, a county which has maintained an incidence rate below the national rate for this entire third wave, as having a rapid increase, is purely fear mongering.

I'm not sure there's much else to be said on the issue, so I'll probably bow out now.

grbear

85 new cases in Galway. 14 day incidence rate is now 892 compared to the national rate of 840.7.

Storm 10

Galway is 9th highest now in the Country definitely coming down TG

Mrs OBumble

For all you quarantine fans: New Zealand's most recent community transmission has been announced. This person travelled from Europe, spent 14 days in a quarantine hotel, tested negative twice while there, and then tested positive 10 days after leaving quarantine.

So either caught it while in quarantine (and ya know, the staff working there were exposed too) - or the incubation period can be a lot longer than previously thought.

Quarantine may help, but it's only a small part of the solution. Quitting visiting each other's houses will make more difference.

Pulsating Star

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

For all you quarantine fans: New Zealand's most recent community transmission has been announced. This person travelled from Europe, spent 14 days in a quarantine hotel, tested negative twice while there, and then tested positive 10 days after leaving quarantine.

So either caught it while in quarantine (and ya know, the staff working there were exposed too) - or the incubation period can be a lot longer than previously thought.

Quarantine may help, but it's only a small part of the solution. Quitting visiting each other's houses will make more difference.

The reason that one case stands out so much....

Is because of the success of their quarantine system.

Maintain that focus on the 1% lads, don't worry about the 99% of cases caused by the people already here

Party-goers in Galway hit with Covid fines

https://connachttribune.ie/party-goers-in-galway-hit-with-covid-fines/

Galway’s most senior Garda has issued a renewed appeal this week for young people to desist from organising or attending any house parties as the local Covid-19 situation worsens – last week Gardaí were called to break up a number of gatherings in different parts of the city.

A total of 15 people were found to be attending one house party in the Salthill area last weekend while Gardaí were called to two other smaller gatherings – one in the Doughiska area and the other in Rahoon.

Cautions and Fixed Payment Notices (fines) were issued to a number of those involved. This week, Chief Superintendent Tom Curley has pleaded with young people ‘to stay away at all costs’ from such gatherings.

We have very high Covid incidence rates in the Galway area over the past week; death rates from the disease are at their highest ever level; and the last thing we need now is groups of people coming together in confined settings.

“If one person has Covid at such a gathering then, in all probability, most others there will pick it up too and spread it their contacts and family members. I am pleading for people just not to do this.

“We are entering into our most critical period in trying to contain the spread of Covid-19, with the next month or so absolutely vital in our efforts to keep everyone healthy and safe and to try and avoid further loss of life,” he said.

kippy

Deleted User wrote: »

Maintain that focus on the 1% lads, don't worry about the 99% of cases caused by the people already here

Yeah, in fairness the time for locking down (Like really doing it, with proper quarentine) all but essential travel was last February but the general population would never have accepted it as a part of solving this problem back then.

While it's too late at this point, its still something that should be implemented however.
There are plenty countries enforcing mandatory hotel stays (and testing) for travellers currently.

kippy

kippy wrote: »

Yeah, in fairness the time for locking down (Like really doing it, with proper quarentine) all but essential travel was last February but the general population would never have accepted it as a part of solving this problem back then.

While it's too late at this point, its still something that should be implemented however.
There are plenty countries enforcing mandatory hotel stays (and testing) for travellers currently.

Totally, however, in the context of this country, while loads have been shouting about closing the airports/enforced quarentine etc, none of those are able to offer even a morsel of a suggestion as to what to do about the border to the North.

In fact, its so far from being a possibility of closing the border to the north that they (Irish & British govt's) are now looking at the possibility of lumping both islands together as even the British govt don't think they can close access to NI with the DUP being the major issue.

Given that one of the new variants is coming out of the UK, its seems farcical in the extreme to consider the above as an option, but if you want to do security theater then this is how you do it so the masses are appeased but in the grand scheme of things its no better than doing nothing.

what_traffic

irishgrover wrote: »

I would assume the galway hospital numbers are hight in no spall part to the spike in North mayo?

Related to this observation.
Does anybody know if the Galway Central LEA stats are affected by this?
UHG is in the Galway Central LEA.
So for Secondary infections of people who were already in UHG non Covid- and then picking up infection while in the hospital itself.
Do they record it based on then where that person hails from or is it included in the Galway Central LEA?

saabsaab

what_traffic wrote: »

Related to this observation.
Does anybody know if the Galway Central LEA stats are affected by this?
UHG is in the Galway Central LEA.
So for Secondary infections of people who were already in UHG non Covid- and then picking up infection while in the hospital itself.
Do they record it based on then where that person hails from or is it included in the Galway Central LEA?

Good question. I'd say it's recorded under Galway C. no matter where they came from.

Mrs OBumble

saabsaab wrote: »

Good question. I'd say it's recorded under Galway C. no matter where they came from.

I'd expect it to be recorded under their usual residential address - otherwise any rate based statistics would be meaningless.

what_traffic

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I'd expect it to be recorded under their usual residential address - otherwise any rate based statistics would be meaningless.

But if its where they picked up the disease, is that not more important to know?Talking about Secondary infections within a hospital itself.

pjohnson

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Maintain that focus on the 1% lads, don't worry about the 99% of cases caused by the people already here

Ideally they'd be turfed out of college if they were enrolled.

Unlikely they probably even have a leaving cert however.

saabsaab

pjohnson wrote: »

Ideally they'd be turfed out of college if they were enrolled.

Unlikely they probably even have a leaving cert however.

??

saabsaab

saabsaab wrote: »

??

His comment is in relation to the article I posted, the one about the multiple house parties around the city

pjohnson

[Deleted User] wrote: »

His comment is in relation to the article I posted, the one about the multiple house parties around the city

Bingo.

saabsaab

Saw this



'
Those travelling into the country without a negative PCR test are set to face quarantine under the new rules, with passengers from “high risk areas” such as South Africa and Brazil also likely to be subject to mandatory quarantine.
Similar to other countries, passengers will have to pay for their accommodation in a hotel while they self isolate. The system, which is likely to take some time to operationalise, will be enforced by private security companies, rather than the gardaí.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said over the weekend that the additional restrictions on travel are to act as a deterrent to people who are thinking of travelling for non-essential reasons.
Currently, passengers arriving from any country must have a negative PCR test taken 72 hours before arrival in Ireland. If arriving from red region zones, passengers are advised to take another test five days later, and restrict their movements until the result is Covid-19 not detected.
Ministers will today also discuss whether to impose fines for those found not to be complying with ‘stay-at-home’ public health advice after they land back in Ireland.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said mandatory hotel quarantine may be extended in the future, if it is approved today by the Cabinet’s Covid subcommittee.'