Galway COVID-19, local news and discussion

Mrs OBumble

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

I find it hard to make sense of this.
Do meat factory workers not socialise, go to Dunnes etc? Are households suddenly islands and none of their inhabitants turn up buying groceries or drinking down at the Spannish Arch?

15 people a day means that over the course of a 2 week period there have been 210 people who are contagious.
According to stats the average person now has 6 close contacts at risk of contracting it.
That doesn't leave you with 1 in a million chance of contracting it.

The same Dr also recommended those in at risk categories continue cocooning.

Did you notice, back in March before sneeze guards were installed, that the supermarket staff and bank tellers weren't catching it, despite seeing dozens if not hundreds of people a day?

The scientists are starting to explain that now, eg https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-exactly-do-you-catch-covid-19-there-is-a-growing-consensus-11592317650


Also, meat workers etc may be mainly socialising with each other
They're learning a lot more about how people actually catch it;

inisboffin

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Did you notice, back in March before sneeze guards were installed, that the supermarket staff and bank tellers weren't catching it, despite seeing dozens if not hundreds of people a day?

The scientists are starting to explain that now, eg https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-exactly-do-you-catch-covid-19-there-is-a-growing-consensus-11592317650


Also, meat workers etc may be mainly socialising with each other
They're learning a lot more about how people actually catch it;

This is anecdotal but it's what I have. People who work in shops *are* catching it, but they are then staying home and having mild symptoms in most cases. I won't go into it in more depth here, but there is a lot going on that you will know if you live with someone who works in big shops or a hospital. If you share a house with a nurse or doc you will know a bigger picture too. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist as for a huge amount of people who were positive, they are now recovered and grand, but I completely agree with the theories that it is waaaaay more widespread than we are hearing with 'confirmed cases'. Some are not bothering with tests.

Storm 10

Best friend shares a house with a nurse working in Hospital no problems or caught it. I share house with person working in one of Galways biggest stores no problem not one staff member has picked it up.

Storm 10

Storm 10 wrote: »

Best friend shares a house with a nurse working in Hospital no problems or caught it. I share house with person working in one of Galways biggest stores no problem not one staff member has picked it up.

What evidence do you have that none have caught it? Unless they are doing regular testing then they have no idea who has or has not caught it. People keep it quiet, people don’t have symptoms, people dismiss mild symptoms etc

inisboffin

Storm 10 wrote: »

Best friend shares a house with a nurse working in Hospital no problems or caught it. I share house with person working in one of Galways biggest stores no problem not one staff member has picked it up.

As I said it's anecdotal but
2 x friends live with a doctor who is +, one has it now the other doesn't.
Another house lives with a nurse and all three have it (one didn't test)
Third house 1 x shop worker with it and a house of 5, all think they have it 2 went for tests (including the shop worker) tested pos, the others 'didn't bother'.

LadyMayBelle

I think people are forgetting the asymptomatic cases.

Also, ex Supermacs staff here too.. I've some stories 🙈

I know one person who is recovering, young fit and never sick a day in their life. Family never saw them so unwell to the point their partner genuinely feared for their safety and was going to call an ambulance. Their case was considered 'mild' as never actually admitted to hospital. They still aren't right, having caught it in late March. They were vigilant and reckon it was the supermarket they picked it up, as were adhering strictly to guidance. A family member of mine has also tested positive and is convinced it was a supermarket case also, having been no where else.. anecdotal, maybe but why take chances? We have been and will continue to wear masks and wipe groceries for the forseeable. It's not that hard, a hassle initially but now it's not too bad, and if feeling lazy, will leave some bits in the hall for the few days if they don't need refrigeration etc. I'm also not sure about that McConkey piece. A few weeks ago in the same news piece he said don't be drinking tea and using cutlery from someone elses house and contradicted himself seconds later.

gordongekko

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

I find it hard to make sense of this.
Do meat factory workers not socialise, go to Dunnes etc? Are households suddenly islands and none of their inhabitants turn up buying groceries or drinking down at the Spannish Arch?

15 people a day means that over the course of a 2 week period there have been 210 people who are contagious.
According to stats the average person now has 6 close contacts at risk of contracting it.
That doesn't leave you with 1 in a million chance of contracting it.

The same Dr also recommended those in at risk categories continue cocooning.

It's a very confusing picture.

This was an interview on the brendan o connor show this morning. It was in the context of opening us shops etc. He meant the chance of contacting it in the community was 1 in a million as most of the contacts are known to each other.

gordongekko

gordongekko wrote: »

This was an interview on the brendan o connor show this morning. It was in the context of opening us shops etc. He meant the chance of contacting it in the community was 1 in a million as most of the contacts are known to each other.

I wouldn’t have much time at all for that sort of statement. The virus is clearly far more prevalent than that and the risk would be much higher.

Mrs OBumble

Fernando Muscular Sibilant wrote: »

I and the risk would be much higher.

Evidence?

Mrs OBumble

?Cee?view wrote: »

It would be great if now the opportunity was taken to kill of these areas as drinking spots. This whole thing around the Spanish Arch and Claddagh Basin area has only really developed in the last 20 to 25 or so years. Start enforcing the laws, fine and move on those drinking outside and reclaim the area.

Reclaim it for what?

smurf492

What else do you think goes on there..
The place is littered with dirty needles


Reclaim it for the wildlife
.. Seriously how much wildlife is down there year round. Only recently swans have died there

biko

https://galwaybayfm.ie/galway-bay-fm-news-desk/2-more-deaths-from-covid-19-and-22-new-confirmed-cases/

As of midnight Friday 19 June the HPSC has been notified of 22 confirmed cases of COVID-19. There is now a total of 25,374** confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Ireland.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, said; “Of the 22 confirmed cases we are reporting to you today, 9 of these were diagnosed in people under the age of 35.

It is important for us all to remember that COVID-19 is a disease that can affect everyone, of any age or background.

gordongekko

Fernando Muscular Sibilant wrote: »

I wouldn’t have much time at all for that sort of statement. The virus is clearly far more prevalent than that and the risk would be much higher.

I hope most people would be inclined to listen to the qualified professional and ignore your unqualified advice ?

Storm 10

Thank God no deaths today and only six new cases hopefully this is a turning point

Unfortunately weekend figures can’t be read into too much as they aren’t as accurate or up to date over the weekend.

Things going the wrong way in Germany, R0 increasing to almost 3. Considering they had been one of the best countries to contain it prior to opening up this is not a good sign for what will happen here and elsewhere with relaxed restrictions. Fingers crossed its just big clusters but maybe this should be a sign for us to halt/slow down the easing of restrictions.

Storm 10

Two more deaths from Covid-19, four additional cases , still going the right way please God it wiil soon end
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0622/1148895-ireland-covid-19/

Arghus

Fernando Muscular Sibilant wrote: »

Things going the wrong way in Germany, R0 increasing to almost 3. Considering they had been one of the best countries to contain it prior to opening up this is not a good sign for what will happen here and elsewhere with relaxed restrictions. Fingers crossed its just big clusters but maybe this should be a sign for us to halt/slow down the easing of restrictions.

I think generally speaking the R rate has been increasing due to clusters in meat factories and if you have relatively low numbers of the virus then it doesn't take much for the the R rate to increase dramatically in relative terms. It appears dramatic at first glance, but once you look a bit deeper you realise it's not as dire a situation as it first appears. The R rate is still low in the general population.

ben.schlomo

Fernando Muscular Sibilant wrote: »

Things going the wrong way in Germany, R0 increasing to almost 3. Considering they had been one of the best countries to contain it prior to opening up this is not a good sign for what will happen here and elsewhere with relaxed restrictions. Fingers crossed its just big clusters but maybe this should be a sign for us to halt/slow down the easing of restrictions.

Blindly ignoring the facts of why it increased.

Wompa1

Fernando Muscular Sibilant wrote: »

Unfortunately weekend figures can’t be read into too much as they aren’t as accurate or up to date over the weekend.

True for the count of deaths. Not so much for new cases.

They have readjusted the case count three times though. Not because of a weekend count issue though. Twice when there was a backlog weeks ago. The other time due to a delay. Galway has had 0 new cases in 8 days as of this post.

Wompa1

ben.schlomo wrote: »

Blindly ignoring the facts of why it increased.

True and we can expect the same. The experts there even warned of short term spikes in the R number when lifting restrictions. When the count of new cases is low and there's a large cluster, the R will spike. The only people passing it on, are passing it onto others in the cluster.

flazio

Wompa1 wrote: »

True for the count of deaths. Not so much for new cases.

They have readjusted the case count three times though. Not because of a weekend count issue though. Twice when there was a backlog weeks ago. The other time due to a delay. Galway has had 0 new cases in 8 days as of this post.

Make that 9 days now.

Wompa1

flazio wrote: »

Make that 9 days now.

And the national average over the last 7 days is now 11 cases. Great going by everyone.

Dublin technically has no new cases today. They revised 29 of the cases. Looks like most were actually coming from Kildare and Wicklow. It has been suggested 8 of the 10 today were added in retrospectively so may only be 2 actual new cases for today.

gordongekko

flazio wrote: »

Make that 9 days now.

The BLM event in Eyre Square and the heatwave crowd in salthill look like they had no negative effect on the numbers

beardybrewer

All the more reason for them to believe all this was overblown while proving otherwise in the US with their premature openings and mixed messages.

I've a feeling those who take more risks here just may well get away with it and have a great summer while those with reason to take less risks will feel awfully deprived and grumpy over an unnecessary sacrifice. It could very well be the risk-takers will be proven right and have a great time... but equally possible it returns in an outbreak and suddenly one person gets load of complacent folk sick.

When we think we have it right the situation changes plus you must consider everything in a very localised manner requiring an impossible amount of vigilance to stay on top of your particular situation. Not knowing what is correct at the moment and with no end in sight it is a very demoralising situation.

flazio

I think both approaches are equally right at different times for different people.
The "I told you so" attitude needs to go.

Wompa1

Wompa1 wrote: »

True and we can expect the same. The experts there even warned of short term spikes in the R number when lifting restrictions. When the count of new cases is low and there's a large cluster, the R will spike. The only people passing it on, are passing it onto others in the cluster.

They clusters aren’t living in isolated islands they interact with others, they shop, they have kids etc.

_Whimsical_

I was talking to someone today who works in the hospital.
She was saying they've had quite a few patients over the course of the pandemic who have had false negatives but went onto follow illness trajectory that's very distinct covid. However these patients were not recorded as official Covid cases due to the test being negative.
Recently there has been issues with false negatives in the testing used here.

It would tally with what I've read about the nurse who ended up in ICU here after treating a patient who had a false negative test and wasn't initially deemed high risk. Could explain why we have an exceptionally high level of medical staff who have become ill too. 60% of whom are not classifying themselves as having recovered.

Also makes sense of the numbers given by UCHG last week when they said they had 7 Covid cases and 11 suspected Covid cases but we never saw a bump in the Galway figures reflecting that.


Re false negatives research by John Hopkins University recently released a study into it and the summary is

Researchers have found that the chance of a false negative result -- when a virus is not detected in a person who actually is, or recently has been, infected -- is greater than 1 in 5 and, at times, far higher.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/doctors-condemn-secrecy-over-false-negative-covid-19-tests

Recent research published in the British Medical Journal found that between 2% and 29% of Covid-19 tests produced false negatives. The number of “true positive” results from nasal swabs was as low as 63% and from throat swabs just 32%, the lead author, Dr Jessica Watson, reported.

gordongekko

Having seen how far back in the nasal passage the swab has to go im not surprised to hear those sort of stats. A natural reaction would be to pull back when someone is pushing the swab that far back and then reducing the accuracy of the result. Hopefully a more accurate system is discovered quickly. Blood or urine would be a better system if they can discover someway of using it.

blueshark2

No new cases in Galway for 10 days now.