Off Topic Thread 5.0

thomond2006

Are we sure he's retiring? He can always come back after 2020.

irishbucsfan

He’s taken a year out before hasn’t he?

Bazzo

Ah it's hardly the end for Dublin at all. They could still nearly field two inter county teams competing for all Irelands. They'll still be the dominant force for the foreseeable.

Granny15

Granny15 wrote: »

Your views while naive are not thought out enough. Religion teaches us that there is an inherent good and evil in all of us and inside and outside the known universe. What your babbling doesn’t consider is how far that good should go? Should it cause you punish another out of love for them or on the other hand to die for them. Christianity teaches us to give up our life out of love for another and humanity not just one segment like a nation. What you got right was the part that you want good for everyone. What you didn’t consider in your ramblings in that tiny mind of yours was what if that desire comes into conflict with your own selfish interests. There is a God and he is greater than all of us combined. We are not pointless atoms wandering around with no purpose. We think we have purpose but often that is just selfish desires. You have them I have them. What religion does is give us that impetus to sacrifice ourselves out of love for another when our instinct is towards self preservation.

And you above all people espousing socialism is if not hypocritical just slightly ironic.

Squidgy Black

Buer wrote: »

Jack McCaffrey walking away from intercounty football at 26.

Alas, I believe the writing is on the wall for this Dublin team which it probably was in fairness the day that Gavin resigned.

He's only stepping away from the panel for 2020, I wouldn't say he's walking away from intercounty football at all. He did something similar back in 2016 to go travelling.

He's a doctor down in St Luke's in Kilkenny, and he's living down there too so it's been a massive commitment for him to get up and down for training so I'm not totally surprised he's decided to put it on the back burner for a year or two.

Buer

thomond2006 wrote: »

Are we sure he's retiring? He can always come back after 2020.

He's gone for this season but the article breaking the news claims it's likely to be for good.

Buer

Bazzo wrote: »

Ah it's hardly the end for Dublin at all. They could still nearly field two inter county teams competing for all Irelands. They'll still be the dominant force for the foreseeable.

Not the end of Dublin but the end of the dominance. McCaffrey has probably been the best footballer in the country over the past 7 years. Without him, they wouldn't have the 5 in a row undoubtedly.

But the departure of Gavin was the biggest one of all especially as it was more than just him.

The age profile is generally ok but there are a number of key players who are getting on. They've a real problem on the horizon in defence. The players simply aren't coming through in the same numbers and quality. McMahon, Cooper, O'Sullivan, McCarthy and Fitzsimons are all over 30 now.

The showings in the league were far less coherent and more uneven than previous campaigns. There's obviously a bedding in process with a new coaching team but the loss of senior players is going to be hard to overcome in tandem with the off field changes.

They'll continue to win silverware in coming seasons but this team specifically are coming to an end now.

Buer

Squidgy Black wrote: »

He's only stepping away from the panel for 2020, I wouldn't say he's walking away from intercounty football at all. He did something similar back in 2016 to go travelling.

He's a doctor down in St Luke's in Kilkenny, and he's living down there too so it's been a massive commitment for him to get up and down for training so I'm not totally surprised he's decided to put it on the back burner for a year or two.

As mentioned, the article breaking the news suggests it is potentially permanent and also unrelated to his work.

"The Sunday Independent understands that McCaffrey’s decision is not related to the current coronavirus pandemic and his work on the frontline, as a medical doctor, but rather a desire to take a break from the inter-county game.

There are strong indications that this decision may see McCaffrey effectively retire from inter-county football and focus on his club Clontarf."

Having listened to interviews with him, he's someone that appears to know there's far more to life than football and is very pragmatic. I would not be surprised to see this as permanent at all. Very little left for him to achieve; he has won everything to be won at intercounty level.

swiwi_

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I believe that a person can be both Swiss, and a Kiwi at exactly the same time!

I might just have to follow that religion.

swiwi_

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I believe that a person can be both Swiss, and a Kiwi at exactly the same time!

I might just have to follow that religion.

Tomtom364

mfceiling wrote: »

I presume you have proof of this?

It is known

swiwi_

Currently in Sorrento on the Amalfi coast. I’m gonna invent a game for the Xbox or the PS where you have to drive along the coast without hitting or getting hit by a Vespa. Should be a pretty challenging game.

Yeah_Right

swiwi_ wrote: »

Currently in Sorrento on the Amalfi coast. I’m gonna invent a game for the Xbox or the PS where you have to drive along the coast without hitting or getting hit by a Vespa. Should be a pretty challenging game.

Drove from Sorrento to Amalfi a couple of years ago. The most harrowing drive I've ever done.

Yeah_Right

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Drove from Sorrento to Amalfi a couple of years ago. The most harrowing drive I've ever done.

Ha - it really is. Taking the bus is scarier again.

Pretty alarming seeing the Greater Leicester area back into a strict lockdown. Surely this suggests the increased easing speed was a mistake?

Neil3030

I'm increasingly convinced that the virus was in every European country before the end of 2019. We will know for sure in the coming months, as more accurate retrospective models get put together.

I say this optimistically, however. European countries began locking down in early March. This means the virus potentially had a clean run of over two months to spread unabated. The resulting death toll was gruesome, and in some places beyond comprehension. However we simply know too much now to ever again give the virus that much of a head start.

For e.g., take this fascinating story of rival German academics spatting over whether the virus could spread asymptomatically, as late as mid February. Even the WHO questioned the significance of asymptomatic spread on February 27th.

Fast forward to now, late June, and nobody even questions the danger of asymptomatic spread. And while we have loosened restrictions greatly since late March, think of how different things are now to how they were in January. Are you thinking twice about grabbing door handles outside your house? Would you use the salt shaker in a restaurant? Are you even eating out as often? How comfortable would you feel in a room packed with people, and all the windows closed? Do you wash your hands as soon as you get into the house? We probably didn't think about these things for a second, only six months ago, which shows how subtly but significantly we've altered our behaviour from our experience with the virus.

And however we, the public, have altered our behaviour, think about what drastic changes that have been implemented in healthcare settings. Do you think a doctor will dismiss a fever and cough as "probably flu" if the patient hasn't been to China or Italy recently? This was happening as late as early March in some places.

There will be a second wave, it's particularly unavoidable as we start traveling again. But we are in a very different state now, even if things are starting to look like they once were, and I'm confident the return of Covid will be nowhere near as bad as its first impression.

Podge_irl

Deleted User wrote: »

Pretty alarming seeing the Greater Leicester area back into a strict lockdown. Surely this suggests the increased easing speed was a mistake?

It suggest that they have handled everything like complete **** from the start and utterly failed to get proper buy in from the population. My anecdotal understanding from the UK is that you have a massive group of people who think that they should just go back to normal and everything is fine, and another group who think that if you accidentally walk within 2m of someone for 2 seconds it is the end of the world. And neither is healthy.

Neither the UK or Ireland are easing restrictions at a particularly fast pace compared to the continent. Switzerland had one of the highest rates of infection globally back in March, yet is now pretty much back normal outside of most office workers working from home. All without ever even locking down as severely as other countries. And cases have only barely increased since restrictions eased. There may be some outbreaks in future and restrictions may come back but ultimately good communication, buy-in from the population and sensible approaches have seen things ease off. The UK's problem is not that they are easing too soon, its that they have been completely incompetent in their messaging from the get go and have done no stage of this properly.

I'm not convinced it was here since 2019, unless we learn in the future that people can be asymptomatic for a much longer time. Surely we'd have the specific covid symptoms appearing in January and February.

Neil3030

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'm not convinced it was here since 2019, unless we learn in the future that people can be asymptomatic for a much longer time. Surely we'd have the specific covid symptoms appearing in January and February.

Hiding in plain sight. 95% of Covid tests in Ireland come back negative, which shows the strong overlap between its symptoms and those of other conditions like flu. And early on, people thought travel to China was necessary to get Covid.

molloyjh

Neil3030 wrote: »

Hiding in plain sight. 95% of Covid tests in Ireland come back negative, which shows the strong overlap between its symptoms and those of other conditions like flu. And early on, people thought travel to China was necessary to get Covid.

For me you have to follow the maths. We saw a small number of confirmed cases & deaths in early March, which from there grew at an expected rate. Had we the virus in country months ahead of that we would have seen a big jump in cases and deaths early on that didn't fit with the ongoing increases thereafter, because we would have been identifying cases that we had been missing in the previous couple of months.

Given its speed of infection & its mortality rate I can understand is missing it over the course of a month or so. But over the course of 2-3 months? It would need to have been bubbling away beneath the surface for a long time before suddenly exploding in March. I just can't see how that fits with what we know about it.

Bridge93

Did it not mutate around February? I thought I heard that the initial virus to break from a China wasn’t as vicious in those who showed symptoms. It mutated supposedly in early February and became the killer it was. A weaker version could well have been around and almost indistinguishable from the flu which was pretty bad this year

irishbucsfan

There’s definitely a case in Paris from December which was initially thought to be pneumonia but as since been retested and confirmed as coronavirus. Not hard to believe it was elsewhere, it’ll be almost impossible to ever know for sure

Former Former

molloyjh wrote: »

For me you have to follow the maths. We saw a small number of confirmed cases & deaths in early March, which from there grew at an expected rate. Had we the virus in country months ahead of that we would have seen a big jump in cases and deaths early on that didn't fit with the ongoing increases thereafter, because we would have been identifying cases that we had been missing in the previous couple of months.

Given its speed of infection & its mortality rate I can understand is missing it over the course of a month or so. But over the course of 2-3 months? It would need to have been bubbling away beneath the surface for a long time before suddenly exploding in March. I just can't see how that fits with what we know about it.

I dunno. Most people who develop a cough and fever in January would just shrug and say it's a chest infection, it's the flu... Your GP, if you went, would probably say the same. There could easily have been missed cases.

Even after lockdown began, to get tested, you had to have symptoms AND have either travelled to Italy, Iran or China or close contact with someone who had. We weren't even considering community transmission at that point but it absolutely was going on.

But once we had a confirmed case, suddenly everyone with a sniffle wanted to be tested. So the detection rate shot up much faster than the actual number of infections.

We'll probably never know when it first arrived here but I'll bet it was much earlier than the first official case.

molloyjh

Former Former wrote: »

I dunno. Most people who develop a cough and fever in January would just shrug and say it's a chest infection, it's the flu... Your GP, if you went, would probably say the same. There could easily have been missed cases.

Even after lockdown began, to get tested, you had to have symptoms AND have either travelled to Italy, Iran or China or close contact with someone who had. We weren't even considering community transmission at that point but it absolutely was going on.

But once we had a confirmed case, suddenly everyone with a sniffle wanted to be tested. So the detection rate shot up much faster than the actual number of infections.

We'll probably never know when it first arrived here but I'll bet it was much earlier than the first official case.

And that all makes sense for the cases. It doesn't for the deaths. If we were suddenly aware of this new deadly virus 3 months after it landed then surely we would have started seeing larger numbers of deaths much earlier. By mid March we only had 2 confirmed deaths. If Covid was here for 3 months at that stage and we were ramping up our testing efforts, then why so few deaths? It took until 26th March for deaths to hit double figures, at which point we had confirmed over 1,800 cases & performed thousands of tests. If C19 was here for months then surely there would have been more deaths from it in March than we actually saw?

Podge_irl

I don't doubt we may have had coronavirus in Ireland prior to our first announced case but if it was in anyway widespread there would have been a surge in incidences of viral pneumonia in December / January. I think when ICU's started taking on the more severe cases the medical community would have been on alert quite quickly so I don't buy into any notion that this was harmlessly proliferating in the population whilst we all merrily got on with things.

I think it's likely that the virus began trickling into Ireland between late December and January and by February had significant community spread.

Podge_irl wrote: »

It suggest that they have handled everything like complete **** from the start and utterly failed to get proper buy in from the population. My anecdotal understanding from the UK is that you have a massive group of people who think that they should just go back to normal and everything is fine, and another group who think that if you accidentally walk within 2m of someone for 2 seconds it is the end of the world. And neither is healthy.

It's pretty clear that the UK Government started off with the intention of downplaying the seriousness of the virus to keep business open, and when that began to blow up in their faces they started pushing pseudo-scientific idea's of rushing for herd immunity as again - their priorities were not based in public health.

They've subsequently eroded public trust with poor and mixed messaging, the Cumming's scandal, obfuscation and lies over testing and a lack of a clear plan for reopening.

Given the complete absence of political leadership of course many people are dismissing the ongoing risk and no doubt there are others who can see this playing out quite badly and are maintaining heightened vigilance. The virus response has been politicised now in the UK and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle. It's going to be extremely hard for them to keep compliance during further spikes or a second exponential rise in cases.

Even the US republican's now are acknowledging a need for a more coordinated response with all of the parties leadership (bar Trump) coming out to support the use of face masks in the last few days. Things must be pretty bad if Dick Cheney is recording public health messages.

Former Former

molloyjh wrote: »

And that all makes sense for the cases. It doesn't for the deaths. If we were suddenly aware of this new deadly virus 3 months after it landed then surely we would have started seeing larger numbers of deaths much earlier. By mid March we only had 2 confirmed deaths. If Covid was here for 3 months at that stage and we were ramping up our testing efforts, then why so few deaths? It took until 26th March for deaths to hit double figures, at which point we had confirmed over 1,800 cases & performed thousands of tests. If C19 was here for months then surely there would have been more deaths from it in March than we actually saw?

Yeah it's a fair point. But I guess a small number of deaths could easily have been masked by the usual number of flu and pneumonia deaths that happen every year. An old person dying of pneumonia wouldn't trigger much of an investigation.

Former Former

Former Former wrote: »

Yeah it's a fair point. But I guess a small number of deaths could easily have been masked by the usual number of flu and pneumonia deaths that happen every year. An old person dying of pneumonia wouldn't trigger much of an investigation.

If there is any uncertainty around cause of death there will usually be an autopsy and the resulting samples would have been scrutinised. Even without an autopsy we do continually look for new viruses as a matter of protocol so a severe chest infection resulting in death would likely have been investigated.

Regardless, had we not locked down when we did - the seasonal death rate would have absolutely taken off - the timing adds up for a slow proliferation from December / January and a peak in March / April.

Former Former

Former Former wrote: »

Yeah it's a fair point. But I guess a small number of deaths could easily have been masked by the usual number of flu and pneumonia deaths that happen every year. An old person dying of pneumonia wouldn't trigger much of an investigation.

I recall these points being made elsewhere as we had slightly more deaths than usual during the flu season. I'd have to double check the numbers but I recall they returned to normal before sky rocketing when covid became a thing. The trend of unusually large flu season deaths would have continued if it was covid that caused that spike.

irishbucsfan

It’s an absolute fact that Covid was in Europe in December.

The question is simply whether it mutated to become more contagious or more severe by the time it broke out in Italy.

swiwi_

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I don't doubt we may have had coronavirus in Ireland prior to our first announced case but if it was in anyway widespread there would have been a surge in incidences of viral pneumonia in December / January. I think when ICU's started taking on the more severe cases the medical community would have been on alert quite quickly so I don't buy into any notion that this was harmlessly proliferating in the population whilst we all merrily got on with things.

I think it's likely that the virus began trickling into Ireland between late December and January and by February had significant community spread.



It's pretty clear that the UK Government started off with the intention of downplaying the seriousness of the virus to keep business open, and when that began to blow up in their faces they started pushing pseudo-scientific idea's of rushing for herd immunity as again - their priorities were not based in public health.

They've subsequently eroded public trust with poor and mixed messaging, the Cumming's scandal, obfuscation and lies over testing and a lack of a clear plan for reopening.

Given the complete absence of political leadership of course many people are dismissing the ongoing risk and no doubt there are others who can see this playing out quite badly and are maintaining heightened vigilance. The virus response has been politicised now in the UK and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle. It's going to be extremely hard for them to keep compliance during further spikes or a second exponential rise in cases.

Even the US republican's now are acknowledging a need for a more coordinated response with all of the parties leadership (bar Trump) coming out to support the use of face masks in the last few days. Things must be pretty bad if Dick Cheney is recording public health messages.

Obfuscation. Have a like