Relaxation of Restrictions, Part III - **Read OP for Mod Warnings**

Way too many people have gotten caught up in the hysterical, overreaction to Covid 19. I was on social media earlier today and I don't know how many utterly moronic posts I read that stated things like "1 life is more important than the economy", "Stay home, save lives", "We're in this together", "Economies recover, dead people do not".

I'm sure these people mean well, but they just don't understand the reality of our situation. A mild disease is the least of our problems right now.

Thousands of people are going to die as a result of this lockdown. Not today, or tomorrow but over the course of the next number of years. The recession we are entering into is going to be costly. And we'll suffer from all the things that a country in recession suffers from.

Unemployment, Suicide, Depression, Addiction, Crime, Homelessness, physical + mental health issues, tax increases, way less funding for everything, people losing their homes, waving goodbye to family at the airport as the young head off to make a living.

People were on this forum in February before the general election and were honestly saying that things in this country couldn't possibly be any worse. They were voting for "change" as anything would be better than what we had. The housing crisis was one of the big issues. I think we can forget about that for awhile now. There won't be funding to build the numbers needed. And we've fallen even further behind in that regard this year.

Lots of people are in for a serious wake up call over the next few years. I think we'll have to look back in a few years and wonder was it really worth F**cking the country to try save a few extra people.

JPCN1

lord quackinton wrote: »

my take is different



tony holohan CMO of the HSE
simon harris - current minister for health
leo vardakar - former minister for health


the government lock down policy is so the health system does not collapse.
our hospitals and state nursing homes are so poorly run and funded we are told we could not have done the Swedish way.
i think the 3 names above are covering their own asses

I don't think funding is the issue, its how its spent. We are in top 15 spend per capita I think.

Ginger n Lemon

LiquidZeb wrote: »

Why do people keep bringing up the fact that there's never been a coronavirus vaccine developed before? The reason is there's never been the need. There was one for SARS being developed but it was scrapped after the virus died out. Stop being so hysterical about the vaccine.

Its a bit more complicated than that Im afraid. And trust me I would love for an effective working vaccine to be safely developed and rolled out. Regardless if in the past there have been multiple vaccine scandals whereby vaccines ended up doing more harm than good.

But as is it looks unlikely (I assume this individual considered Oxford vaccine)

"Scientists fear that it may prove impossible to produce a working coronavirus vaccine and believe the world may have to simply learn to adapt to the permanent threat of COVID-19.

The UK's Chief Medical Officer, Christopher Whitty, told a Parliamentary committee on Friday that there was "concerning" evidence suggesting that it may not be possible to stimulate immunity to the virus."

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-may-be-impossible-to-produce-scientists-covid-2020-4?r=US&IR=T

To caveat, article is 2 weeks old and maybe something has changed.

hmmm

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

To caveat, article is 2 weeks old and maybe something has changed.

He appears to have based this opinion on the news reports of people getting reinfected in South Korea - "He said there was "a little bit of evidence that some people have been reinfected with this having had a previous infection."

This has been thankfully corrected by South Korean scientists in the meantime - they were detecting dead virus cells in their tests.

There's still plenty of hurdles to overcome with a vaccine though, I'll give you that. Antibody-dependent enhancement is the biggest to my non-expert mind, although animal tests have been encouraging as it has not occurred in them. We should know if some of the earlier vaccines work by mid-year, and there are nearly 100 others to follow if they don't.

stephenjmcd

From the guardian:
Denmark, one of the first EU states to start easing its lockdown, said the number of new infections had fallen steadily despite primary schools and some businesses reopening last month, with the country’s R-number, which indicates how many people each carrier of the virus infects, falling to 0.7 from 0.9.

The state epidemiologist, Kare Molbak, said no country had yet seen “an actual second wave”, just a slight increase in R-numbers, adding that with “the knowledge that we have today, I find it very unlikely that we’ll see a second wave”.

Loozer

stephenjmcd wrote: »

From the guardian:
Denmark, one of the first EU states to start easing its lockdown, said the number of new infections had fallen steadily despite primary schools and some businesses reopening last month, with the country’s R-number, which indicates how many people each carrier of the virus infects, falling to 0.7 from 0.9.

The state epidemiologist, Kare Molbak, said no country had yet seen “an actual second wave”, just a slight increase in R-numbers, adding that with “the knowledge that we have today, I find it very unlikely that we’ll see a second wave”.

Trump was right

It's going away

Stark

Deleted User wrote: »

Way too many people have gotten caught up in the hysterical, overreaction to Covid 19. I was on social media earlier today and I don't know how many utterly moronic posts I read that stated things like "1 life is more important than the economy", "Stay home, save lives", "We're in this together", "Economies recover, dead people do not".

https://www.barrons.com/news/angola-police-accidentally-kill-man-in-social-gathering-dispersal-01589288706?tesla=y

"If it saves 1 life, it was worth it. Lots of hugs xoxo hun".

uli84

stephenjmcd wrote: »

From the guardian:
Denmark, one of the first EU states to start easing its lockdown, said the number of new infections had fallen steadily despite primary schools and some businesses reopening last month, with the country’s R-number, which indicates how many people each carrier of the virus infects, falling to 0.7 from 0.9.

The state epidemiologist, Kare Molbak, said no country had yet seen “an actual second wave”, just a slight increase in R-numbers, adding that with “the knowledge that we have today, I find it very unlikely that we’ll see a second wave”.

Excellent, feel so sorry for my kid tho who’s been crying whole day for going back to school. He’s really struggling

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Could you please name another country that went into lockdown in March and still hasnt lifted any restrictions as of today?

As you ll appreciate extending 2km to 5km can not be deemed "lifting restrictions". Although people seem to love to think so.

At the risk of repeating myself, other countries locked down harder and faster than we did.

...and yes, by definition, extending the 2km to 5km is an easing of restrictions. You really can't argue that any other way, try as you might.

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

I like this. This is the sort of thing 80% of posters in this thread would be thinking to themselves today

"But the time has surely come to say enough is enough. We need to get the country back off its knees and back to work, to socialise, to communicate like normal people and, essentially, to get back to living."

I like this. You're plucking figures out of your backside again.

The majority of people in this thread haven't seen a person actively suffering from ARDS. If you had, it might soften your cough (pun intended) about calling it a "mild disease".

There is a subset of posters here who seem treat websites such as business insider and daily mail as primary sources. Absolutely no sign of any critical analysis of real primary sources.

I do believe that the relaxation of restrictions timeline is too long but I actually end up arguing with people who I agree with because they are blathering verbatim what right wing papers are telling them what to think. The people who are against lifting the restrictions are actually more reasonable in their arguments.

Ginger n Lemon

Penfailed wrote: »

I like this. You're plucking figures out of your backside again.

Ahh my forum auditor, I've missed you.

That post had 9 thanks, you could be the 10th.

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Ahh my forum auditor, I've missed you.

Apologies for the delay. I was at work.

Kermit.de.frog

Penfailed wrote: »

I like this. You're plucking figures out of your backside again.

I give the "get back living" two months before the country is shut down again.

We are in a new normal now where I suspect rolling lock downs are the order of the day until a vaccine can be distributed.

The one hope is that they can be more targeted from now on in specific sectors that are problematic so instances don't turn into outbreaks.

It's better to accept the reality than be in denial about it.

Then you react better and plan accordingly.

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

That post had 9 thanks, you could be the 10th.

9 thanks =\= 80%

growleaves

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

I give the "get back living" two months before the country is shut down again.

We are in a new normal now where I suspect rolling lock downs are the order of the day until a vaccine can be distributed.

The one hope is that they can be more targeted from now on in specific sectors that are problematic so instances don't turn into outbreaks.

It's better to accept the reality than be in denial about it.

Then you react better and plan accordingly.

Rolling lockdowns would destroy European societies, so you should plan accordingly for death (and after-death if you are spiritual/religious).

If we come out of lockdown soon and stay out we can survive.

KrustyUCC

107 new cases is a positive sign

Trend in cases is downwards

Hopefully hospital admissions and ICU cases keep going as well

growleaves

growleaves wrote: »

Rolling lockdowns would destroy European societies, so you should plan accordingly for death (and after-death if you are spiritual/religious).

If we come out of lockdown soon and stay out we can survive.

And how do we stay out? If we haven't eliminated community transmission, how do we stop the HSE getting overwhelmed. What happens when there are no ICU beds for operations such as kidney transplants, no CAR-T procedures, no bed spaces available to treat people coming in with heart attacks, life threatening asthma etc. What then?

What the majority of peoplendont seem to realise is that it is not just about COVID patients, it's about the ability of COVID-19 to cause mortality rates of everything else that lands people in hospital to increase.

marno21

The absolute state of this country at the minute. No leadership whatsoever. The Government seems to be totally reliant on the CMO + NPHET for passing them medical advice which gets rubberstamped and served to the country. No sign of any input from economists, the Dept of Finance/PE, psychologists or anyone not involved in the medical sector. Meanwhile the absolute shambles that the testing situation has become with all this focus on 100k tests per week with no emphasis whatsoever on the turnaround in tests which is far more important than testing volume. And the opposition in this country think you can come along and piss another €3bn into the HSE as if money was ever an issue in one of the best funded health services in the world. This is aside also from the fact that the majority of deaths have occured in areas which are supposed to be actively managed centres of care.

The country now has its highest unemployment in history, a country already saddled with €200bn in debt from the last poorly managed shambles. A ridiculous amount of unnecessarily unemployed people at this stage (retail + construction + infrastructure for starters) and the Gardai out around the country enforcing a 5km travel limit which at this stage has no reasonable scientific or medical basis. The N71 from Cork to West Cork has patrols every 20km to stop people going to West Cork and bringing the virus to them yet positive cases turn up on trawlers shortly after they leave the port (https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/call-for-tighter-monitoring-as-trawler-crew-who-landed-in-castletownbere-test-positive-for-covid-19-997775.html)

The long term consequences of the lockdown are now becoming pretty evident, and the actual issues around the virus are becoming clear also. 383 ICU admissions in this country (~1.6%) if you take the case number of 23000 as being serious, when in reality it could be upto 10x more given testing issues, asymptomatic cases, mild cases and tight testing criteria. It's unclear how many of the hospitalised (2998) were in hospital to begin with. The past 6/7 weeks should have seen the country absolutely flat out increasing ICU capacity even in temporary settings to allow the country to increase the ability to deal with the virus surge while not strangling the economy of the country, the economy on which we depend to get the level of healthcare possible to allow a life expectancy of 81.

There badly needs to be someone who can stand up and break through the blind panic and hysteria and target the covid measures towards protecting those who are potentially at risk and get the rest of the country back to normal, especially for those under 45 who are at no risk of severe illness or death. The country cannot afford what's currently going on and the long term consequences of continuing this lunacy will far outweigh a disease which, when managed correctly, has a CFR of ~0.5% and has a median age of death of 82 which is above the life expectancy. The risk to the majority of members of the work force, with the exception of those at risk or are cohabiting with those at risk, is not sufficiently high to warrant the current measures which are causing untold side effects. There is no logic to the blanket lockdown and measures which are destroying our future. Sadly, the political leadership in this country, and indeed in many parts of the western world, is either pathetically small or non existent.

Pitch n Putt

So we’ve done around 258000 tests in total over 8 weeks

We pushing for the magic number of 100000 tests per week

Now we are told we’re close to achieving this 100k tests but now looking like we won’t have the 100000 suspected cases to test which is good news

Mad stuff.

growleaves

Deleted User wrote: »

And how do we stay out?

I don't know but there has to be some sort of compromise. Mass suicide is not the answer. The excess productivity of the world economy feeds 7.8 billion people. That will no longer be possible if the economies of all developed nations are semi-permanently shut down.

Crocked

China is going to test 11 million people in the next 10 days in Wuhan after they picked up 6 new cases. I think the 100k figure is more about having the capacity to do the tests rather than actually doing them at the moment. If we have the capacity to test and turn around large numbers of test it gives more confidence in opening things back up

road_high

uli84 wrote: »

Excellent, feel so sorry for my kid tho who’s been crying whole day for going back to school. He’s really struggling

Sorry to hear this- what is this rubbish i was reading yesterday about schools not being ready to re-open even in September? Plot has been lost here- it's 4 months away ffs.
Time to cut teachers pay and make some savings if this comes to pass- ones working full time online, fair enough. But not all are so we need a robust system of accountability to support this. I'm not into teacher bashing, I don't want to see their pay cut. But if there's an extended period of no work then there's no other option.

marno21

marno21 wrote: »

The absolute state of this country at the minute. No leadership whatsoever. The Government seems to be totally reliant on the CMO + NPHET for passing them medical advice which gets rubberstamped and served to the country. No sign of any input from economists, the Dept of Finance/PE, psychologists or anyone not involved in the medical sector. Meanwhile the absolute shambles that the testing situation has become with all this focus on 100k tests per week with no emphasis whatsoever on the turnaround in tests which is far more important than testing volume. And the opposition in this country think you can come along and piss another €3bn into the HSE as if money was ever an issue in one of the best funded health services in the world. This is aside also from the fact that the majority of deaths have occured in areas which are supposed to be actively managed centres of care.

The country now has its highest unemployment in history, a country already saddled with €200bn in debt from the last poorly managed shambles. A ridiculous amount of unnecessarily unemployed people at this stage (retail + construction + infrastructure for starters) and the Gardai out around the country enforcing a 5km travel limit which at this stage has no reasonable scientific or medical basis. The N71 from Cork to West Cork has patrols every 20km to stop people going to West Cork and bringing the virus to them yet positive cases turn up on trawlers shortly after they leave the port (https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/call-for-tighter-monitoring-as-trawler-crew-who-landed-in-castletownbere-test-positive-for-covid-19-997775.html)

The long term consequences of the lockdown are now becoming pretty evident, and the actual issues around the virus are becoming clear also. 383 ICU admissions in this country (~1.6%) if you take the case number of 23000 as being serious, when in reality it could be upto 10x more given testing issues, asymptomatic cases, mild cases and tight testing criteria. It's unclear how many of the hospitalised (2998) were in hospital to begin with. The past 6/7 weeks should have seen the country absolutely flat out increasing ICU capacity even in temporary settings to allow the country to increase the ability to deal with the virus surge while not strangling the economy of the country, the economy on which we depend to get the level of healthcare possible to allow a life expectancy of 81.

There badly needs to be someone who can stand up and break through the blind panic and hysteria and target the covid measures towards protecting those who are potentially at risk and get the rest of the country back to normal, especially for those under 45 who are at no risk of severe illness or death. The country cannot afford what's currently going on and the long term consequences of continuing this lunacy will far outweigh a disease which, when managed correctly, has a CFR of ~0.5% and has a median age of death of 82 which is above the life expectancy. The risk to the majority of members of the work force, with the exception of those at risk or are cohabiting with those at risk, is not sufficiently high to warrant the current measures which are causing untold side effects. There is no logic to the blanket lockdown and measures which are destroying our future. Sadly, the political leadership in this country, and indeed in many parts of the western world, is either pathetically small or non existent.

Excellent post, good to see others have sense

pjohnson

growleaves wrote: »

Rolling lockdowns would destroy European societies, so you should plan accordingly for death (and after-death if you are spiritual/religious).

If we come out of lockdown soon and stay out we can survive.

Well unless you get a virus thats doing the rounds. You might have heard of it?

pjohnson

marno21 wrote: »

Sadly, the political leadership in this country, and indeed in many parts of the western world, is either pathetically small or non existent.

So is the eastern South Korea/China model to be prefered? That normally led to people crying about "freedom" so cant see that as an option here.

FintanMcluskey

pjohnson wrote: »

Well unless you get a virus thats doing the rounds. You might have heard of it?

The virus thats as dangerous as influenza?

SusieBlue

uli84 wrote: »

Excellent, feel so sorry for my kid tho who’s been crying whole day for going back to school. He’s really struggling

The negative impact this has have been having on our children has been seriously underplayed and neglected.

We have one of the highest instances for only children families & these children have been completely isolated from their peers since mid-March.
Playing with their friends is a core & necessary component of every child’s development, mental health, and learning - not to mention the education they’ve missed out on.
It’s a role parents cannot fill, no matter how badly they might want to help their child.
Children need to be around other children, whether that be friends at school, siblings/cousins or after school activities, and depriving them of this is extremely harsh.

These kids have been completely isolated since mid March and it might be another month before they’re allowed to be among other children again.
Now a number of schools have come out stating they might not be able to reopen in September as their classrooms are too small to incorporate social distancing.

This is absolutely scandalous and unacceptable. These kids are suffering and have sacrificed enough.
I have heard from relatives and friends that their kids have become withdrawn, lethargic and sad these last few weeks. They aren’t themselves.
This might be worth it if it was for the greater good to protect our citizens but that isn’t the case.
With 10 counties reporting 0 new cases one day earlier this week it’s clear that these measures are both overreaching & unnecessary.

Schools have to reopen in September. This can’t go on any longer. I hope your son is feeling better.

_Kaiser_

Looks to me like Tony is trying to pull the same stunt again.. Few days out from the easing of restrictions and here come the "warnings"

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/we-have-more-work-to-do-says-dr-holohan-as-covid-19-deaths-rise-by-24-999124.html

Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said: “We are continuing to examine the progress of the disease and though we are still making progress, which is giving us real encouragement, we need to keep going.

"We still have 70 people in ICU and over 500 people in hospital. We have more work to do.”

He can fook off at this stage. I for one have had enough and will be ignoring any extensions (which is not the same as not still taking sensible precautions) and getting back to some sort of normality.

I doubt I'll be the only one.

growleaves

pjohnson wrote: »

Well unless you get a virus thats doing the rounds. You might have heard of it?

The population of the world was 1 billion in 1804.

That is roughly how many people we can sustain without a functioning world economy, if we are to essentially cancel large significant parts of the modern world