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

stephenjmcd

Latest HSE hospital report issued this morning. Downward hospitalization trend continues thankfully.

As of 8pm last night there were 67 confirmed cases in ICU. 1 death in ICU in the previous 24 hours. Of the 67, 45 are ventilated. There are 20 suspected cases.

Likewise as of 8pm 487 confirmed cases in acute hospitals down from 512 at 8am yesterday morning.

There are as of 8pm 277 suspected cases in acute hospitals and this was 412 at 8am yesteday morning.

Penfailed

Penfailed wrote: »

So you can't say that I have a 'stay at home' approach?

you changed your tune recently...........in fact as soon as you went back to work.
The fear is in the perpetually "locked up" people.

hmmm

iamwhoiam wrote: »

To be honest there was never evidence that they were ,.It was a bit like the toilet roll rush , no one knew who said it first and people ran with it . I have yet to read a medical research on the heightened spread among children yet from day one they were labelled super spreaders .

There was an awful lot of "common sense" types telling us how children were obviously spreading the disease.

Just goes to show how important proper science is and not jumping to conclusions. Hopefully we can back this up with some more evidence, and if we were able to get the creches and primary schools back it would make a huge difference for families. I suspect the secondary schools will be different.

showpony1

iamwhoiam wrote: »

The vast majority I speak to are law abiding sensible people and are not going to comply if the restrictions are not lifted . They are happy to be aware , careful , wear masks , wash hands, socially distance and stay in 5kms but not happy at all to keep a lockdown going .

I do not understand how if everything is still closed and you will stay within 5km how it makes any difference at all if you comply or not? what do you mean by people won't comply?

Ginger n Lemon

Love catching up on this thread. Reading only posts with 5 likes or more, 100% of those are from pro economic brigade.

So, it seems like testing is not the only major issue in the country, our businesses are starving of cash. Below are developments on the 10,000 euro scheme announced on 2nd of May, still nowhere near to be seen:

"One business owner told TheJournal.ie that they were shocked when they called their local authority about the rates rebate only to be told they had no details about how the scheme would be operating.

“Businesses need cash-flow now. Not in a few weeks time,” they said, adding that the headline figure that businesses will get €10,000 is not the case. The rebate is the value of the rates paid last year, with many businesses paying as little as €1,500 in some cases.

“That is all that business will be entitled to. That is hardly enough to keep the lights on in some businesses,” they said, adding that in other countries such as the UK offering cash-flow loans and grants in a matter of days, not weeks."

https://www.thejournal.ie/government-supports-coronavirus-5097424-May2020/

iamwhoiam

showpony1 wrote: »

I do not understand how if everything is still closed and you will stay within 5km how it makes any difference at all if you comply or not? what do you mean by people won't comply?

Meeting people and having more than four in your garden for example

Penfailed

[Deleted User] wrote: »

you changed your tune recently...........in fact as soon as you went back to work.
The fear is in the perpetually "locked up" people.

I haven't changed my tune. I still support the plan laid out by government.

Multipass

So as of tomorrow my 18 year old starts work in a supermarket, and I will be driving 30km twice a day to drop and collect him. Much better than the horrific danger of sitting his leaving cert right?

seamus

hmmm wrote: »

Just goes to show how important proper science is and not jumping to conclusions. Hopefully we can back this up with some more evidence, and if we were able to get the creches and primary schools back it would make a huge difference for families. I suspect the secondary schools will be different.

It is important though to remember not to engage in revisionism. It would be easy at this stage to say that closing the schools was a knee-jerk reaction, isolating grannies from kids was jumping to a conclusion.

But it wasn't. These actions were taken based on the data we had available in the early days;
- Chinese data suggested a role for children in the spread of the virus.
- Similar viruses tended to be spread by children.
- Early blanket testing from the likes of Iceland indicated high levels of asymptomatic infection amongst younger people
- Asymptomatic carriers was indicated to be key source of infection.

Thus it was reasonable at the time to say that children - and the mixing of children - presented a considerable risk for the rest of the population.
We need to be super careful that this doesn't get forgotten so that the BoJos of this world can't claim hysteria or blind panic in the early days caused people to make wrong decisions.

My hope now is that the WHO will push forward with this data to suggest to countries to allow children to mix with other children. For families, that's the hardest part of any lockdown. There are only so many family walks one can go on. If kids can be sent out to creches or childminders, or can even just be allowed run around outside with their mates, there will be a lot of grateful parents in this country.

Ginger n Lemon

Multipass wrote: »

So as of tomorrow my 18 year old starts work in a supermarket, and I will be driving 30km twice a day to drop and collect him. Much better than the horrific danger of sitting his leaving cert right?

The leaving cert fiasco, while for another thread discussion really but it is absolute nonsense.

How can Czech republic allow indoor gatherings of up to 500 people on 25th of May (weddings, churches you name it), while we can't organise final exams for our school pupils by 29th of July?

The leadership from our government is just not there, unfortunately, and group that will suffer is the young generation that is suppose to restore our economy from the mess it is/will be in the matter of months.

Benimar

Multipass wrote: »

So as of tomorrow my 18 year old starts work in a supermarket, and I will be driving 30km twice a day to drop and collect him. Much better than the horrific danger of sitting his leaving cert right?

The Leaving Cert should never have been cancelled. They just gave into the 'he who shouts loudest' gang on that. Some of which will regret it once they see their Predicted Grades.

I support the current plan of lifting restrictions, and have no intention of getting ahead of the timeline, but even within the current roadmap there was no reason to postpone the LC.

hmmm

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Love catching up on this thread. Reading only posts with 5 likes or more, 100% of those are from pro economic brigade.

Do you realise how unhelpful your posts are? We all know there is a major economic impact, that's not the problem.

You're like someone on a lifeboat from the Titanic telling everyone that they shouldn't be in the water.

seamusk84

Be great if they opened cafes and restaurants a bit earlier than end of June. I mean if things keep going the way they are that could be brought forward right?

hmmm

seamus wrote: »

It is important though to remember not to engage in revisionism. It would be easy at this stage to say that closing the schools was a knee-jerk reaction, isolating grannies from kids was jumping to a conclusion.

Fully agree sorry. Closing schools was absolutely the right decision considering the risk from a dangerous virus where we had little idea how it was spreading.

The point I was making that as we know more about the virus, we have to act on the science and not on the "it's common sense that..." opinions. In the case of young kids, a few countries are beginning to decide that the science will allow them to return to school, and this does not spread like influenza. No need for us to rush this, let's see how other countries get on.

KrustyUCC

Could be alright

Hard to see Tony agreeing to it though

Would like to be wrong

Ginger n Lemon

hmmm wrote: »

Do you realise how unhelpful your posts are? We all know there is a major economic impact, that's not the problem.

You're like someone on a lifeboat from the Titanic telling everyone that they shouldn't be in the water.

You are attacking me early today I see.

My posts are very eye opening and add a lot to this thread, look at below

"Michael McDowell: We cannot afford to spend €1 billion a year on single-use PPE
Enormous hole in public finances cannot simply be wished away by borrowing billions.

While it may be trite to point out that it was far easier politically to get us into lockdown than it will be to get out of it, that does not mean that the economic, health and social damage being done by lockdown is sustainable or that ending lockdown as quickly as possible is not a matter of grave urgency."

We need to lift restrictions asap, precisely what this thread is about. And at this stage you need to justify why should continue with the restrictions, not why we should lift them.

seamus

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Meeting people and having more than four in your garden for example

My experience is that for the vast majority at this stage, they're already into phase 1; meeting family and friends in parks and gardens within 5km and maintaining social distancing.

I know this is much to the chagrin of those who are sticking rigidly to the rules, but I have to believe that a natural "feathering" of the rules is built into the plan if those who wrote it understand people at all.

After the June Bank Holiday, assuming the numbers are looking OK, people will start pre-empting phase 2; travelling further than 5km, going to eachother's homes for small periods, playing team sports in small groups, non-essential shops opening for a couple of hours a day.

BIGT4464

seamusk84 wrote: »

Be great if they opened cafes and restaurants a bit earlier than end of June. I mean if things keep going the way they are that could be brought forward right?

They are way too cowardly to do anything of the sort. They wont back down now as they would have to admit the got it wrong before.

Seamai

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

They made the increasingly unpopular decision to shut the country down for an extended period of time.

The fact you don't like the decision being made doesn't make it a non-decision.

I'd imagine the reason for the increasing unpopularity of the decision is that it has dragged on for so long, when my workplace shut on March 18th I genuinely thought I'd be back in two to three weeks and here I am almost two months on.
I wonder if we had a much stricter lock down starting back in mid March, with tighter restrictions on the movement of people within the country and proper quarantine for people coming into to country, fines for those breaking the rules instead of the "now lads don't do that again" attitude (that Traveller's funeral in Cork a few days ago was a joke with over 150 outside the church and zero distancing) would we be further along the road by now with more of the restrictions lifted?

seamus

Benimar wrote: »

The Leaving Cert should never have been cancelled. They just gave into the 'he who shouts loudest' gang on that. Some of which will regret it once they see their Predicted Grades.

I support the current plan of lifting restrictions, and have no intention of getting ahead of the timeline, but even within the current roadmap there was no reason to postpone the LC.

What I'm expecting now is an absolute mess when it comes to CAO time. They are going to hold the 2020 Leaving Cert "when it is safe to do so".

I can see this being some point close to the original date at the end of July. Students who don't get (or don't expect to get) decent predictive grades, will sit the exams. Students who expect to get higher points, won't.

And then we will have a mix of students whose points are based on the prediction, and others based on the actual exam.

The net result will be that average points will be higher than previous years, creating a squeeze on courses. Where places are limited, colleges may then prioritise students who sat the exam over those who didn't. And will probably do so for years to come.

Leaving Cert 2021 will have a staggering volume of repeats, further putting pressure on the CAO system for that year.

I understand why they did it, and I accept that they're doing their best to make a fair grading system, but it was absolutely unnecessary. The roadmap for opening the country, and the amount of time available to plan meant the 2020 exams could easily have gone ahead as planned.

Mike3287

Seamai wrote: »

I'd imagine the reason for the increasing unpopularity of the decision is that it has dragged on for so long, when my workplace shut on March 18th I genuinely thought I'd be back in two to three weeks and here I am almost two months on.
I wonder if we had a much stricter lock down starting back in mid March, with tighter restrictions on the movement of people within the country and proper quarantine for people coming into to country, fines for those breaking the rules instead of the "now lads don't do that again" attitude (that Traveller's funeral in Cork a few days ago was a joke with over 150 outside the church and zero distancing) would we be further along the road by now with more of the restrictions lifted?

Exactly

Lockdown here is never going to work here long term, going about our daily business but avoiding large crowds is the only way

As we have no control over

1.Our border
2.Travellers
3.Hospitals
4.Flights

We will be in lockdown every other week for those reasons

Speakerboxx

Penfailed wrote: »

It's funny that those making the most noise about opening up are also those that are most sceptical about it happening.

I am talking about the government. They arent the fastest or the smartest. I really hope they open the phases as quick as they can. You can stay with Tony and co if you wish but life will have to move on with covid 19 or not.

VillageIdiot71

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

You are attacking me early today I see.

My posts are very eye opening and add a lot to this thread, look at below

"Michael McDowell: We cannot afford to spend €1 billion a year on single-use PPE
Enormous hole in public finances cannot simply be wished away by borrowing billions.

While it may be trite to point out that it was far easier politically to get us into lockdown than it will be to get out of it, that does not mean that the economic, health and social damage being done by lockdown is sustainable or that ending lockdown as quickly as possible is not a matter of grave urgency."

We need to lift restrictions asap, precisely what this thread is about. And at this stage you need to justify why should continue with the restrictions, not why we should lift them.

This is the point. The lack of a sense of urgency is ludicrous at this stage, as is the belief that PPE and/or social distancing is a permanent thing.

Guess what, social distancing is hard to observe on public transport. Who'd've thunk?

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/coronavirus-commuters-london-underground-tube-trains-boris-johnson-a9508471.html

We're fast moving forward into that space where the official line just detaches from reality. The learning for me is what the world would be like if we put the medical profession in charge. Let's not do that again.

HeidiHeidi

seamus wrote: »

It is important though to remember not to engage in revisionism. It would be easy at this stage to say that closing the schools was a knee-jerk reaction, isolating grannies from kids was jumping to a conclusion.

But it wasn't. These actions were taken based on the data we had available in the early days;
- Chinese data suggested a role for children in the spread of the virus.
- Similar viruses tended to be spread by children.
- Early blanket testing from the likes of Iceland indicated high levels of asymptomatic infection amongst younger people
- Asymptomatic carriers was indicated to be key source of infection.

Thus it was reasonable at the time to say that children - and the mixing of children - presented a considerable risk for the rest of the population.
We need to be super careful that this doesn't get forgotten so that the BoJos of this world can't claim hysteria or blind panic in the early days caused people to make wrong decisions.

My hope now is that the WHO will push forward with this data to suggest to countries to allow children to mix with other children. For families, that's the hardest part of any lockdown. There are only so many family walks one can go on. If kids can be sent out to creches or childminders, or can even just be allowed run around outside with their mates, there will be a lot of grateful parents in this country.

This x 100.


The amount of Captain Hindsights in all of these threads is incredible.


You'd have to hope (and T Holohan has said it repeatedly) that they're taking all of the up to date information into account and making their recommendations based on that, not just digging their heels in "cos I was right and I must be seen to have been right".


And another, slightly separate point - regardless of blame (which is a whole other day's work), the fact is that if testing and tracing is not up to standard, it HAS to affect the rate at which we open everything up.



Saying that the HSE fecked up (and I fear they did in some way, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how, and every interview I've seen they just talk in generalities which drives me NUTS, nobody seems to be willing to say exactly why they can't speed things up) doesn't take from the fact that if we can't pinpoint cases quickly and isolate contacts, we risk the whole thing blowing up in our faces again very quickly.

growleaves

The amount of Captain Hindsights in all of these threads is incredible.

Who is saying that they knew that children weren't spreaders? I haven't seen a single post to that effect.

hmmm

growleaves wrote: »

Who is saying that they knew that children weren't spreaders? I haven't seen a single post to that effect.

We've discussed this before. No-one still knows for certain, but evidence is becoming stronger that younger kids are not major causes of the virus spreading.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=113182715&postcount=7141
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=113183237&postcount=7153
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=113184030&postcount=7172

Ginger n Lemon

hmmm wrote: »

We've discussed this before. No-one still knows for certain, but evidence is becoming stronger.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=113182715&postcount=7141
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=113183237&postcount=7153

I am unsure if you mean evidence is becoming stronger that children ARE spreading it a lot or ARE NOT.

But below seems to suggest that they arent

HIQA deputy chief and Director of Health Technology Assessment, Dr Máirín Ryan, said: “While the evidence is limited, it appears that children are not substantially contributing to the spread of Covid- 19 in their household or in schools.

“One study suggests that while there is high transmission of Covid-19 among adults aged 25 years or older, transmission is lower in younger people particularly in those under 14 years of age.”

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/children-are-not-substantially-contributing-to-spread-of-covid-19-hiqa-study-finds-39203017.html

hmmm

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

I am unsure if you mean evidence is becoming stronger that children ARE spreading it a lot or ARE NOT.

Are not. Younger kids only, doesn't apply to older kids. Until the evidence is stronger, I wouldn't be taking risks, but we're nearly at the point where conclusions can be made.

Can I just ask, did anyone NOT get the famous leaflet via POST?
Neither I nor my neighbours saw one of them, what's the story there? another HSE lie?

MrDavid1976

rusty cole wrote: »

Can I just ask, did anyone NOT get the famous leaflet via POST?
Neither I nor my neighbours saw one of them, what's the story there? another HSE lie?

What leaflet?