Can we have some fcuking control on the airports from high risk countries please?

Away With The Fairies

Uh - oh, Dr Mike Ryan of the WHO, saying that covid won't be eradicated and not mentioning any countries, saying we need better control so that it's not always in our face. Then goes on and mention New Zealand and how well they have done.

Can somebody tell him that we can't be like NZ and can't live a happy, normal life with closed borders?

https://m.independent.ie/videos/dr-mike-ryan-were-not-going-to-eradicate-covid-19-in-foreseeable-future-40268481.html?fbclid=IwAR1io1okUNj935r1qDY8nxC27JxEINuXWrvQ3iZRG43R0BLZguUmrAmZSXg

normanoffside

ginoginelli wrote: »

Remember months ago it was all about the north making it impossible? Since Britain's introcduction of stricter travel restrictions that argument became increasingly untenable and they have been forced to change tack. Now, their latest charade, is to erroneously obscure the interpretation of eu law to suit their crony driven agenda.

There's no mandatory hotel quarantine in the north

timsey tiger

AuntySnow wrote: »

Seriously? Cosmetic surgery in Dubai
I doubt they attended
Too busy instagramming from the pool

The Notion from the government that they cant ban countries with EU freedom to travel is an obvious lie given Germany banned us

Why not introduce a vaccination only international flying rule like the USA has just done
That would require a brain

Austria is on our banned list. I guess Hitler was Austrian so this is ok or something. Not sure what Andorra did tho.

Maybe they heard that Mary Lou's kids were off skiing again.

timsey tiger

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

Can anyone explain how or why 14,000 flew into Ireland last week but only 241 booked for quarantine?

Surely those 241 shared flights with the other 13, 760 passengers that came in?

Am I thick or something but we treat a few people as if they are diseased and have to quarantine but the other 13,760 that they shared flights with are grand and free to do what they want?

You're not thick. It appears that we will force people to quarantine if they are coming from countries where relatively few people come from, but not when large numbers are travelling irrespective of infection or variant levels. e.g.

France not banned - high levels of infection, lots of variants present at sig. levels.
Israel - very low levels of infection, don't know about variants.

Level in France (seven day average per capita) is ~ 15 times that of Israel on 2/4.
Level in Ireland is ~2.9 times that of Israel.

I guess they want to appease the majority by claiming they have a quarantine
system in place, while ensuring that only inconveniences the odd few.

This sort of sh1t shows what they think of us and they are of course right.

faceman

AuntySnow wrote: »

Seriously? Cosmetic surgery in Dubai
I doubt they attended
Too busy instagramming from the pool

The Notion from the government that they cant ban countries with EU freedom to travel is an obvious lie given Germany banned us

Why not introduce a vaccination only international flying rule like the USA has just done
That would require a brain

Sigh. “But the Germany ban” is the new “you can’t travel more than 5km” lie.

Germany did not ban its own citizens and residents from entering the country. It didn’t put its citizens and residents in detention facilities on arrival either

The German ban had a fixed end date

AuntySnow

AuntySnow wrote: »

Which they will just deduct from the P.U.P

Yeah at a tenner a week old you can appeal based on financial reasons and get it waved.

Away With The Fairies

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

Can anyone explain how or why 14,000 flew into Ireland last week but only 241 booked for quarantine?

Surely those 241 shared flights with the other 13, 760 passengers that came in?

Am I thick or something but we treat a few people as if they are diseased and have to quarantine but the other 13,760 that they shared flights with are grand and free to do what they want?

Only certain countries. Most aren't coming from them.

Away With The Fairies

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Only certain countries. Most aren't coming from them.

But they're sharing a flight with potentially infected people. You can't get a direct flight from Brazil but can get a flight from Brazil to Europe. This second flight is a concern.

What's the point having a negative PCR test from Europe when you can sit beside a Brazilian and still pick up covid? This negative test will just give a false sense of security and have people think they're fine when they could be incubating the virus.

hotmail.com

Terribly unfair for the 200 or so people having to fork out so much money for a prison.

hmmm

timsey tiger wrote: »

This sort of sh1t shows what they think of us and they are of course right.

What it shows is a sense of realism that Covid is not the be-all and end-all of our lives, particularly with vaccinations giving us a route out of this in the coming months.

I bet the government are probably now regretting that they even agreed to quarantine hotels based on the media hysteria. Yes small numbers of people with the virus are going to come in to the country, but the economic cost and social cost of quarantining large numbers of people would be outrageous. Neither are we going to shut down international travel just to suit the perpetually outraged who think this is somehow a realistic and proportionate response to a relatively small threat.

In the coming weeks and months we are going to see restrictions being raised, even while Covid continues to circulate at low levels. We will have to live with the risk of new variants, in the same way as we live with the risk of influenza variants. What that balance will be I'm not sure, but the people who think that we will impose some sort of indefinite quarantine system "Just in case" need to wise up a bit.

Sharpyshoot

Variants detected and not related to travel. How did they come here?

Acosta

timsey tiger wrote: »

You're not thick. It appears that we will force people to quarantine if they are coming from countries where relatively few people come from, but not when large numbers are travelling irrespective of infection or variant levels. e.g.

France not banned - high levels of infection, lots of variants present at sig. levels.
Israel - very low levels of infection, don't know about variants.

Level in France (seven day average per capita) is ~ 15 times that of Israel on 2/4.
Level in Ireland is ~2.9 times that of Israel.

I guess they want to appease the majority by claiming they have a quarantine
system in place, while ensuring that only inconveniences the odd few.

This sort of sh1t shows what they think of us and they are of course right.

I'd be fairly livid if I was in quarantine right now knowing I'm really only in there because it's politically convenient and not out of any great desire on the government's part to do what needs to be done. It's so Irish.

hmmm

Sharpyshoot wrote: »

Variants detected and not related to travel. How did they come here?

Most variants come from travel. Some variants can emerge natively also.

The question is not "how do we keep out variants". The question is "what is the cost of keeping out variants, and is the cost worth it?"

Even RTE have stopped shouting on about variants now that the vaccines have been successful against them. That doesn't mean a new more serious one won't emerge in the future, but we don't lock down the entire country because we're worried about a new more dangerous flu variant emerging, even though that is inevitable also.

RandomName2

Sharpyshoot wrote: »

Variants detected and not related to travel. How did they come here?

Travel followed by community infection, the same as the virus did originally back in March of 2020.

There should have been quarantine then, but unless the EU lead in this regard the Irish government was unlikely to break from the pack. Only Norway, which isn't in the EU, brought in quarantine last year. All of Europe should have brought it is and we could have avoided the entire mess with Covid in the first place.

Corholio

Sharpyshoot wrote: »

Variants detected and not related to travel. How did they come here?

They are not related to travel in that they can't trace the travel aspect of the origin from the person found with it.

gally74

Sharpyshoot wrote: »

Variants detected and not related to travel. How did they come here?

because the virus mutates on its own, the idea you can stop it coming in is fruitless,

suicide_circus

Sharpyshoot wrote: »

Variants detected and not related to travel. How did they come here?

windborne i'm guessing, it's like that movie The Fog.

gally74

for all they keyboard warriors here,

if Ireland is 80% vaccinated, will ye be happy to not travel later this summer or have Sons n Daughters visit, or see Investment and jobs go elsewhere....

Because the way the country is thats the way its going, who would put Israel on the list, if a Us exec is coming to Ireland to look at an investment, and is fully vaccinated, im sure you want them to spend 14 days in a hotel,

Ireland is telling most of the Free world to F off. good luck with that.

carveone

In a general comparison, it could have gone the way Canada went - turn into a total disaster straight off. I was googling for other countries that had implemented hotel quarantine and Canada came up as "boy, this is really, really the way you don't want things to go". Still, we're only getting started, plenty of time to screw it up properly.

Have the government changed their tack on "these countries have variants of concern" now that Ireland is producing its own variants of concern and the Pfizer vaccine has been shown to be highly effective against at least the South African variant? I thought that Coveney's comment that "quarantine should not apply to countries where many Irish live" might be considered, if I was in a conspiratorial frame of mind, to be a small step away from saying quarantine should not apply to countries with a predominantly white/christian population. Feels that way looking at the list, but maybe that's just me.

Natterjack from Kerry

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

Uh - oh, Dr Mike Ryan of the WHO, saying that covid won't be eradicated and not mentioning any countries, saying we need better control so that it's not always in our face. Then goes on and mention New Zealand and how well they have done.

Can somebody tell him that we can't be like NZ and can't live a happy, normal life with closed borders?

I think what he means is that all countries should move themselves 4000km over sea from their nearest neighbouring country, and the nearest neighbour too should be sparsely populated and thousands of miles from other countries. He doesnt really get into the detail of cutting Ireland from the UK along the border and towing the republic bit off into the Atlantic, but we have to presume that's handy enough for the engineers to do. And then that the tight integration of populations, families, business, tourism, and trade in the EU countries can be dismantled in a weekend, and each can become self sufficient with very few people leaving their countries at all. Presumably it can be done too.
So I think just get both of those done. And then we can be like NZ. Its a good idea in fairness.

Away With The Fairies

carveone wrote: »

In a general comparison, it could have gone the way Canada went - turn into a total disaster straight off. I was googling for other countries that had implemented hotel quarantine and Canada came up as "boy, this is really, really the way you don't want things to go". Still, we're only getting started, plenty of time to screw it up properly.

Have the government changed their tack on "these countries have variants of concern" now that Ireland is producing its own variants of concern and the Pfizer vaccine has been shown to be highly effective against at least the South African variant? I thought that Coveney's comment that "quarantine should not apply to countries where many Irish live" might be considered, if I was in a conspiratorial frame of mind, to be a small step away from saying quarantine should not apply to countries with a predominantly white/christian population. Feels that way looking at the list, but maybe that's just me.

What happened in Canada?

carveone

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

What happened in Canada?

They seem to have implemented mandatory quarantine hotels for all air arrivals for a minimum of three days on arrival, longer if a test comes back positive. The cost looks bananas - something like $2000 for the three days. It led to crowded foyers (something you might want to avoid), squalid conditions, no food or water for many, reported sexual assaults and unsafe conditions. Because of the sudden peak in people trying to book, many reported it was impossible to book through the garbage government website. Hard to tell, but it looks like hotels could add charges - so you got things like $50 for a bottle of water and a biscuit.

The rules seemed to mean that about 25% of travellers became exempt, just walking out of the airport. Then others started to join them as there was no way to police that many people - the police refused to chase them and the fines, about the same as the hotel price, weren't being issued anyway.

It worked though. Noone is flying in now, they just fly to the US and drive across the border with no tests or checks.

Happydays2020

gally74 wrote: »

for all they keyboard warriors here,

if Ireland is 80% vaccinated, will ye be happy to not travel later this summer or have Sons n Daughters visit, or see Investment and jobs go elsewhere....

Because the way the country is thats the way its going, who would put Israel on the list, if a Us exec is coming to Ireland to look at an investment, and is fully vaccinated, im sure you want them to spend 14 days in a hotel,

Ireland is telling most of the Free world to F off. good luck with that.

Well said. The short termism around this is incredible. But listening to RTÉ over the last few days trying to get the WHO to attack the Minister for Foreign Affairs is off the wall stuff. Cillian de Gascun pulled up RTÉ a few weeks back for attacking foreigners fgs.

joseywhales

We like to have jobs, we like to have family visit, we like to have the ability to visit western countries also.

That is why we don't want mandatory quarantine, not because we are cronies or because we only like christians or white people or whatever other bs people want to moan about.

It's very practical, this whole thing is a risk+cost analysis, there is no absolute solution that is acceptable.

We have other precautions, like negative pcr test and self quarantine, it is not perfect but it is another tool that we have and we use.

Cosmo Kramer

hmmm wrote: »

I bet the government are probably now regretting that they even agreed to quarantine hotels based on the media hysteria. Yes small numbers of people with the virus are going to come in to the country, but the economic cost and social cost of quarantining large numbers of people would be outrageous. Neither are we going to shut down international travel just to suit the perpetually outraged who think this is somehow a realistic and proportionate response to a relatively small threat.

Spot on. The mistake the Government made here was to try to appease the headbangers screaming for mandatory quarantine to begin with. The people demanding it include a lot of the people now claiming that the government has lost them and they're not going to bother with the rules that don't suit them any more. The apply the rules to them but leave me alone crowd.

They should have been told where to stick their mandatory quarantine idea months ago, instead of bringing in a half baked version of it that is full of inconsistencies and won't have any real impact on Covid numbers anyway. The same people will be screaming again if they're not allowed to fly off for their two weeks in the sun in a few months time and that will be someone else's fault as well.

Suckit

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

What? They travelled, they didn't have the required paperwork to board the plane and when that was waived, they still decided to give the finger.

No embassy is trumping up cash to citizens that flew against not only recommendations, but the law.

And apparently their 3rd or 4th time there this year :eek:

Gradius

There was never a good reason to keep international travel open, including airports.

That particular thing, along with a list of other stuff, should have been implemented waaaaaaay back.

Instead, we have a load of half measures that have achieved little beyond using up the goodwill of the population yonks ago. Nicely done.

As if it wasn't apparent enough, there was never a coordinated plan to effectively change this situation for the better.

"Living with covid" my arse.

arctictree

I wonder is cosmetic surgery operating here during the pandemic. Is it considered essential?

saabsaab

Another cat truly out of the bag!


'
Minutes from a meeting of the National Public Health Emergency Team on 4 March state that “complex” contact tracing of clusters, where unnamed variants of concern were prevalent, found no evidence that some cases were brought into the country from abroad.
All reported cases of the B1351 strain from South Africa, the P1 and P2 strains from Brazil and the B1525 strain from Nigeria had previously been associated with international travel.
The minutes suggest that there has now been a level of community transmission of these variants, which are linked to more severe illness and lower vaccine efficacy.
They also state that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre was continuing to follow-up such cases within clusters where new variants are “probable”.
To date, health officials have reported 32 cases of the B1351, 12 cases of P1, 14 cases of P2 and 15 cases of B1525.
Assistant Professor of Virology at University College Dublin Gerald Barry described the development reported by NPHET last month as “worrying”.
“It suggests that these variants are now circulating in the community,”

Over 14,000 arrived here last week, just over 200 went to hotel quarantine! Vaccinate an Island population say Achill and quarantine all travelers there for 10 days.

a_squirrelman

saabsaab wrote: »

Another cat truly out of the bag!


'
Minutes from a meeting of the National Public Health Emergency Team on 4 March state that “complex” contact tracing of clusters, where unnamed variants of concern were prevalent, found no evidence that some cases were brought into the country from abroad.
All reported cases of the B1351 strain from South Africa, the P1 and P2 strains from Brazil and the B1525 strain from Nigeria had previously been associated with international travel.
The minutes suggest that there has now been a level of community transmission of these variants, which are linked to more severe illness and lower vaccine efficacy.
They also state that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre was continuing to follow-up such cases within clusters where new variants are “probable”.
To date, health officials have reported 32 cases of the B1351, 12 cases of P1, 14 cases of P2 and 15 cases of B1525.
Assistant Professor of Virology at University College Dublin Gerald Barry described the development reported by NPHET last month as “worrying”.
“It suggests that these variants are now circulating in the community,”

Over 14,000 arrived here last week, just over 200 went to hotel quarantine! Vaccinate an Island population say Achill and quarantine all travelers there for 10 days.

I wouldn't mind 10 days on Achill actually. But wouldn't you need ten islands? To keep things rotated.