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

lawrencesummers

lawrencesummers wrote: »

the most telling part of that article is the level of testing....A city of 11 million people

, and about 9.9 million people in the city have been tested for the virus.



Our testing is till reactionary and limited.

I agree to get out of these restrictions we have to be really good at some of the things below:

Government should be pouring money into these things
as it has instant pay off and return for your money.

Border controls - poor
Testing - fairly poor
Tracing - poor
Quarantining/isolation - poor

Just to expect people to stay 2 metres apart for 2 years is not sustainable.

joseywhales

Without adequate testing we are living in hypothetical scenario land and trying to mitigate, it's futile.

If we had even one snapshot of the current state of the virus, I am convinced it would be absolutely shocking. Who has a clue, multiply the infection numbers by 10? I wouldn't be shocked if 270k have been infected cumulatively, we have no clue.

lawrencesummers

joseywhales wrote: »

Without adequate testing we are living in hypothetical scenario land and trying to mitigate, it's futile.

If we had even one snapshot of the current state of the virus, I am convinced it would be absolutely shocking. Who has a clue, multiply the infection numbers by 10? I wouldn't be shocked if 270k have been infected cumulatively, we have no clue.

That’s the crux of it really.
There is absolutely no data as to the exact spread of the virus here, studies in other countries suggest it is, was and will continue to be rampant and Have relatively Low mortality levels.

If they took the three counties and tested everyone, or al t least 60-80% of the population it would give a good indication.

People are living in fear, and it’s fear of the unknown because after many months the health authorities have not gotten a handle on the big picture.

CBear1993

lawrencesummers wrote: »

That’s the crux of it really.
There is absolutely no data as to the exact spread of the virus here, studies in other countries suggest it is, was and will continue to be rampant and Have relatively Low mortality levels.

If they took the three counties and tested everyone, or al t least 60-80% of the population it would give a good indication.

People are living in fear, and it’s fear of the unknown because after many months the health authorities have not gotten a handle on the big picture.

Peoples lives are passing by, all for a disease with what, a 1% mortality rate ?

We are putting our lives on hold for the extreme minority, meanwhile the large majority are going to suffer long term.

CBear1993

Doesn’t change the feeling by the large majority.

Strumms

6.5 %, case mortality rate... sorry deleted as I thought my maths was incorrect but in fact accurate. It was 15% back in May.

Strumms

If something happened where the whole population got infected, or close 6.5 % of the nations population is 318,760 people dying... doesn’t bear thinking about... non restrictions folks should think, hard.

joseywhales

Yes I am not arguing for a relaxation here, I am just saying a problem cannot be solved until we can see it. I.e. testing

Furthermore, as mentioned in another thread here, there are patients from wuhan still recovering, people who were never hospitalized, so officially mild symptoms. Death is not the only negative outcome from the disease.

CBear1993

Lol. Please spare me. We had 1500 or so the first time round when things were suppposedly very bad. Barely anyone is dying at the moment despite the rise.

If you think 300K+ could perish you are on another planet my friend. Even at the height of deaths Italy or China were nowhere near your figure

Strumms

CBear1993 wrote: »

Lol. Please spare me. We had 1500 or so the first time round when things were suppposedly very bad. Barely anyone is dying at the moment despite the rise.

If you think 300K+ could perish you are on another planet my friend. Even at the height of deaths Italy or China were nowhere near your figure

Let’s keep it that way then , I’m not on another planet, although with the absolute fûcking state this one is in... a few months on Venus might be nice...

CBear1993

Strumms wrote: »

Let’s keep it that way then , I’m not on another planet, although with the absolute fûcking state this one is in... a few months on Venus might be nice...

Hahaha agreed. Elon musk get a move on!!

lawrencesummers

Strumms wrote: »

If something happened where the whole population got infected, or close 6.5 % of the nations population is 318,760 people dying... doesn’t bear thinking about... non restrictions folks should think, hard.

Your making a mistake here and jumping to a conclusion.

While I’m not advocating for opening up, I’m advocating for more testing and mandatory testing of travellers.

Here’s where you are going wrong, the 6.5% (or whatever the figure is because the case mortality rate varies) is the mortality for confirmed infections. The problem is that it doesn’t take into account the undiagnosed, the recovered untested people, so that 6.5% can’t be accurate and has to be lower, how much lower is the unknown.

I would like that unknown to be a known, or at least get closer to a more accurate figure.


We are fascinated with positive test results from cases, but I would prefer to know how many negative test results we have, and where they are from.

fly_agaric

Strumms wrote: »

... a few months on Venus might be nice...

A bit hot but I suppose that's one way to kill off the virus (and the hosts!).

https://www.space.com/18526-venus-temperature.html

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't understand the approach.

Why are politicians from the start saying we cannot control our borders and made no attempt.

We could be back living a more normal life minus trips abroad. I think we could all live without foreign holidays. All the scientists are saying the same. Zero covid policy until vaccine =control borders.

I'm not really understanding it either at this stage. They've had months now to work on the problems (resource requirements, maybe changes in legislation?) in the way of implementing stricter controls for inward travellers.
I do understand why they did not do anything back in February/March as the other European countries totally failed also.
Unfortunately, as others said on the thread when pointing out the "3 %" figure it is not the main problem we face now IMO since rise in number of cases
I am doubtful if we can have a "zero covid" strategy but we need to do everything we can to reduce number of cases. No matter what we do the airline industry and foreign tourism in Ireland are really f-ked while this is going on, especially while we have the 14 days restricted movements recommendation which I doubt they will lift. Making them slightly more f-cked than they are in exchange for reducing/eliminating a source of new cases (by banning tourists from some regions/imposing the 14 quarantine using set locations or just strict monitoring/forcing people to take tests) seems like a good tradeoff to me.

saabsaab

fly_agaric wrote: »

A bit hot but I suppose that's one way to kill off the virus (and the hosts!).

https://www.space.com/18526-venus-temperature.html



I'm not really understanding it either at this stage. They've had months now to work on the problems (resource requirements, maybe changes in legislation?) in the way of implementing stricter controls for inward travellers.
I do understand why they did not do anything back in February/March as the other European countries totally failed also.
Unfortunately, as others said on the thread when pointing out the "3 %" figure it is not the main problem we face now IMO since rise in number of cases
I am doubtful if we can have a "zero covid" strategy but we need to do everything we can to reduce number of cases. No matter what we do the airline industry and foreign tourism in Ireland are really f-ked while this is going on, especially while we have the 14 days restricted movements recommendation which I doubt they will lift. Making them slightly more f-cked than they are in exchange for reducing/eliminating a source of new cases (by banning tourists from some regions/imposing the 14 quarantine using set locations or just strict monitoring/forcing people to take tests) seems like a good tradeoff to me.

Might be an idea to issue necessary travellers with a badge or wearable ID to show they have quarantined and are safe?

fly_agaric

saabsaab wrote: »

Might be an idea to issue necessary travellers with a badge or wearable ID to show they have quarantined and are safe?

Yes, really any check/process is better than nothing whatsoever.
Has been far too much taking things on trust and "recommending" to do x rather than checking (& enforcing) that they actually do it with the entire response to the pandemic in the country IMO.

is_that_so

PhilOssophy wrote: »

You/Donnelly can't say that with even the tiniest bit of confidence that 3 out of 100 cases are travel related.
3 out of 100 might be related to somebody returning from somewhere with Covid-19, but an asymptomatic person might bring it in and give it to 50 people and all go down as "community transmission", on top of the other 50 who get it through "close contact" with these people.....
I think the government must be in denial as to how much of a problem this is, I don't see how they can't see this.
Staines probably is a zero-Covid zealot but given where we are at now, that sounds good to me rather than living my life with these poxy restrictions for the next few years for the sake of letting a few yanks in the gate!

Well he's clearly quoting someone so your own claim doesn't have a lot going for it either. Not defending Donnelly BTW but they don't just trot out numbers that can easily be challenged.
Zero-COVID would be great but unless we go like China, it's really unlikely. My issue with them is that they blindly follow the public health argument to the exclusion of everything else, want us all back isolating at home and they have no timeline whatsoever. That is not sustainable.

PhilOssophy

is_that_so wrote: »

Well he's clearly quoting someone so your own claim doesn't have a lot going for it either. Not defending Donnelly BTW but they don't just trot out numbers that can easily be challenged.
Zero-COVID would be great but unless we go like China, it's really unlikely. My issue with them is that they blindly follow the public health argument to the exclusion of everything else, want us all back isolating at home and they have no timeline whatsoever. That is not sustainable.

It might just be that the easiest rhetoric as a Minister for Health to peddle some dubious data about those associated with travel being low.....he probably doesn't want to be the one to "lock everybody out" so he can use his statistic (which may be right, but I doubt it) to say it isn't a problem.

I can still remember Simon Coveney telling Irish people "get home by Tuesday" as it was likely that the airport would be closed then. There wasn't a word negatively spoken about it at the time.

Honestly, I don't want the airport shut, I just want a mandatory 14-day quarantine for everybody arriving. Or at very least, a test to be carried out on them and then let them on once it is negative. I don't think that is really that unreasonable or un-workable?

fly_agaric

saabsaab wrote: »

Might be an idea to issue necessary travellers with a badge or wearable ID to show they have quarantined and are safe?

Funny, I was re-reading this just now, and it finally dropped it was some sort of joke/reference to the Nazis and the holocaust that flew over my head!

Some countries are using electronic tags to ensure that people stay where they are told for their quarantine and thought you were referring to that.

It makes such countries more authoritarian than we are and more willing to trample over civil liberties in an emergency, but does not make them Nazis.

ShineOn7

From the main daily thread

Just seen a post from a local politician or former counsellor that 40 Spanish students have flown into Ireland yesterday and are staying with local families in and around the Athy area as part of a student exchange.

This is absolutely crazy if true . Nearly sure Spain isn’t on green list and kildare on lockdown

What happened to the Red List that the Irish Times (or was it the Indo?) did a soft drop on a week or so ago?

The laid back Irish attitude that's loved by tourists the world over is going to get us further into shíte

Feria40

I know of families that take in foreign students personally and while they are not in the Athy area, I know for a fact that the company bringing them to Ireland is going to great lengths to ensure that they restrict their movements for 14 days.

As far as I am aware this movement restriction is not being done at the homes of host families, rather the company has block booked accommodation and hired staff to ensure everyone behaves

As I say the hosts I know are not in the Athy region. But I think it's very important that people do there own fact checking. As we have seen over the past week, politicians are not exactly trust worthy !

Edit. For what it's worth, any red list that does ever come about ( I'd have my doubts) will almost certainly exclude EU countries. This may well be why we have heard nothing further on it..

normanoffside

ShineOn7 wrote: »

From the main daily thread



What happened to the Red List that the Irish Times (or was it the Indo?) did a soft drop on a week or so ago?

The laid back Irish attitude that's loved by tourists the world over is going to get us further into shíte

They'll have been flying in for a year study most likely in secondary schools, or at the bear minimum 3-4 months.
Study/Relocation is a reason for 'essential travel' and they'll have to Isolate for 2 weeks before going to any school or public place.

By the way they will also almost certainly (knowing the industry) have taken a test in Spain in the days before flying. They are cheap and easy to get over there with a turnaround of a few hours.

faceman

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Honestly, I don't want the airport shut, I just want a mandatory 14-day quarantine for everybody arriving. Or at very least, a test to be carried out on them and then let them on once it is negative. I don't think that is really that unreasonable or un-workable?

It may not be unworkable but it’s now unreasonable.

The EU for the most part has had internal borders open for over 2 months. International travel accounts for a very small part of infection. The WHO and the ECDC recommend against

The scaremongering is insane though

People have mentioned Spanish students in a few posts. Spain is a massive country with a population of 50m. The headline is high cases in Spain. The reality is high cases in 2 regions or to be more specific 2 areas.

My region has less C19 incidence per 100,000 than similar sized regions in Ireland. Of course that’s not as an exciting headline for the media though.

There are plenty of studies now show how and where clusters are arising in the EU. The wise thing Ireland should do is focussing on those areas

theological

faceman wrote: »

It may not be unworkable but it’s now unreasonable.

The EU for the most part has had internal borders open for over 2 months. International travel accounts for a very small part of infection. The WHO and the ECDC recommend against

The scaremongering is insane though

People have mentioned Spanish students in a few posts. Spain is a massive country with a population of 50m. The headline is high cases in Spain. The reality is high cases in 2 regions or to be more specific 2 areas.

My region has less C19 incidence per 100,000 than similar sized regions in Ireland. Of course that’s not as an exciting headline for the media though.

There are plenty of studies now show how and where clusters are arising in the EU. The wise thing Ireland should do is focussing on those areas

It is entirely impossible to determine if someone has been in a certain place, or rather it would require a huge administrative effort to do so. It would require a bottleneck at the border to require people to evidence that they had been in region A of a country rather than region B.

Edit: This is working on the assumption that nobody transferred through more at-risk regions on the way to region B.

I'm leaning towards the conclusion that travel should be limited to non-essential travel until we are on the other side of this or at least until next spring when we've been through the winter. For me personally, that means I'm going to holiday in England in September and I've avoided returning home in the summer. My family from Ireland also didn't attend my wedding earlier in the summer.

Everyone has made significant sacrifices so far. I don't see why that should be potentially undone by introducing more cases into the country through travel.

Tenzor07

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Honestly, I don't want the airport shut, I just want a mandatory 14-day quarantine for everybody arriving. Or at very least, a test to be carried out on them and then let them on once it is negative. I don't think that is really that unreasonable or un-workable?

I don't want the automatic doors at the airport locked, I just want the power turned off....Same thing ... this obsession people have with a 2 week Quarantine for all... :rolleyes:


PCR testing for people coming from outside the EU in which those countries have an infection rate higher than Ireland...a night at a Government appointed and paid for Hotel while you wait the results... Random testing from higher infection rate countries in EU than Ireland... No test for all EU countries lower...

Beechwoodspark

That is absolute madness if that Spanish students story is true.

Absolutely fuming here reading that

Tenzor07

theological wrote: »

I'm leaning towards the conclusion that travel should be limited to non-essential travel until we are on the other side of this or at least until next spring when we've been through the winter. F

Everyone has made significant sacrifices so far. I don't see why that should be potentially undone by introducing more cases into the country through travel.

I agree, though I think essential travel should also be included..

Introducing more? Sure Travel abroad was never fully stopped and cases were bouncing along in single figures for a few weeks.... deaths are at Zero most days... the curve is flat...... travel didn't change that.. hardly anyone is travelling in or out of the country... why stop something that isn't the cause of mass infections now when we're almost into September, makes no sense...

theological

Tenzor07 wrote: »

I agree, though I think essential travel should also be included..

Introducing more? Sure Travel abroad was never fully stopped and cases were bouncing along in single figures for a few weeks.... deaths are at Zero most days... the curve is flat...... travel didn't change that.. hardly anyone is travelling in or out of the country... why stop something that isn't the cause of mass infections now when we're almost into September, makes no sense...

What is the evidence for saying that travel isn't a cause of infection (I think the word mass is pretty irrelevant, but if we want to be pedantic travel is the main reason this virus is anywhere outside of China)?

If people are travelling to countries with an infection rate that is higher than our own there is an importation risk. So yes it is obviously possible to bring this virus back with you and therefore import more of it.

If the travel is not essential, and if it is potentially a risk to others then why not just say it isn't on until this virus is under control?

Tenzor07

theological wrote: »

What is the evidence for saying that travel isn't a cause of infection (I think the word mass is pretty irrelevant, but if we want to be pedantic travel is the main reason this virus is anywhere outside of China)?
If people are travelling to countries with an infection rate that is higher than our own there is an importation risk. So yes it is obviously possible to bring this virus back with you and therefore import more of it.
If the travel is not essential, and if it is potentially a risk to others then why not just say it isn't on until this virus is under control?

I don't recall saying travel wasn't the cause of infections.. And of course the Virus was carried by people across the world from China back in February and into Italy and then Ireland in March...

Travel outside your home in Ireland unless it's only to your local Supermarket or Pharmacy is the only travel which should be permitted if you are serious in your request to wait until the virus is "under control"... where I don't believe it's possible to control a Virus without a cure.
Travel within this country spread the Virus to other county's which had little or no cases...

JustAThought

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

That is absolute madness if that Spanish students story is true.

Absolutely fuming here reading that

That is absolutely happening in Dublin and has been happening since the ban was lifted - schools can’t rent rooms to them for classes but they are being put into families for ‘total immersion learning’ and you see then sitting in clumps of 30 or 60 in the usual places - beaches and fairways and greens. The schools are
emailing and writing to families privately saying they will prioritise giving them students in the future only if they support
them now. Its been going on in Dublin for months and is an absolute joke.

theological

Tenzor07 wrote: »

I don't recall saying travel wasn't the cause of infections.. And of course the Virus was carried by people across the world from China back in February and into Italy and then Ireland in March...

Travel outside your home in Ireland unless it's only to your local Supermarket or Pharmacy is the only travel which should be permitted if you are serious in your request to wait until the virus is "under control"... where I don't believe it's possible to control a Virus without a cure.
Travel within this country spread the Virus to other county's which had little or no cases...

At least if you're travelling sensibly within your own country the government have a better chance of tracking and tracing cases locally and controlling out outbreaks locally.

Travelling unnecessarily and potentially importing the virus from other countries when one could at least holiday domestically for one year doesn't seem like sensible or considerate behaviour right now.

It is possible to greatly reduce the spread of the virus if we're willing to change our behaviour and be sensible before the winter hits.