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

Tenzor07

tobefrank321 wrote: »

We had three opportunities to pull up the drawbridge, during each wave. We missed all 3. We got numbers down to low single digits after the first lockdown. Foreign travel brought them back up again, as it did Christmas this year. There are just an awful lot of idiots who like to travel and who won't quarantine when they return and will go about their daily business. These idiots should be locked up for two weeks after they return from anywhere. Why should 5 million suffer because of a few thousands idiots? Surely it should be the other way around?

Making up harsh laws to cover a very very small minority of people just creates resentment for those who respect the rules...
Right now our airports are surrounded by Gardai ready to hand out €2000 penalties for leaving the state..
2020 there was nothing to stop people coming and going...all summer they failed to have so much as a temperature check at the ports, nevermind a PCR test on arrival..
Now the country is all but shutdown, the message is "Don't come to Ireland, we don't want you, you will give us disease and death...." Passengers are Criminals in the court of Joe Duffy and social media...

Banana Republic 1

Tenzor07 wrote: »

A decision on closing all EU borders isn't made on purely medical grounds and has to be weighed up socially, economically and politically...so as to ensure the cure isn't worse than the disease.. Take the North for example, is it fair to lockdown the borders for residents who need to get there for family, work, shopping and other essential purposes... the cost of permanently manning these posts... the sight of Irish/British soldiers on the borders for security as lets face it a few unarmed Gardai isn't going to be safe for them or anyone else...plus having to withdraw 100's of Garda from duty nationally to man border crossings...

I honestly wonder how people have internalised the Chinese communist state level restrictions and believe they should be introduced without debate into a democratic union of countries..

They have been in Portugal and in Finland and Hungary.

spurious

My partner is in Latvia nursing her terminally ill mother. She was there first Jan 11-18, came home, isolated in the back room, but got word things had worsened and had to return to Latvia Feb 1st.

It's a waiting game now, but on her return to Ireland will she need to go to a hotel to isolate?
I know it doesn't matter compared to losing her mother, but she has already lost a number of weeks pay and paying Dublin hotel prices for two weeks will crucify us. Under these new rules could she isolate (again) at home?

tobefrank321

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Making up harsh laws to cover a very very small minority of people just creates resentment for those who respect the rules...
Right now our airports are surrounded by Gardai ready to hand out €2000 penalties for leaving the state..
2020 there was nothing to stop people coming and going...all summer they failed to have so much as a temperature check at the ports, nevermind a PCR test on arrival..
Now the country is all but shutdown, the message is "Don't come to Ireland, we don't want you, you will give us disease and death...." Passengers are Criminals in the court of Joe Duffy and social media...

Joe Duffy? Honestly is this the level we are dealing with? What are you going to quote next? A Sun article? And your logic about punishing the very small number of rule breakers causing resentment among others doesn't add up. Everyone wants the rule breakers punished. But now those rule breakers get off scot free while those who respect lockdown have been punished repeatedly.

Its about the science.

I've come to the conclusion NPHET are hopeless when it comes to the science, and they are the ones advising the government. If you look at the members of NPHET, they are out of their depths dealing with this.

We need to hand this problem over to the real experts in infectious diseases. I was doubtful of those experts before but hands up they were right, closing borders, quaranting and yes Zero covid is the best way to go. Its the one most likely to give us back normality, jobs, an economy, domestic retail and hospitality, crowds at matches, etc etc. and also save lives and tens of billions of euro.

Tenzor07

caveat emptor wrote: »

Sorry you are right. You did not say that. I sympathise with people who work in the industry but we have some hard choices to make and every sector is going to lobby and craw. We only have bad options I'm afraid and some are worse than others on a national and moral level. Our politics is not designed to deal with it so we are seeing mad things like 90% of people demanding something for their protection but the government ignoring it.

No supports in place for the entire Aviation industry which means it won't be in a position to support the restart of the economy and keep this country out of a deep recession and prevent it becoming a depression.. Governments attitude is "Well we haven't stopped them from operating.." They've only prevented people from using them..

Tenzor07

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Joe Duffy? Honestly is this the level we are dealing with? What are you going to quote next? A Sun article?
Its about the science.
I've come to the conclusion NPHET are hopeless when it comes to the science, and they are the ones advising the government. If you look at the members of NPHET, they are out of their depths dealing with this.
We need to hand this problem over to the real experts in infectious diseases. I was doubtful of those experts before but hands up they were right, closing borders, quaranting and yes Zero covid is the best way to go. Its the one most likely to give us back normality, jobs, an economy, domestic retail and hospitality, crowds at matches, etc etc. and also save lives and tens of billions of euro.

We agree on that! NPHET are hopeless, led by a deeply political figure and a team of people who are far from at the top of their respective fields...

I think it's far too late now to go down the Zero Covid road..we'd need at least 3 months of it before any benefit would become apparent.. and those 3 months would be a Complete and full only leave your home once a week for food lockdown... no messing about..

tobefrank321

Tenzor07 wrote: »

No supports in place for the entire Aviation industry which means it won't be in a position to support the restart of the economy and keep this country out of a deep recession and prevent it becoming a depression.. Governments attitude is "Well we haven't stopped them from operating.." They've only prevented people from using them..

Wheras the hospitality, construction and retail industries are going great at the moment?

Tenzor07

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Wheras the hospitality, construction and retail industries are going great at the moment?

At least construction can start to think about opening soon...so can "essential" retail... with non-essential retail moving online...

Hospitality is tied in with Aviation/travel... and both are in serious trouble now.. without a reopening it will be 2029 before Irish tourism will get back to 2019 levels... another lost decade in this country.. one of many.

caveat emptor

Tenzor07 wrote: »

No supports in place for the entire Aviation industry which means it won't be in a position to support the restart of the economy and keep this country out of a deep recession and prevent it becoming a depression.. Governments attitude is "Well we haven't stopped them from operating.." They've only prevented people from using them..

I think any industry or person should have supports and not just token gestures.

The simple reason being that it's more cost effective.

Using people isolating as an example. If they get paid a weekly amount double the PUP payment they have a clear incentive to not isolate if a close contact or confirmed case.

The cost to the economy of the onward transmission is so much more expensive than paying that person 80% of their pay to isolate and do their bit.

So I agree absolutely. I won't mention the asshole who came up with jab and go.

tobefrank321

Tenzor07 wrote: »

We agree on that! NPHET are hopeless, led by a deeply political figure and a team of people who are far from at the top of their respective fields...

Well at least we agree NPHET are out of their depths, although in fairness to them Martin and Leo are worse. NPHET occassionally recommended doing things like restricting travel and Martin and Leo don't do it.

Agreed also that we missed the boat on zero covid. But its never too late to try to keep covid numbers down. Its pointless opening up and then seeing numbers bounce back to where they were because some idiots come in from the UK who are infected and couldn't be bothered to quarantine and we all know such idiots.

tobefrank321

Tenzor07 wrote: »

At least construction can start to think about opening soon...so can "essential" retail... with non-essential retail moving online...

Hospitality is tied in with Aviation/travel... and both are in serious trouble now.. without a reopening it will be 2029 before Irish tourism will get back to 2019 levels... another lost decade in this country.. one of many.

A lot of the tourists who travel to Ireland are retired. They don't have to rush back to jobs. If they wanted to come here, they could do the two weeks quarantine and then continue with their holidays.

In Aus and NZ, people just accept the quarantine condition and get on with it. Yes its annoying but if you want to do there, you have to do it.

Our big mistake was to listen to the WHO when they said don't close your borders. Not just us, but everyone else too.

tobefrank321

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Joe Duffy? Honestly is this the level we are dealing with? What are you going to quote next? A Sun article? And your logic about punishing the very small number of rule breakers causing resentment among others doesn't add up. Everyone wants the rule breakers punished. But now those rule breakers get off scot free while those who respect lockdown have been punished repeatedly.

Its about the science.

I've come to the conclusion NPHET are hopeless when it comes to the science, and they are the ones advising the government. If you look at the members of NPHET, they are out of their depths dealing with this.

We need to hand this problem over to the real experts in infectious diseases. I was doubtful of those experts before but hands up they were right, closing borders, quaranting and yes Zero covid is the best way to go. Its the one most likely to give us back normality, jobs, an economy, domestic retail and hospitality, crowds at matches, etc etc. and also save lives and tens of billions of euro.

Nope, the infectious disease experts care nothing for the impact of zero COVID which can't and, thankfully, wont happen.

ZC is possible on an EU wide basis, and would actually have been the preferable action from day 1 of this, to allow the EU and UK to move on with things while eliminating the virus and keeping it out of the zone. One country in this highly interconnected block cannot shut itself away to all travel, essential or otherwise, without massive impacts that would be unpalatable to the population. The political co-ordination to get that done is obviously difficult.

I actually think that balance that we have now re. travel is about right and should have been in place from day 1, but other than adding perhaps some other none-EU countries to the list, should not be any stricter. Should also be released in respect of EU countries at the soonest opportunity. This fear of variants will keep is isolated into next year.

It would be like a US State closing itself off from the rest of the USA.

scouserstation

Pursuing a zero covid strategy is a red herring and would take a huge toll economically and decimate our travel and tourism industry, but most people here see no problem with that, just one question for all these zero covid pushers, how do you think we will survive long term on an island that relies heavily on imports and international business travel? How are we going to finance our economy when we have nothing left in the pot?

Cosmo Kramer

Haven't been on this thread in a couple of weeks but it's fairly depressing to come back on and see the same headbangers still rambling on about Australia, New Zealand and Zero Covid as though any of those setups would be remotely feasible on a bi-national interconnected island like Ireland. You might as well start wishing for magic Covid curing unicorns lads.

Have the government made correct decisions at every turn in this pandemic - of course not. Easily their biggest mistake though was to allow the opening of the domestic economy to the extent they did in the run up to Christmas. They gave an inch and the Irish public took a mile, and we're paying the price for it now.

But there's nothing to be gained from coming on here day after day and hammering the government because they don't bring in nonsensical quarantines and border restrictions that are completely unworkable and utterly pointless in any case. If this pandemic is controlled in Ireland from here on out, it will be done through people following the rules and staying at home where possible, and through rolling restrictions that are stepped up and stepped down as and when required. It won't be controlled by fencing off the border or imprisoning the few remaining inbound travellers, the nature of our island is that any variant that makes it to the UK will make it to Ireland as well, regardless of what restrictions on travel are put in place.

Dyr

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Haven't been on this thread in a couple of weeks but it's fairly depressing to come back on and see the same headbangers still rambling on about Australia, New Zealand and Zero Covid as though any of those setups would be remotely feasible on a bi-national interconnected island like Ireland. You might as well start wishing for magic Covid curing unicorns lads.
.

Nphet and Patrick Hulahoop are headbangers now


Could have been adressed through an agreed strategy with the British Government for the north, no attempt made. Could have been done with a 5km travel restriction just inside the border being enforced, which they've finally started to figure out

Even with the border for NI open shutting down outside access would have had a huge effect on transmission from the outside world

But sure, shut the economy down and put the whole country under house arrest but closing the airports was unfeasible. Is your next recommendation allowing visitors to wander around hospital wards?

SheepsClothing

scouserstation wrote: »

Pursuing a zero covid strategy is a red herring and would take a huge toll economically and decimate our travel and tourism industry, but most people here see no problem with that, just one question for all these zero covid pushers, how do you think we will survive long term on an island that relies heavily on imports and international business travel? How are we going to finance our economy when we have nothing left in the pot?

What travel and tourism industry? It's not happening this year anyway, why not try to get a full domestic economy going with a large amount of internal tourism while the option is there. There is no easy answers with Covid, you have to pick your poison. In my view, that should be a maximum suppression strategy with mandatory quarantines, until we reach a point where we can consider travel corridors with other vaccinated countries.

fly_agaric

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Haven't been on this thread in a couple of weeks but it's fairly depressing to come back on and see the same headbangers still rambling on about Australia, New Zealand and Zero Covid as though any of those setups would be remotely feasible on a bi-national interconnected island like Ireland. You might as well start wishing for magic Covid curing unicorns lads.

Fling insults away, but when the dust finally settles on all this it will be obvious even to the die hards that the "crazies" as you call them were broadly correct (even if literal "zero covid" wasn't possible).
If vaccination does not work as we all hope & expect for by latter half of the year, I think we could be really surprised by what becomes politically possible.

Probably it would take one of more of the main European countries (UK, Germany, France) to decide they have really had quite enough of it all, and close things right down as regards inward travel + go for elimination/supression and that would set off a domino effect.

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

But there's nothing to be gained from coming on here day after day and hammering the government because they don't bring in nonsensical quarantines and border restrictions that are completely unworkable and utterly pointless in any case....

Have the government made correct decisions at every turn in this pandemic - of course not.

Would agree it is not about bashing the government as all countries in Europe have broadly made the same errors. However, one thing that was particularly bad here was the extremely strict travel "recommendations" on paper that were not enforced in reality.
Other countries in Europe had less restrictions but they were actually enforcing complicance with the measures they were taking all the way through I think and not leaving it to trust. I think that is a better way to operate.

caveat emptor

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Haven't been on this thread in a couple of weeks but it's fairly depressing to come back on and see the same headbangers still rambling on about Australia, New Zealand and Zero Covid as though any of those setups would be remotely feasible on a bi-national interconnected island like Ireland. You might as well start wishing for magic Covid curing unicorns lads.

Have the government made correct decisions at every turn in this pandemic - of course not. Easily their biggest mistake though was to allow the opening of the domestic economy to the extent they did in the run up to Christmas. They gave an inch and the Irish public took a mile, and we're paying the price for it now.

But there's nothing to be gained from coming on here day after day and hammering the government because they don't bring in nonsensical quarantines and border restrictions that are completely unworkable and utterly pointless in any case. If this pandemic is controlled in Ireland from here on out, it will be done through people following the rules and staying at home where possible, and through rolling restrictions that are stepped up and stepped down as and when required. It won't be controlled by fencing off the border or imprisoning the few remaining inbound travellers, the nature of our island is that any variant that makes it to the UK will make it to Ireland as well, regardless of what restrictions on travel are put in place.

I love when people say mandatory hotel quarantine is unworkable. :pac:

How is the current living with covid plan workable. Like who is it working for?

• kids? ............No they can't go to school safely.
  
• Older people?........No because they are having to shield / cocoon or whatever it's called now.
  
• Young people?..........No because can't see friends, go on dates etc.

Most people's live's are literally on hold for a number of years so we can go on a two week sun holiday. Really isn't a good price to pay imho.

darem93

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Haven't been on this thread in a couple of weeks but it's fairly depressing to come back on and see the same headbangers still rambling on about Australia, New Zealand and Zero Covid as though any of those setups would be remotely feasible on a bi-national interconnected island like Ireland. You might as well start wishing for magic Covid curing unicorns lads.

Have the government made correct decisions at every turn in this pandemic - of course not. Easily their biggest mistake though was to allow the opening of the domestic economy to the extent they did in the run up to Christmas. They gave an inch and the Irish public took a mile, and we're paying the price for it now.

But there's nothing to be gained from coming on here day after day and hammering the government because they don't bring in nonsensical quarantines and border restrictions that are completely unworkable and utterly pointless in any case. If this pandemic is controlled in Ireland from here on out, it will be done through people following the rules and staying at home where possible, and through rolling restrictions that are stepped up and stepped down as and when required. It won't be controlled by fencing off the border or imprisoning the few remaining inbound travellers, the nature of our island is that any variant that makes it to the UK will make it to Ireland as well, regardless of what restrictions on travel are put in place.

So your strategy is just in and out of lockdown constantly? Because that has just worked so well for us up to this point. Pure madness.

Cosmo Kramer

Bambi wrote: »

Nphet and Patrick Hulahoop are headbangers now


Could have been adressed through an agreed strategy with the British Government for the north, no attempt made. Could have been done with a 5km travel restriction just inside the border being enforced, which they've finally started to figure out

Even with the border for NI open shutting down outside access would have had a huge effect on transmission from the outside world

But sure, shut the economy down and put the whole country under house arrest but closing the airports was unfeasible. Is your next recommendation allowing visitors to wander around hospital wards?

Taking your points in turn:

NPHET themselves have literally come out and said that the idea of Zero Covid in Ireland is a nonsense. They're talking sense as usual, but for some reason people only seem to hear the bits they want to.

The idea that the Irish government have any significant input into UK government policy is way off as well. The UK was never going to agree to such an approach at any time in the last 12 months. The idea goes completely against UK government policy up to now. Even a glance through the UK media shows that there are more Tory supporters advocating the removal of all restrictions than there are supporting any kind of two island zero Covid strategy even now a year on.

The 5km border thing is a waste of time also, it can only have been put forward by people who aren't at all familiar with the Ireland/UK border. 275 crossing points on the border itself, how many more when you draw another border 5 km away? Literally thousands of route combinations from NI to points in the Republic on the other side of these 5km locations. Are you really suggesting we deploy the police and army to hundreds of back roads near border crossings in places like Cavan, Leitrim and Donegal that are used only a handful of times a day even during normal times? It's completely unworkable.

And shutting down outside access while leaving the NI border open is a waste of time as well. Someone travels freely from GB to NI, meets someone else in NI who works in the Republic, they take the virus across the border and the shebeens, house parties, funeral gatherings, essential workplaces and supermarkets in the Republic do the rest. Your mutant variant is in the country and spreading like wildfire and shutting the ports and airports has done absolutely nothing to solve the problem.

As for your last flippant comment about hospitals - I certainly haven't seen anyone suggest anything like that. However, there will be a lot of people carrying baggage for years to come that their loved ones died alone in 2020.or 2021 with not a single family member by their side in their final days or weeks as they passed away. I have lost a family member during this pandemic, but thankfully provisions were made for that person to be supported in person by next of kin during their final days. However, in many cases this concession has not been made. I believe provision should be made for one next of kin family member to be allowed access to a terminally ill patient so that they do not have to spend their dying days alone. I think future generations will not look kindly on us as a society that we, in many cases, did not even make that small accommodation to the dying during this pandemic.

Cosmo Kramer

fly_agaric wrote: »

Fling insults away, but when the dust finally settles on all this it will be obvious even to the die hards that the "crazies" as you call them were broadly correct (even if literal "zero covid" wasn't possible).
If vaccination does not work as we all hope & expect for by latter half of the year, I think we could be really surprised by what becomes politically possible.

Probably it would take one of more of the main European countries (UK, Germany, France) to decide they have really had quite enough of it all, and close things right down as regards inward travel + go for elimination/supression and that would set off a domino effect.

No, they can't have been correct because they're advocating actions that the government literally cannot successfully implement. Your comment about the UK, Germany etc. pretty much backs up this point. By all means let's have some kind of European wide strategy if the will is there but expecting Ireland to be able to implement something like this by itself puts us back in unicorn territory.

fly_agaric wrote: »

Would agree it is not about bashing the government as all countries in Europe have broadly made the same errors. However, one thing that was particularly bad here was the extremely strict travel "recommendations" on paper that were not enforced in reality.
Other countries in Europe had less restrictions but they were actually enforcing complicance with the measures they were taking all the way through I think and not leaving it to trust. I think that is a better way to operate.

In no way am I suggesting that the government has been blameless, far from it. But, on the basis of the Zero Covid crowd on here, they are in an impossible situation because they are being expected to create a solution that simply does not exist.

Tenzor07

caveat emptor wrote: »

I love when people say mandatory hotel quarantine is unworkable. Most people's live's are literally on hold for a number of years so we can go on a two week sun holiday. Really isn't a good price to pay imho.

Thought you knew better than to say that?
Blanket mandatory hotel quarantine is unworkable...who do you expect to jump in and arrange to rent the hotels, organise the booking system, employ the security guards, organise sterile bus/cars from the airport to the hotels, surely not this Government?? They can't even come up with an acceptable plan to get kids back to school!
Also you're jumping on the Joe Duffy bandwagon here and it's rather simplistic to say "uhh ehh... sun erumm Holidays...." loads of people travel for jobs, family events i.e. funerals etc... this rather basic crude idea that our ports are only used for beach holidays is completely narrow minded....

..maybe i'm giving you too much credit...

Indeed. Joe, Pat and everyone else have done a great job in persuading the masses that every instance of overseas travel is for the purpose of getting a tan in Lanzarote

Tenzor07

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Im in no way am I suggesting that the government has been blameless, far from it. But, on the basis of the Zero Covid crowd on here, they are in an impossible situation because they are being expected to create a solution that simply does not exist.

One Government is watching the other...with each country having their own version of Tony Holoham..... Some states are managing to keep lids on their Holohan, Ireland isn't.... Now they seem to be copying the UK... And all trying to come up with a solution to this unprecedented crisis....And then looking at the Chinese solution, oh maybe we should copy some of that! :eek:

Cosmo Kramer

caveat emptor wrote: »

I love when people say mandatory hotel quarantine is unworkable. :pac:

How is the current living with covid plan workable. Like who is it working for?

• kids? ............No they can't go to school safely.
  
• Older people?........No because they are having to shield / cocoon or whatever it's called now.
  
• Young people?..........No because can't see friends, go on dates etc.

Most people's live's are literally on hold for a number of years so we can go on a two week sun holiday. Really isn't a good price to pay imho.

Sure, that's as annoying for me as it is for anyone else. But the problem is that you seem to believe that introducing mandatory quarantine will change any of the above. In fact, all that will happen is that all those problems will remain, but you'll also be detaining people in hotels on top of everything else. The sun holiday crowd are very low in number and can be dealt with through the travel fines etc. But the virus mutations will still get in through essential workers, truck drivers and via NI regardless of what quarantines you enforce.

I get the feeling locking up foreigners will make some people feel better somehow, but it won't actually have any effect on the virus or the ongoing restrictions.

darem93 wrote: »

So your strategy is just in and out of lockdown constantly? Because that has just worked so well for us up to this point. Pure madness.

As opposed to what alternative exactly?????

Lockdowns are horrible, constantly changing restrictions are horrible. We can all agree on that.

But suggesting unworkable, impossible alternatives is quite simply pointless. People are being fooled by political populism, they're being convinced that there is somehow, somewhere out there some kind of better solution that would remove the need for these awful lockdowns if only our useless, hopeless government had the balls to make different decisions. Buzz words like Zero Covid and Australia are being thrown out there without any specific detail on how such things might work in an Irish context. It's all very Brexity/Trump-like to be honest.

The reality, of course, is that we're bouncing from one lockdown to the next because there is no other workable alternative. The only thing that's "pure madness" is people putting forward alternatives that are completely unworkable in Ireland in practice.

We're stuck with the lockdowns because there are no better options unfortunately. Deal with it.

Thank you for posting such sensible posts, Cosmo. I agree with you entirely, and you articulate it much better than I ever could

scouserstation

SheepsClothing wrote: »

What travel and tourism industry? It's not happening this year anyway, why not try to get a full domestic economy going with a large amount of internal tourism while the option is there. There is no easy answers with Covid, you have to pick your poison. In my view, that should be a maximum suppression strategy with mandatory quarantines, until we reach a point where we can consider travel corridors with other vaccinated countries.

But that's the thing, our government isn't even entertaining the idea of travel corridors, don't get me wrong I'd be in favour of restricting travel as a short term measure but to close our borders for the next 12-24 months is just insanity,

We rely on international business as well as imports and exports, never mind our tourism industry and if we pursue a zero covid ideoligy we will lose jobs and destroy livelihoods in the process

Banana Republic 1

Tenzor07 wrote: »

We agree on that! NPHET are hopeless, led by a deeply political figure and a team of people who are far from at the top of their respective fields...

I think it's far too late now to go down the Zero Covid road..we'd need at least 3 months of it before any benefit would become apparent.. and those 3 months would be a Complete and full only leave your home once a week for food lockdown... no messing about..

Your right the yo yo diet is working well.

Banana Republic 1

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Sure, that's as annoying for me as it is for anyone else. But the problem is that you seem to believe that introducing mandatory quarantine will change any of the above. In fact, all that will happen is that all those problems will remain, but you'll also be detaining people in hotels on top of everything else. The sun holiday crowd are very low in number and can be dealt with through the travel fines etc. But the virus mutations will still get in through essential workers, truck drivers and via NI regardless of what quarantines you enforce.

I get the feeling locking up foreigners will make some people feel better somehow, but it won't actually have any effect on the virus or the ongoing restrictions.



As opposed to what alternative exactly?????

Lockdowns are horrible, constantly changing restrictions are horrible. We can all agree on that.

But suggesting unworkable, impossible alternatives is quite simply pointless. People are being fooled by political populism, they're being convinced that there is somehow, somewhere out there some kind of better solution that would remove the need for these awful lockdowns if only our useless, hopeless government had the balls to make different decisions. Buzz words like Zero Covid and Australia are being thrown out there without any specific detail on how such things might work in an Irish context. It's all very Brexity/Trump-like to be honest.

The reality, of course, is that we're bouncing from one lockdown to the next because there is no other workable alternative. The only thing that's "pure madness" is people putting forward alternatives that are completely unworkable in Ireland in practice.

We're stuck with the lockdowns because there are no better options unfortunately. Deal with it.

A zero tolerance for covid is the only method proven to work. Would you live with a house fire or tolerate rats in your kitchen.

fly_agaric

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

No, they can't have been correct because they're advocating actions that the government literally cannot successfully implement. Your comment about the UK, Germany etc. pretty much backs up this point. By all means let's have some kind of European wide strategy if the will is there but expecting Ireland to be able to implement something like this by itself puts us back in unicorn territory.

More measures can be implemented if the will is there (so not a unicorn) but you are right it is very difficult politically if no other country in Europe is doing similar and we are the outlier (i.e. crazy...) even if it was the correct policy.
There's definitely been a change in the discussion about all this though (even in the UK) given the uncertainty that vaccination will fix everything this year.

One thing I'd agree with you on is I don't think it is a panacea/solution (on its own) as you hear suggested by "zero covid" proponents i.e. if only Ireland had done it last summer (policy of hotel quarantine for incoming travellers + taken pain of a longer lockdown) we'd be all living the life of reilly mostly restriction free like Aus/NZ. I think it would have been a help combined with some other measures in keeping the numbers of cases/hospitalisations/deaths much lower and having less strain on health service and more critical parts of society open. Would the post Christmas surge that pushed the health service close to breaking point + shut schools (countries don't usually do that unless at war) have been as large as it was with quarantine of incoming travellers in place? I don't believe so.

My thought on it last year was Ireland should really try and control what we can control here, evaluate, and see where it gets us. I'd considered at that point that the NI border was likely to be last on the list of "things we can control".

The government should have at least been planning hard for quarantining incoming travellers last summer i.e. knowing exactly what needed to be done given I believe NPHET have been suggesting more restrictions on travel right from the start.
It looks like they just decided it was politically impossible (as you've said), did no work and are now in somewhat of a spin trying to sort out how to go about it on the fly for limited subgroups of incomers at least.