Covid19 Part XIX-25,802 in ROI (1,753 deaths) 5,859 in NI (556 deaths) (21/07)Read OP

JP Liz V1

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

The Dáil bar is open and serving food.

Have you a point?

I would like to have a pint

fritzelly

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I would like to have a pint

Give Brian a call

plodder

ACitizenErased wrote: »

21 from nearly 10,000 tests is actually not a bad number at all now that I think about it

Where can one get this information about the actual number of tests done per day?

ACitizenErased

plodder wrote: »

Where can one get this information about the actual number of tests done per day?

Ireland's COVID19 Data Hub

Humilde

Mwengwe wrote: »

I wish people would stop going on about the 'second wave' tbh, it's just a meaningless buzzword at this point.

We are nowhere near a second wave at the moment and it would take a week or three of utter negligence to get us there

Is it possible to forma club of common sense people? There must be more of you out there. These histericals are ruling the roost at the moment.

plodder

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Ireland's COVID19 Data Hub

Thanks. I guess it depends on the distribution of the 21 cases. How many are related to each other basically? If they were all related that would be good. If none of them are, that would be terrible. Not sure if we are getting that information ..

Santy2015

De Gascun on Danny boys tweets.
https://twitter.com/cilliandegascun/status/1284610059243270147?s=21

caveat emptor

Good comparison to tourism in both countries. I’m not advocating either way. I think it’s inevitable that’s this strategy will be adopted. We’ll probably have to go through a second lockdown to garner the political will though.

https://twitter.com/gabrielscally/status/1284546066327777281?s=21

bb1234567

Santy2015 wrote: »

De Gascun on Danny boys tweets.
https://twitter.com/cilliandegascun/status/1284610059243270147?s=21

I don't see how it could be called depressing yet, there's hardly any concrete trends emerging yet. I don't know what figure he has used for Spain as the worldometer one includes antibody tests, so a bit of a question mark there. Many Eastern Euro countries like Romania, Ukrain never particularly got a handle on their outbreaks so no surprises there. And apart from that, the changes either increases or decreases are overall pretty minuscule for the most part.

Leftwaffe

Santy2015 wrote: »

De Gascun on Danny boys tweets.
https://twitter.com/cilliandegascun/status/1284610059243270147?s=21

Does anyone know who Danny Boy is? Some good info in his tweets but I'm always suspicious of it being FFG propaganda.

Santy2015

Redordeadqwwer wrote: »

Does anyone know who Danny Boy is? Some good info in his tweets but I'm always suspicious of it being FFG propaganda.

He talks sense though. He calls out bluffers like McKenna.
He’s positive as well. If he was a FFG he’d be throwing a few negatives our way from time to time.

Wolf359f

caveat emptor wrote: »

Good comparison to tourism in both countries. I’m not advocating either way. I think it’s inevitable that’s this strategy will be adopted. We’ll probably have to go through a second lockdown to garner the political will though.

https://twitter.com/gabrielscally/status/1284546066327777281?s=21

He states we can't have quarantine because of tourism.... WTF?
Even the government is advocating for tourists to stay away, it's not like they are encouraging tourists to come.
I notice he mentions visitor days as the Irish tourism figures are nearly 3x as many as NZ. Shame he doesn't also mention the total spend per person.
We always hear Ireland is expensive, so it would be nice to see the difference.
He just seems to pull figures to suite his agenda and offer no solutions.
Reminds me of a certain political party. Play to the crowd.

I've yet to hear a credible solution to being able to quarantine all people entering the country for 2 weeks and build and man a border up north. Maybe we can make those in quarantine build a border wall?

Wolf359f

Santy2015 wrote: »

De Gascun on Danny boys tweets.
https://twitter.com/cilliandegascun/status/1284610059243270147?s=21

Redordeadqwwer wrote: »

Does anyone know who Danny Boy is? Some good info in his tweets but I'm always suspicious of it being FFG propaganda.

I'm curious where he gets the data from, he doesn't mention.
I would assume the source he's using is recent cases only and not including any antibody testing.
It's not as simple as pulling figures from worldometer.
Looking at the ECDC graph, the EU looks stable, considering most of europe is opening back up.

Leftwaffe

Santy2015 wrote: »

He talks sense though. He calls out bluffers like McKenna.
He’s positive as well. If he was a FFG he’d be throwing a few negatives our way from time to time.

Ah yeah he's a good flow to be fair. I'm just being skeptical.

He puts a huge effort into threads. So much so it leads me to believe its his job. I could be wrong of course. I'm just very curious about his identity, where he gets his info from, etc.

Jizique

Boggles wrote: »

Fúck them.

No private company gets to dictate public health policy during a once in a generation global pandemic.

The whole country can't suffer because Michael wants more profits.

Yes; all business meetings are f@cked due to wfh and nobody will be flying over for football matches or stags - little to do with green lists at this stage, demand is just not coming back until those things I mentioned and more return

caveat emptor

Wolf359f wrote: »

He states we can't have quarantine because of tourism.... WTF?
Even the government is advocating for tourists to stay away, it's not like they are encouraging tourists to come.
I notice he mentions visitor days as the Irish tourism figures are nearly 3x as many as NZ. Shame he doesn't also mention the total spend per person.
We always hear Ireland is expensive, so it would be nice to see the difference.
He just seems to pull figures to suite his agenda and offer no solutions.
Reminds me of a certain political party. Play to the crowd.

I've yet to hear a credible solution to being able to quarantine all people entering the country for 2 weeks and build and man a border up north. Maybe we can make those in quarantine build a border wall?

If you read it he is saying "I've been told I can't compare......"
He then goes on to explain how they are comparable in terms of room nights.
I like your argument about Ireland being expensive or a rip off some may say. Do you think NZ is cheap?

The hotels are empty. Start there I'd say. As I said when the cost of rolling lockdowns and public fatigue / fear is factored in, in six months time this will be a solution.

The easiest is to do it is at UK and Ireland level. No need for us to police "the border" or get anyone to build a wall.

Of course this will make a certain industry who shalt no be named very unhappy.
When triaging a patient sometimes you have to sacrifice a limb for the good of the whole.

Wolf359f

caveat emptor wrote: »

If you read it he is saying "I've been told I can't compare......"
He then goes on to explain how they are comparable in terms of room nights.
I like your argument about Ireland being expensive or a rip off some may say. Do you think NZ is cheap?

The hotels are empty. Start there I'd say. As I said when the cost of rolling lockdowns and public fatigue / fear is factored in, in six months time this will be a solution.

The easiest is to do it is at UK and Ireland level. No need for us to police "the border" or get anyone to build a wall.

Of course this will make a certain industry who shalt no be named very unhappy.
When triaging a patient sometimes you have to sacrifice a limb for the good of the whole.

I've no idea if NZ is cheap, but of course we always hear Ireland is super expensive. Also not included in those figures is how many Irish people fly back into Ireland that live abroad. I'd hazard a guess there's a lot more weekend traffic/day traffic than NZ.
What I mean is there's a lot more people travelling for essential travel than into NZ. We can just shut down the airports.

On the empty hotels, that's tough, reading here about american tourists, it sounds like hotels are full. But we have a total hotel bed capacity of 148,000, based on a 14 day quarantine, that's a maximum of say 10,000 people be allowed enter Ireland on any given day.

We've heard transport unions saying they can't police the mandatory mask policy, who will police the quarantine in hotels? Not the staff obviously.
There's about 800 hotels to police, so even 1 police officer, we'll probably need 2 for health and safety (in case one needs to use the toilet etc...) and a maximum working week of 40hrs, that's 8 guards per hotel, so only need an extra 6400 guards to sort that out. So half the police force!

Always_Running

Santy2015 wrote: »

He talks sense though. He calls out bluffers like McKenna.
He’s positive as well. If he was a FFG he’d be throwing a few negatives our way from time to time.

Love how he schools that right wing attention seeking doctor who loves to praise Swedens approach over Irelands.

Non solum non ambulabit

caveat emptor wrote: »

Good comparison to tourism in both countries. I’m not advocating either way. I think it’s inevitable that’s this strategy will be adopted. We’ll probably have to go through a second lockdown to garner the political will though.

https://twitter.com/gabrielscally/status/1284546066327777281?s=21

So we have 3 times as many visitors. We also have millions of Irish people taking multiple holidays a year to USA and Europe, weekend breaks etc. Duration of stay is the least important number.

AlmightyCushion

Non solum non ambulabit wrote: »

So we have 3 times as many visitors. We also have millions of Irish people taking multiple holidays a year to USA and Europe, weekend breaks etc. Duration of stay is the least important number.

This. Going to somewhere in Europe for a long weekend here is normal. I can't imagine it's anywhere near as common in New Zealand.

caveat emptor

Wolf359f wrote: »

I've no idea if NZ is cheap, but of course we always hear Ireland is super expensive. Also not included in those figures is how many Irish people fly back into Ireland that live abroad. I'd hazard a guess there's a lot more weekend traffic/day traffic than NZ.
What I mean is there's a lot more people travelling for essential travel than into NZ. We can just shut down the airports.

On the empty hotels, that's tough, reading here about american tourists, it sounds like hotels are full. But we have a total hotel bed capacity of 148,000, based on a 14 day quarantine, that's a maximum of say 10,000 people be allowed enter Ireland on any given day.

We've heard transport unions saying they can't police the mandatory mask policy, who will police the quarantine in hotels? Not the staff obviously.
There's about 800 hotels to police, so even 1 police officer, we'll probably need 2 for health and safety (in case one needs to use the toilet etc...) and a maximum working week of 40hrs, that's 8 guards per hotel, so only need an extra 6400 guards to sort that out. So half the police force!

Look I get it if I were working in that industry I'd be super negative about the idea too. We are advised not to go on holiday yet we allow people to go on holidays here? Do you not find that hypocritical? Last time I looked hotels were at 11% capacity. Irish people returning do not need to stay in a hotel as can quarantine at home. Why are you not asking how New Zealand did it instead of just saying outright it can't be done. My guess is you are financially dependent on airports being open to anyone who wants to come in.

If you make quarantine mandatory and 2 weeks at your expense. The numbers of people travelling for the craic will fall off a cliff so your estimate about guards and hotels are bullsh!t.

In the absence of a vaccine or effective treatment this strategy will be adopted. It's the only logical conclusion. When we see case numbers it's the aggregate of all the complex interactions that occur between people and environments. On the micro level at which this works, nothing has changed. When we start going back to normal cases will tick up.

How this virus spreads hasn't changed. The only reason we got it under control is that people....

• isolated
• limited travel
• lots of public health measures

If you are proposing we all jet off on a two week holiday and allow every buba and nancey from the most infected country on the planet in then cases are going to tick up. Going back to work in the office and school is going to cause issues.

We are coming into the autumn where viral respiratory diseases such as the flu start to peak. Why do you think this is any different.

"If you hear hooves you should think horses , not zebras"

caveat emptor

Non solum non ambulabit wrote: »

So we have 3 times as many visitors. We also have millions of Irish people taking multiple holidays a year to USA and Europe, weekend breaks etc. Duration of stay is the least important number.

Redundant point.
We are advised against non essential travel.
Weekend breaks and multiple holidays to USA and Europe are non essential.
As for allowing people to holiday here from countries where incidence is higher
is asking for trouble.

How do you think thins thing spread? Why has quarantine existed for thousands of years? China didn't only export goods and services in February.

podgeandrodge

What are people's views on masks in supermarkets - supermarkets don't appear to have been a source of any significant transmission, but public opinion has shifted to wearing masks in all shops regardless. Yes, masks might protect people from spreading it from a cough/sneeze etc. but in terms of its importance in supermarkets, what are people's views of the impact of wearing masks on overall cases specifically relating to supermarkets where people generally have scope to distance?

YellowBucket

caveat emptor wrote: »

Good comparison to tourism in both countries. I’m not advocating either way. I think it’s inevitable that’s this strategy will be adopted. We’ll probably have to go through a second lockdown to garner the political will though.

https://twitter.com/gabrielscally/status/1284546066327777281?s=21

That makes absolutely no sense.

There are vastly more trips, even his own tweet says that. All visitor days says is that your average trip to NZ is much longer, which would be because it's MUCH more remote and much more expensive to get to.

Ireland's a hop skip and a jump away from all of Europe. It's under two hours flying time to a rake of western European cities, including London and Paris.

The only way we could achieve this is by suspending the CTA and that comes with enormous political and economic consequences, particularly at the moment. Even if we did, it would mean closing the Northern Ireland border which is more or less an impossibility.

caveat emptor

YellowBucket wrote: »

That makes absolutely no sense.

There are vastly more trips, even his own tweet says that. All visitor days says is that your average trip to NZ is much longer, which would be because it's MUCH more remote and much more expensive to get to.

Ireland's a hop skip and a jump away from all of Europe. It's under two hours flying time to a rake of western European cities, including London and Paris.

Room nights is a proxy for value of the sector. It's industry standard.
Whether trips are short or long doesn't change that the main cost is accommodation. Therefore it's a good indicator for value.
"These cows are close but those are far away"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

caveat emptor

YellowBucket wrote: »

That makes absolutely no sense.

There are vastly more trips, even his own tweet says that. All visitor days says is that your average trip to NZ is much longer, which would be because it's MUCH more remote and much more expensive to get to.

Ireland's a hop skip and a jump away from all of Europe. It's under two hours flying time to a rake of western European cities, including London and Paris.

The only way we could achieve this is by suspending the CTA and that comes with enormous political and economic consequences, particularly at the moment. Even if we did, it would mean closing the Northern Ireland border which is more or less an impossibility.

Again if you read what I said.
The UK and Ireland approach.
No need to suspend CTA.

YellowBucket

caveat emptor wrote: »

Again if you read what I said.
The UK and Ireland approach.
No need to suspend CTA.

The UK isn't going to take that approach due to desperately trying to not upset the madman that's running the USA while having cut itself off from its main export markets and supply chains by January 2021 in a titanic feat of arrogance.

So, that's simply not going to happen. I mean Boris Johnson was playing this thing down until he literally ended up in ICU himself and even after that experience he's still more or less playing it down.

If you think the current batch of Tories are suddenly going to start behaving sensibly, you're in for serious disappointment.

In a parallel universe where the UK was run by sensible people, yes it might happen. In this world, not a hope unfortunately.

caveat emptor

YellowBucket wrote: »

The UK isn't going to take that approach due to desperately trying to not upset the madman that's running the USA while having cut itself off from its main export markets and supply chains by January 2021 in a titanic feat of arrogance.

So, that's simply not going to happen. I mean Boris Johnson was playing this thing down until he literally ended up in ICU himself and even after that experience he's still more or less playing it down.

If you think the current batch of Tories are suddenly going to start behaving sensibly, you're in for serious disappointment.

I'm saying in 6 months.
The economic hardship that will be felt will be such that a common approach will be lesser of two evils. Logically most people aren't holidaying so the industry will slowly wilt anyway if this goes on 2 / 3 years.
In fairness to Boris he mentioned preparing for the worst this winter which is more than our lot.

podgeandrodge

podgeandrodge wrote: »

What are people's views on masks in supermarkets - supermarkets don't appear to have been a source of any significant transmission, but public opinion has shifted to wearing masks in all shops regardless. Yes, masks might protect people from spreading it from a cough/sneeze etc. but in terms of its importance in supermarkets, what are people's views of the impact of wearing masks on overall cases specifically relating to supermarkets where people generally have scope to distance?

Do our views even matter? Is your opinion changeable? Mine isn't.

fritzelly

caveat emptor wrote: »

Room nights is a proxy for value of the sector. It's industry standard.
Whether trips are short or long doesn't change that the main cost is accommodation. Therefore it's a good indicator for value.
"These cows are close but those are far away"

Room nights is only relevant on an hotel by hotel basis - meaningless using it to compare countries - it is only a proxy for the value of that particular hotel

Average stay also a meaningless factor - we have LOADS of people come here from the UK for a weekend, even other countries like Spain. I wouldn't be flying to NZ for a weekend and neither would any other country except maybe Australia

Only meaningful number in that tweet is the number of visitors - which says it all

caveat emptor

fritzelly wrote: »

Room nights is only relevant on an hotel by hotel basis - meaningless using it to compare countries - it is only a proxy for the value of that particular hotel

Average stay also a meaningless factor - we have LOADS of people come here from the UK for a weekend, even other countries like Spain. I wouldn't be flying to NZ for a weekend and neither would any other country except maybe Australia

Only meaningful number in that tweet is the number of visitors - which says it all

It is comparable and you can't do maths. I'll help you out.
Ok loads of people come here from UK for weekend.

So say 20 people come here for weekend. (3 days)

That's 20 X 3 = 60 visitor days.

In New Zealand. 3 people go there for 20 days.

That's 3 X 20 = 60 visitor days.

i.e exactly the same.

New Zealand had 74 million visitor days.
Ireland 78 million visitor days.
How the fvck are they not comparable?

fritzelly

caveat emptor wrote: »

It is comparable and you can't do maths. I'll help you out.
Ok loads of people come here from UK for weekend.

So say 20 people come here for weekend. (3 days)

That's 20 X 3 = 60 visitor days.

In New Zealand. 3 people go there for 20 days.

That's 3 X 20 = 60 visitor days.

i.e exactly the same.

New Zealand had 74 million visitor days.
Ireland 78 million visitor days.
How the fvck are they not comparable?

I dunno - maybe something to do with the actual number of people

Jaysus

11.2 million people is a BIGGER number of REAL people than 3.9 million people
You know its like saying this cow is bigger than this cow because it is actually bigger

He should stick to making up statistics for the UK

And the YT video is tiring - more an insult in every post saying everyone you reply to is stupid.

bb1234567

Brazil deaths finally may be declining. Today was the first weekday(because of a 24 hour lag in reporting, Saturday is a 'weekday' and MOnday is not) which has not reported over 1000 deaths in about 7 weeks!

Quite shockingly though recent modeeling by the main forecasters in the US have predicted that the USA and Brazil will both reach 200,000 deaths by November despite Brazil having only 65% of the population of the US. I would imagine that by November India will have a larger number of deaths than both countries though.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/brazil-nears-million-coronavirus-cases-75000-dead-200716195533995.html

caveat emptor

fritzelly wrote: »

I dunno - maybe something to do with the actual number of people

Jaysus

11.2 million people is a BIGGER number of REAL people than 3.9 million people
You know its like saying this cow is bigger than this cow because it is actually bigger

He should stick to making up statistics for the UK

And the YT video is tiring - more an insult in every post saying everyone you reply to is stupid.

If you can't see that they are equivalent then I can't help you.
I posted the video because it's funny that he has to explain it.

I'm not the one trying to say it's a conspiracy. It is comparable you just can't see it.

helpful

podgeandrodge wrote: »

What are people's views on masks in supermarkets - supermarkets don't appear to have been a source of any significant transmission, but public opinion has shifted to wearing masks in all shops regardless. Yes, masks might protect people from spreading it from a cough/sneeze etc. but in terms of its importance in supermarkets, what are people's views of the impact of wearing masks on overall cases specifically relating to supermarkets where people generally have scope to distance?

The horse has bolted comes to mind. People do seem to still be very aware of the risk in supermarkets. Everyone I’ve been to has been enforcing proper social distancing measures and less people seem to just be there to browse. I think it’s a bit late to force people to wear masks. I’ve already heard of people saying they’ll just keep a mask with them and reuse it whether it is reusable or not.
I also think that this will stop people going to supermarkets or shops if it is non essential. For example if they just wanted a newspaper. I presume this is the intention but I can’t see it being good for retailers.
Just strikes me as odd to make it mandatory after 4 months of very few people wearing them and supermarkets have been open the whole time.
I don’t agree with floor staff having to wear them all day either.

caveat emptor

caveat emptor wrote: »

If you can't see that they are equivalent then I can't help you.
I posted the video because it's funny that he has to explain it.

I'm not the one trying to say it's a conspiracy. It is comparable you just can't see it.

Wait.. Are you arguing that total stay is the important metric and not total visitors?

fritzelly

Deleted User wrote: »

Wait.. Are you arguing that total stay is the important metric and not total visitors?

Yes he is - our resident twitternati - looking for tweets where no one else dares to look

It doesn't make any sense.

caveat emptor

Deleted User wrote: »

Wait.. Are you arguing that total stay is the important metric and not total visitors?

No. Total Visitor days (or nights) is an important metric when comparing countries.

i.e the number of visitors X the length of stay.

So New Zealand with less people visiting but longer trips
is comparable to Ireland with more people and shorter trips.

Which one is worse for the environment but good for airlines?

caveat emptor

caveat emptor wrote: »

No. Total Visitor days (or nights) is an important metric when comparing countries.

i.e the number of visitors X the length of stay.

So New Zealand with less people visiting but longer trips
is comparable to Ireland with more people and shorter trips.

Which one is worse for the environment but good for airlines?

What has that got to do with Covid?

More visitors is more risk. It isn't comparable. Staying three weeks in a country doesn't make it more likely you arrived into the country with the virus.

fritzelly

caveat emptor wrote: »

No. Total Visitor days (or nights) is an important metric when comparing countries.

i.e the number of visitors X the length of stay.

So New Zealand with less people visiting but longer trips
is comparable to Ireland with more people and shorter trips.

Which one is worse for the environment but good for airlines?

What the hell has airlines profits got to do with the price of bread

Are you actually now trying to come up with excuses for your argument -scraping the barrel you are

caveat emptor

Deleted User wrote: »

What has that got to do with Covid?

More visitors is more risk. It isn't comparable. Staying three weeks in a country doesn't make it more likely you arrived into the country with the virus.

Not talking about that FFS.

New Zealand effectively banned non citizens and enforced quarantine.
Ireland didn't and advertised tourism in US of all places.

The argument was Ireland's tourism is very value.
Well on a total visitor day basis it is in fact comparable in scale.

i.e they did it why can't we.

People are disingenuously arguing about it because they work in the sector.

caveat emptor

caveat emptor wrote: »

Not talking about that FFS.

New Zealand effectively banned non citizens and enforced quarantine.
Ireland didn't and advertised tourism in US of all places.

The argument was Ireland's tourism is very value.
Well on a total visitor day basis it is in fact comparable in scale.

i.e they did it why can't we.

People are disingenuously arguing about it because they work in the sector.

Ok, well that I agree with. I just woke up and can't drink coffee for a couple of days so I'm slow.

In my opinion, Ireland could dramatically cut inward travel while leaving NI border open. Most people aren't going to look at a lack of flights to Dublin and go through Belfast instead.

caveat emptor

Deleted User wrote: »

Ok, well that I agree with. I just woke up and can't drink coffee for a couple of days so I'm slow.

In my opinion, Ireland could dramatically cut inward travel while leaving NI border open. Most people aren't going to look at a lack of flights to Dublin and go through Belfast instead.

No worries. Independent cobra group of scientists and experts are calling for UK and Ireland approach which would mean Northern Ireland border not needed to enforced and CTA in place.

Really feels like China is trolling the world. How long til we cop on what we have to do to beat this thing.

Due to the continued spread of Covid-19, the Chinese Government announced on March 26 that entry by foreign nationals into the People’s Republic of China is now suspended. There is as of yet no end-date to this new measure. This means that Irish citizens will not be able to enter China from abroad.

https://twitter.com/CGTNOfficial/status/1284655144643096576?s=20

Even simple measures like what Cambodia is doing would help. You have to have health insurance that covers Covid up to $50k and you have to deposit $3k when you enter. Plus $165 for a test at arrival and overnight quarantine while waiting for results.

That falls nicely between no barriers and two weeks in a facility. Every country could do it.

Important business travel and family stuff could still happen but it would stop families of four gallivanting around the country on their holidays. It would also work for the UK as proof you've done these things could be required at check in.

Polar101

Deleted User wrote: »

Even simple measures like what Cambodia is doing would help. You have to have health insurance that covers Covid up to $50k and you have to deposit $3k when you enter. Plus $165 for a test at arrival and overnight quarantine while waiting for results.

Why would a tourist go to Cambodia then? That's pretty much saying "don't come here", and then you could just go somewhere else. Unless I'm missing something obvious here (which is always a real chance).

So it sounds like a border closure, but you can pay to enter. I don't think that would work in Europe.

Polar101

Polar101 wrote: »

Why would a tourist go to Cambodia then? That's pretty much saying "don't come here", and then you could just go somewhere else. Unless I'm missing something obvious here (which is always a real chance).

So it sounds like a border closure, but you can pay to enter. I don't think that would work in Europe.

They're basically cutting off the majority of tourists in a way that allows foreigners who live there to get back and it allows business to take place. They want to allow the Chinese in, who are investing unbelievable money there and have the virus mostly under control, while not allowing tourists.

I think it's a decent compromise and it's politically safe. You're not saying no to countries. You're saying yes but big deposits and a night's quarantine needed.


(And I would still go there. Paying the deposit isn't a big deal and you could visit Angkor when it's deserted. It would be amazing.)

rubadub

What Username Guidelines wrote: »

Pubs can’t open. Restaurants can. They needed to define a restaurant, so they went with a place that serves food and maybe also alcohol. But you need a definition of food then as well. How they got to a €9 meal being the definition I don’t know, but it needed to be something.

They did not need to define a restaurant, it was already in law as was the price. I have asked those who think the meal rule is ridiculous what law they would implement to differentiate between pubs and restaurants, no replies so far, not surprising -I think the penny finally dropped.

Some are genuinely too stupid to get it, fair enough, but many are just arseholes feigning ignorance.

The "substantial meal" laws date back to the 50s and possibly back to 1904, nothing new. The 9euro figure is from 2003, so with inflation if it was updated it would be a bit more today.

If you read the laws the price was not always the only definition, you could not simply sell a pack of peanuts for the set price at the time, at least it was not intended to be, but hard to put strict definitions on it.

e.g.

9.—(1) For the purposes of the Licensing Acts and the Registration of Clubs Acts a meal served in any premises after the commencement of this Act shall not be deemed to be a substantial meal unless—

(a) the meal is such as might be expected to be served as a main midday or main evening meal or as a main course at either such meal, and

These days they would really need a calorific value or something similar.

This one had you having to consume the drink with the meal.

(c) on Christmas Day, between the hours of one o'clock and three o'clock in the afternoon or the hours of seven o'clock and ten o'clock in the evening,

if, in each case, the intoxicating liquor is—

(I) ordered by that person at the same time as a substantial meal is ordered by him,

(II) consumed at the same time as and with the meal,

(III) supplied and consumed in the portion of the premises usually set apart for the supply of meals, and

(IV) paid for at the same time as the meal is paid for.”

Neamhshuntasach

caveat emptor wrote: »

It is comparable and you can't do maths. I'll help you out.
Ok loads of people come here from UK for weekend.

So say 20 people come here for weekend. (3 days)

That's 20 X 3 = 60 visitor days.

In New Zealand. 3 people go there for 20 days.

That's 3 X 20 = 60 visitor days.

i.e exactly the same.

New Zealand had 74 million visitor days.
Ireland 78 million visitor days.
How the fvck are they not comparable?

The visitor days is nonsense. New Zealand tourism is full of back packers staying in hostels trying to work out how they can live on 30 euro a day. Been there enough to see a vast difference in the tourists you see here in Ireland. I'd bet the average person staying 3 weeks in New Zealand spends less than someone staying a week here.

prunudo

podgeandrodge wrote: »

What are people's views on masks in supermarkets - supermarkets don't appear to have been a source of any significant transmission, but public opinion has shifted to wearing masks in all shops regardless. Yes, masks might protect people from spreading it from a cough/sneeze etc. but in terms of its importance in supermarkets, what are people's views of the impact of wearing masks on overall cases specifically relating to supermarkets where people generally have scope to distance?

Its a strange one, especially now at this stage of the pandemic when numbers are where there are. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of clusters from supermarkets and from talking to my local dunnes staff there have been no cases of covid even though I know there has been cases in the community albeit not recently.
Both this and the delayed pub opening caught me off guard so I'm not quite sure what they're basing their decision on as in my mind the virus is being kept under control bar a few tracable parties and health settings.
At the end of the day if it keeps numbers low then it will be a good thing but as another poster mentioned I think it will keep people out shops (probably other shops rather than supermarkets) for anything bar the essential supplies, but maybe that was the intention.