Green List (Who will be on it?)

ninebeanrows

yoshimitsu wrote: »

Our esteemed Health Minister on the green list:

"If we essentially pegged the countries that qualify to our own rate, we would have something perverse happening, which is as the prevalence of COVID increased in Ireland, we would be opening ourselves up to more and more countries with high rates of COVID," Stephen Donnelly told the Newstalk radio station.

"If we were simply to do that, it would self-evidently lead to a higher spread of the virus in the country. That's why we have it under review at the moment."

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020...?partner=IFTTT

Is he playing dumb or is he really thick as a brick?

:eek:

bladespin

yoshimitsu wrote: »

Is he playing dumb or is he really thick as a brick?

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer would be my guess, worrying really.

Thephantomsmask

So no travel for us to other countries as we would be opening ourselves to higher spread but 8000 people arrived here from America in July. Let the finger wagging continue I guess.

https://www.todayfm.com/news/overseas-visitors-ireland-increased-300-july-1068817

Feria40

Leo making his election pitch ��

Says we are way behind and need to open up:

https://www.thejournal.ie/leo-varadkar-pp-meeting-5193670-Sep2020/

Feria40

Feria40 wrote: »

Leo making his election pitch ��

Says we are way behind and need to open up:

https://www.thejournal.ie/leo-varadkar-pp-meeting-5193670-Sep2020/

Leo's nothing to loose by playing faast and loose now I guess.

Quantum Erasure

bladespin wrote: »

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer would be my guess, worrying really.

You can see the reasoning though, even if you don't agree with it

Yurt2

Feria40 wrote: »

Leo making his election pitch ��

Says we are way behind and need to open up:

https://www.thejournal.ie/leo-varadkar-pp-meeting-5193670-Sep2020/

Who needs an opposition when you have 'straight talk Leo'© as your junior partner in a coalition.

yoshimitsu

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

You can see the reasoning though, even if you don't agree with it

Nope, sorry but I don’t see the reasoning at all. That’s the issues.
If you open up travel to countries that have the same or lower infections rates than Ireland, it means that, on average, it would be less risky to be in those countries than in Ireland.
The worse that can happen is that someone travels to a country with equal risks as Ireland but more likely your are traveling to a country with lower infection rates
Surprised the news talk journalists didn’t even try to challenge that statement because it is fundamentally flawed

Happydays2020

yoshimitsu wrote: »

Nope, sorry but I don’t see the reasoning at all. That’s the issues.
If you open up travel to countries that have the same or lower infections rates than Ireland, it means that, on average, it would be less risky to be in those countries than in Ireland.
The worse that can happen is that someone travels to a country with equal risks as Ireland but more likely your are traveling to a country with lower infection rates
Surprised the news talk journalists didn’t even try to challenge that statement because it is fundamentally flawed

Agree. We knew they would shift the goalposts. He could have said:

- we are concerned at the level of transmissions in Ireland. we are working to reduce that.
- we think there should be a more sustainable strategy for travel with greater safeguards.
- This strategy is currently being developed and we note that work is also happening at EU level to achieve the balance of controlling the disease but at the same time protecting freedom of movement within the EU.
- therefore, we will not be adding any more countries to the list at this point in time but there will be developments on this by 15 September at the latest.

Instead we got dithering and quite frankly rubbish talk.

zerosugarbuzz

Feria40 wrote: »

Leo making his election pitch ��

Says we are way behind and need to open up:

https://www.thejournal.ie/leo-varadkar-pp-meeting-5193670-Sep2020/

Can’t stand Leo but I agree with him on. This. Whole thing should have opened up months ago.

Happydays2020

Imagine living in Germany where they are being honest about the lockdown and actively looking to find ways to make things easier for their citizens.

Surprise and anger over admission shops and hairdressers did not need to close
Derek Scally
Germany should not have closed shops and hairdressers in the coronavirus lockdown, its health minister has admitted, triggering demands for an inquiry into decisions taken early on in the pandemic.
Federal health minister Jens Spahn’s admission that Berlin’s lockdown was too harsh has surprised many and infuriated those hit hardest by the shutdown.
The remarks will be grist to the mill of the 40,000 people who demonstrated in Berlin at the weekend against ongoing Covid-19 restrictions as overblown.
“With the knowledge of today, I can tell you no hairdressers would have to close and no shops,” he said. “That will not happen again. We won’t need visitor bans in care homes, either.”
He said Germany could avoid a second lockdown because people had “learned in the last months how to protect ourselves”, using masks instead of closing shops and services.
Mr Spahn made his remarks on a tour of western Germany where he has been heckled at almost every stop by critics of the Merkel administration’s coronavirus policies, often following him around from town to town. At one stop Mr Spahn, who is married to a man, was spat on and called a “gay pig”.
‘Absolute truth’
The health minister said the pandemic restrictions, which began in mid-March, were never an “absolute truth” and always a “balancing between health protection, security, everyday life and freedom”.
His comments could have far-reaching legal and political consequences. During a video conference last week, chancellor Angela Merkel said there was “no dispute that the thing is tricky”.
Yesterday an 80-year-old woman from Würzburg, northern Bavaria, told the Bild tabloid how lockdown rules meant she was unable to hold her husband’s hand when he died in a care home on April 9th.
“When I hear now that I could have visited, the mourning comes over me again,” she said. “It was so hard because my husband kept demanding to see me.”
Daily infection rate
As the pandemic stretches into the autumn, the daily infection rate in Germany is down from over 6,000 at the peak to some 1,200 today. No district or county has an infection rate above the critical 10 per 100,000 population, above which tighter lockdown measures apply.
Yesterday Dr Merkel met US entrepreneur Elon Musk in Berlin. He is in town for the topping-out ceremony of a new Tesla factory east of the capital. Ahead of that, he discussed with Dr Merkel his plan for a global network of automated labs to produce and distribute Covid-19 vaccines, when available.
Meanwhile, leading German virologist, Dr Christian Drosten, a special adviser on the pandemic to Dr Merkel, has said it should possible to reduce the quarantine period for returning travellers from 14 to five days.

yoshimitsu

Jack1985 wrote: »

That link seems down?

full article:


Ireland's Travel 'Green List' Under Review, Minister Says


By Reuters

• Sept. 2, 2020

DUBLIN — Ireland's "green list" of countries exempt from travel restrictions is under review after a spike in Irish COVID-19 cases made adding countries with a similar or slightly better incidence rate too risky, the country's health minister said.
Ireland dropped a 14-day quarantine requirement for arrivals from an initial list of 15 European countries in late July and cut that down to 10 on Aug. 4, when an increase in cases in the likes of Malta and Cyprus struck them off the list.
More countries were due to be added or removed every two weeks, but the list has not been amended since Ireland's 14-day cumulative cases per 100,000 of population rose above 30 from around three cases when the measure was introduced.
"If we essentially pegged the countries that qualify to our own rate, we would have something perverse happening, which is as the prevalence of COVID increased in Ireland, we would be opening ourselves up to more and more countries with high rates of COVID," Stephen Donnelly told the Newstalk radio station.


"If we were simply to do that, it would self-evidently lead to a higher spread of the virus in the country. That's why we have it under review at the moment."
The government's initial plan was to judge whether to ease quarantine restrictions based on the number of new COVID-19 cases, the trend and the quality of testing and tracing in qualifying countries.
Nine European countries not on the list currently have a lower 14-day case rate than Ireland. They include Britain, Germany and Sweden, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Irish airline Ryanair initiated legal proceedings against the government in late July, questioning the legality of travel restrictions.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, editing by Larry King)

bladespin

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

You can see the reasoning though, even if you don't agree with it

No, I wouldn't describe it as reasoning at all, I doubt there was any brain function involved there.

stockshares

Quote from the above article in post #1213 by voshimitsu.

"The government's initial plan was to judge whether to ease quarantine restrictions based on the number of new COVID-19 cases, the trend and the quality of testing and tracing in qualifying countries.
Nine European countries not on the list currently have a lower 14-day case rate than Ireland. They include Britain, Germany and Sweden, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control."




The Irish Gov seemed to have assumed that cases would only increase in other Countries and not in Ireland.

The fact that we currently have a worse ratio than UK and Sweden is a bad reflection on how this has been handled.

Both these Countries adopted a Herd Immunity strategy earlier only to either modify or abandon it later and now they have a better ratio than Ireland.

There have been a lot of half arsed measures while not tackling breakouts in Meat Factories, Direct Provision Centres and lack of quarantine enforcement.

The house party breakouts are a result of pub closures and lack of individual responsibility. These parties took place before covid too due to price of drink but have increased since

The fact that the UK and Sweden have better ratios while having having/had Herd Immunity policies and pubs opened is fairly damning.

If the problems with Neat Plants and Direct Provision Centres are not addressed and quarantining is not enforced what's the point of the restrictions in the first place.

Bear in mind that Leo Varadkar doesn't have a leg to stand on. At the beginning of the Outbreak he wanted Paddy's Day to go ahead and did not prevent Cheltenham flights while people were sick and beginning to die in Care Homes.

What they should do is
1) close the Meat Plants until they are made suitable to work in while preventing Covid. This would involve addressing the living conditions of the people who work there including their workers rights such as sick pay. As long as that isn't sorted there will be further breakouts and specific lockdowns.

2) They need to state a set ratio of Covid cases/per pop which does not change that will allow travel to/from all Countries that meet this ratio. This ratio would be one that would allow for a certain number of Covid cases being brought into the country that the country can cope with. Not an ever changing ratio based on what other countries are doing. What other Countries are doing is irrelevant to what this Country can cope with.

3) Enforce Quarantining and have Temp checks at airports.

4) Either open all pubs or close all pubs. The current situation pits one against the other. It's human nature for people to want to socialise and wherever this is done(pubs or house parties) is going to lead to breakouts. It's better that it's done in a regulated way but there is no perfect solution to this side of the problem. The current arrangement that some pubs can open if they provide food is nothing to with Covid but is designed to keep major pub chains particularly in Dublin in business which isn't a bad thing in itself but chooses one over the other . €9 meals won't protect anyone from Covid. If all pubs are to be closed then the sale of alcohol in supermarkets and off licences should be banned. For Alcoholics that are totally dependant on Alcohol this should be provided by prescription.

5) Make Masks Compulsory
There may or may not be something to wearing masks and until we no for certain and until the measures above are seen to be working wearing masks should be compulsory. People who don't wear them should be fined.

Icepick

EU Commission proposal:

On the basis that the Member State of departure has a weekly testing rate of more than 250 per 100 000 people, the Commission is proposing that Member States should not restrict free movement of people travelling from another Member State where:

- The total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases in a given area is equal to less than 50 per 100 000 people during a 14-day period, OR,
- The percentage of positive tests from all COVID-19 tests in a given area is less than 3%.

A common colour code

The Commission proposes the following:

- Green for an area where the total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases is less than 25 during a 14-day period AND the percentage of positive tests from all COVID-19 tests is less than 3%;
- Orange for an area where the total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases is less than 50 during a 14-day period BUT the percentage of positive tests from all COVID-19 tests is 3% or more OR the total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases is between 25 and 150 BUT the percentage of positive tests from all COVID-19 tests is less than 3%;
- Red for an area where the total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases is more than 50 during a 14-day period AND the percentage of positive tests from all COVID-19 tests is 3% or more OR the total number of newly notified COVID-19 cases is more than 150 per 100 000 people during a 14-day period;
Grey if there is insufficient information available to assess the criteria proposed by the Commission OR the number of COVID-19 tests carried out per 100 000 people is less than 250.

A common approach for travellers from high-risk areas

The Commission proposes a common approach amongst Member States when dealing with travellers coming from ‘high-risk' zones. Member States should not refuse the entry of persons travelling from other Member States. Member States that introduce restrictions to free movement based on their own decision-making processes, could require:

- persons travelling from an area classified as ‘red' or ‘grey' to either undergo quarantine OR undergo a COVID-19 test after arrival – COVID-19 testing being the preferred option;*

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1555

That would mean no quarantine from all but the hardest hit countries at the moment (France, Spain, Croatia, Belgium, Romania, Malta, Czech Republic) based on the number of cases.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea

Risteard81

stockshares wrote: »

Quote from the above article in post #1213 by voshimitsu.

"The government's initial plan was to judge whether to ease quarantine restrictions based on the number of new COVID-19 cases, the trend and the quality of testing and tracing in qualifying countries.
Nine European countries not on the list currently have a lower 14-day case rate than Ireland. They include Britain, Germany and Sweden, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control."




The Irish Gov seemed to have assumed that cases would only increase in other Countries and not in Ireland.

The fact that we currently have a worse ratio than UK and Sweden is a bad reflection on how this has been handled.

Both these Countries adopted a Herd Immunity strategy earlier only to either modify or abandon it later and now they have a better ratio than Ireland.

There have been a lot of half arsed measures while not tackling breakouts in Meat Factories, Direct Provision Centres and lack of quarantine enforcement.

The house party breakouts are a result of pub closures and lack of individual responsibility. These parties took place before covid too due to price of drink but have increased since

The fact that the UK and Sweden have better ratios while having having/had Herd Immunity policies and pubs opened is fairly damning.

If the problems with Neat Plants and Direct Provision Centres are not addressed and quarantining is not enforced what's the point of the restrictions in the first place.

Bear in mind that Leo Varadkar doesn't have a leg to stand on. At the beginning of the Outbreak he wanted Paddy's Day to go ahead and did not prevent Cheltenham flights while people were sick and beginning to die in Care Homes.

What they should do is
1) close the Meat Plants until they are made suitable to work in while preventing Covid. This would involve addressing the living conditions of the people who work there including their workers rights such as sick pay. As long as that isn't sorted there will be further breakouts and specific lockdowns.

2) They need to state a set ratio of Covid cases/per pop which does not change that will allow travel to/from all Countries that meet this ratio. This ratio would be one that would allow for a certain number of Covid cases being brought into the country that the country can cope with. Not an ever changing ratio based on what other countries are doing. What other Countries are doing is irrelevant to what this Country can cope with.

3) Enforce Quarantining and have Temp checks at airports.

4) Either open all pubs or close all pubs. The current situation pits one against the other. It's human nature for people to want to socialise and wherever this is done(pubs or house parties) is going to lead to breakouts. It's better that it's done in a regulated way but there is no perfect solution to this side of the problem. The current arrangement that some pubs can open if they provide food is nothing to with Covid but is designed to keep major pub chains particularly in Dublin in business which isn't a bad thing in itself but chooses one over the other . €9 meals won't protect anyone from Covid. If all pubs are to be closed then the sale of alcohol in supermarkets and off licences should be banned. For Alcoholics that are totally dependant on Alcohol this should be provided by prescription.

5) Make Masks Compulsory
There may or may not be something to wearing masks and until we no for certain and until the measures above are seen to be working wearing masks should be compulsory. People who don't wear them should be fined.

It is an outrageous affront to our rights to make masks mandatory when you freely admit that they mightn't even work.

Happydays2020

Icepick wrote: »

EU Commission proposal:



https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_1555

That would mean no quarantine from all but the hardest hit countries at the moment (France, Spain, Croatia, Belgium, Romania, Malta, Czech Republic) based on the number of cases.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea

Thanks.

It does sound complicated and could do with a bit of a table to show real life examples but by my reckoning Ireland is orange - but a week of lower numbers and we will probably get below the 25 and make it to green.

The testing indicator is positive particularly given Trump’s argument.

Wallander

Happydays2020 wrote: »

Thanks.

It does sound complicated and could do with a bit of a table to show real life examples but by my reckoning Ireland is orange - but a week of lower numbers and we will probably get below the 25 and make it to green.

The testing indicator is positive particularly given Trump’s argument.

The workings are complicated but in the end people will just see Green, Orange and Red and plan accordingly. It will surely become a reference point for people more than Ireland's green list. Would you plan a travel this autumn based on the infection data at the end of July (Irish green list) or on a European list updated weekly?

Happydays2020

Wallander wrote: »

The workings are complicated but in the end people will just see Green, Orange and Red and plan accordingly. It will surely become a reference point for people more than Ireland's green list. Would you plan a travel this autumn based on the infection data at the end of July (Irish green list) or on a European list updated weekly?

I think a common approach which is on the basis of current risk is far more optimal than what we have currently.

acequion

I just fervently hope that quarantine will be scrapped, if not in the short term, at least in the medium term ie early next year. As I keep saying, a quarantine requirement is a travel ban for many workers. I'm aware that somebody could still test positive on return, but at least the approx 99% who test negative would be cleared to return to work.

I'm thinking about Spain which is where I go,usually several times a year and which at the moment is one of the worst in numbers. But not in every region. So perhaps we might see a regional approach within Europe. Fingers crossed as it's worrying.

Credit Checker Moose

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0907/1163692-green-list/

List will be updated later this month apparently.

Credit Checker Moose

Credit Checker Moose wrote: »

List will be updated later this month apparently.

No hurry then.

naughtysmurf

With the way Spain's numbers are, will they have any chance of a reasonable tourist season in 2021?

Feria40

naughtysmurf wrote: »

With the way Spain's numbers are, will they have any chance of a reasonable tourist season in 2021?

It's hard to know, as we have seen with this disease things can change fast.

The cases per 100,000 is a reasonably poor metric given that it does not account for the overall level of testing.

The positivity rate as also mentioned by the Commission appears a better metric (though still not perfect).

I think the rate in Ireland is about 1.6% which is well below the 3% referenced in the Commission article.

I can't find the figure for Spain

Edit. The means of testing may also become more sophisticated in the coming months. At present well over 50% of Spanish cases are asymptomatic and the research shows that these people present far less of a danger to those around them (not no danger).

We are still early in this pandemic and there is stil a lot to be learned

Irish Aris

Feria40 wrote: »

It's hard to know, as we have seen with this disease things can change fast.

The cases per 100,000 is a reasonably poor metric given that it does not account for the overall level of testing.

The positivity rate as also mentioned by the Commission appears a better metric (though still not perfect).

I think the rate in Ireland is about 1.6% which is well below the 3% referenced in the Commission article.

I can't find the figure for Spain

Edit. The means of testing may also become more sophisticated in the coming months. At present well over 50% of Spanish cases are asymptomatic and the research shows that these people present far less of a danger to those around them (not no danger).

We are still early in this pandemic and there is still a lot to be learned

I think based on the current numbers Spain would be a red zone anyway, as they are in excess of 150 cases per 100.000 people.
I think though that the proposal from EU is a good one. The categories (especially the orange one where many countries would fall under) are fairly wide and allow room to wiggle if things start deteriorating towards red zone territory. And obviously having a common approach between the EU countries will make navigating travelling requirements easier.

bikeman1

naughtysmurf wrote: »

With the way Spain's numbers are, will they have any chance of a reasonable tourist season in 2021?

Far too early to say. Things change very quickly with this virus. I never thought in April that I would be jumping on a plane to Italy at the end of July for a weeks holiday. Second trip to Italy coming up and this time to the North where things hit badly.

Spain is doing a lot of testing including PCR tests. You can bet your bottom euro that they will do everything to have a full tourist season next year as it is so important to their economy.

Dublin Mum

bikeman1 wrote: »

Far too early to say. Things change very quickly with this virus. I never thought in April that I would be jumping on a plane to Italy at the end of July for a weeks holiday. Second trip to Italy coming up and this time to the North where things hit badly.

Spain is doing a lot of testing including PCR tests. You can bet your bottom euro that they will do everything to have a full tourist season next year as it is so important to their economy.

Exactly.

By May of this we’d already cancelled a holiday to Portugal and several trips in Ireland and totally written off our summer holiday to Spain for later in the summer. Never pictured ourselves being so relaxed and feeling so safe over there. Restricted our movements for 2 weeks when we got home, in plenty of time for the children to start back to school (where 2 weeks in I regret to say I don’t feel we’re so safe!).

acequion

Dublin Mum wrote: »

Exactly.

By May of this we’d already cancelled a holiday to Portugal and several trips in Ireland and totally written off our summer holiday to Spain for later in the summer. Never pictured ourselves being so relaxed and feeling so safe over there. Restricted our movements for 2 weeks when we got home, in plenty of time for the children to start back to school (where 2 weeks in I regret to say I don’t feel we’re so safe!).

Isn't that the huge irony! As a teacher in a large school I'm at much higher risk now than on my two very low key trips to Spain this summer and so much more exposed. Luckily I'm not a nervous sort, you really wouldn't want to be in my job at the moment.

Another point about Spain to add to the posts above is the fact that the numbers are skewed by red zone areas within Spain. There are other parts where numbers are far less and which are actually safer than Ireland and that would include most of the big tourist areas ie the islands and Costa Blanca, not sure how Costa del sol is doing. So a regional, rather than country wide approach, would be a lot more effective.

Wallander

Latest fun fact on our Green List:

-You are not required to restrict movements if returning from Hungary (on our green list), but you must restrict movements if returning from Cyprus (not on it), despite Hungary having an infection rate ten times higher than Cyprus (41.8 v 4.2)

Also you aren't allowed into Hungary but you are allowed into Cyprus

Credit Checker Moose

Green list scrapped!