What is our plan?

aido79

snotboogie wrote: »

Can you link to where Northern Ireland have shot down an all Ireland solution?

This might help give you a little insight into the thinking of the DUP. They are against anything that separates the North from Britain. The union is more important to them than life itself.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-53477661

snotboogie wrote: »

I'm not familiar with the industry but i'd be shocked if there was no solution other than putting the driver from the UK in quarantine. Off the top of my head:

(i) have the driver from the UK drop the truck on the ferry and have another driver from Ireland pick it up on the other side.

(ii) have strict regulations for drivers who drivers coming from the UK: have regulations that they are tested once a week in the UK, check these certs on entry and test them again on arrival, make it mandatory for them to have the contact tracing app and have regulations limiting their time outside of the truck.

I'm sure these solutions could be refined and that there are plenty of others. It wouldn't be ideal but it would be worth it for reopening our economy 100% again

In theory this would be a solution to truck drivers but how many extra drivers would be needed, where would they be found and much would it add to the cost of each delivery? The cost of which will always be passed onto the customer.

Diarmuid

YFlyer wrote: »

Drink gin. Kills virus in the oesophagus region.

Having scanned this thread, I think that's the approach i_surge was taking last night

snotboogie

aido79 wrote: »

This might help give you a little insight into the thinking of the DUP. They are against anything that separates the North from Britain. The union is more important to them than life itself.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-53477661



In theory this would be a solution to truck drivers but how many extra drivers would be needed, where would they be found and much would it add to the cost of each delivery? The cost of which will always be passed onto the customer.

That's one politician, not a statement from Stormont. No question that it's a tough sell but maybe when the long term consequences of our current solution become clear, possible years of seesawing back and forth between stage 2 and stage 4, it will be an easier sell.

How much are businesses losing by being forced to close or needing to enforce social distancing? How much are the government paying to the staff out of work because of restrictions? A truck drivers wages pale in comparison to the economic cost of long term social distancing.

munchkin_utd

snotboogie wrote: »

Can you link to where Northern Ireland have shot down an all Ireland solution?

yep,

Sinn Féin's call for travellers from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to quarantine is a "non-starter", DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said.

Speaking on Talkback, Sir Jeffrey said: "There is a far greater risk to populations along the border from people travelling back and forward every day from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland for work or social engagements, so we would have to look at that also if the deputy first minister is in the basis of pushing these issues.

He said the DUP would not support any such proposal to make GB-NI travellers quarantine and he said the medical and scientific advice did not support the move.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-53477661

aido79

snotboogie wrote: »

That's one politician, not a statement from Stormont. No question that it's a tough sell but maybe when the long term consequences of our current solution become clear, possible years of seesawing back and forth between stage 2 and stage 4, it will be an easier sell.

How much are businesses losing by being forced to close or needing to enforce social distancing? How much are the government paying to the staff out of work because of restrictions? A truck drivers wages pale in comparison to the economic cost of long term social distancing.

I said it's an insight into the DUP's thinking not an official statement. We can see from the Brexit negotiations that they will do anything to stick with the union. They take their orders from Westminster so will not listen to the Irish government even if it seems like a common sense approach.

I agree with you that it has a huge effect on businesses. I just don't agree that closing the borders for 3 months and then opening them up again will solve anything.

munchkin_utd

snotboogie wrote: »

That's one politician, not a statement from Stormont. No question that it's a tough sell but maybe when the long term consequences of our current solution become clear, possible years of seesawing back and forth between stage 2 and stage 4, it will be an easier sell.
.

If theres years of low level infection then its years of the unionists cutting themselves off from the rest of the UK, maybe decades. Thats not going to happen.

You might see a temporary emergency measure for a few weeks, like in Germany, Italy France etc, where a region is isolated (to keep out, or in, infections) but theres zero chance that the unionists will allow any bill to pass to have a rolliing separation of NI from the rest of the UK. They would be killed at the ballot box the next time round.

snotboogie

aido79 wrote: »

I said it's an insight into the DUP's thinking not an official statement. We can see from the Brexit negotiations that they will do anything to stick with the union. They take their orders from Westminster so will not listen to the Irish government even if it seems like a common sense approach.

I agree with you that it has a huge effect on businesses. I just don't agree that closing the borders for 3 months and then opening them up again will solve anything.

I don't see it happening unless we find out vaccines are a long way off, which is fine in my opinion. We are right to chug along between Phase 2 and 4 if there is a way out of this in 2021. However if we see that vaccines are not coming anytime in the next 5 years or so we will have to take radical action.

jackal

I think for the various reasons outlined in previous posts here the eradication approach taken by NZ (and literally nobody else) is a complete non starter.

So what I would be interested in is... what is the plan for living with the virus?

That means that the government/NPHET put out an outline of key milestones and what the effect of reaching those would be. At the moment decisions are made behind closed doors and we are treated like children, not given the information but scolded about behaviour. Its wearing very thin with me.

So what I would like to see would be something along the lines of:

x cases per day on average = y actions taken, and why we are doing it
x cases hospitalised = y actions taken, and why we are doing it
x cases in ICU = y actions taken, and why we are doing it
x deaths per day (hopefully not) = y actions taken, and why we are doing it

Imaging they actually treat the population like adults and say what the "magic numbers" (that the clearly have in mind but just wont tell us) are and what actions will be taken.

Maybe I would not like the plan, maybe it would be too conservative or too risky, but I would be happy for some clarity. We have been given no plan since "stop the surge". The easing of lockdowns plan has gone off the rails at this point with no clarity given on what the numbers that they need to be seeing are, just vague, ominous sounding statements on "not looking good" etc.

Bit cynical

Bit cynical wrote: »

So there is no plan at the moment. I don't know what we were thinking. Maybe we thought there would be a vaccine in September.

I think initially when there was serious talk of 500k deaths in Ireland it was the sensible thing to do. Now we seem to be stuck in a holding pattern of going for zero cases while allowing the world to visit us unimpeded. Now it makes far less sense. We have to accept there will be clusters and outbreaks and bring the country back to some sort of socially distanced normality. Especially schools and medical services. People are dying every day of preventable conditions, but no one is talking about that in the news.

aido79

snotboogie wrote: »

I don't see it happening unless we find out vaccines are a long way off, which is fine in my opinion. We are right to chug along between Phase 2 and 4 if there is a way out of this in 2021. However if we see that vaccines are not coming anytime in the next 5 years or so we will have to take radical action.

What radical action do you suggest?

fly_agaric

aido79 wrote: »

I said it's an insight into the DUP's thinking not an official statement. We can see from the Brexit negotiations that they will do anything to stick with the union. They take their orders from Westminster so will not listen to the Irish government even if it seems like a common sense approach.

I agree with you that it has a huge effect on businesses. I just don't agree that closing the borders for 3 months and then opening them up again will solve anything.

Even if what UK govt. is advising in a given circumstance is nonsense and awful for NI due to its circumstances, the DUP will prefer to brainstorm their bespoke 'NI' approach to the problem than coordinate something with the Irish government.

However, as seen with saga of the Covid-19 phone applications, if they are finally out of options (let us see what happens after 6 months or a year more of this, with a vaccine still somewhere over the horizon), they may reluctantly see sense and accept cooperation with the govt. here on an all-island policy.

seamus

aido79 wrote: »

What radical action do you suggest?

Well if you take the logical outcome of his point, then you're looking at reopening everything while maintaining the public health measures.

This would necessitate preparing for a large jump in cases - prefab temporary hospitals where the hopeless cases can be put into palliative care while we just wait for this thing to burn out.

It's the last option and unlikely to be somewhere that we need to go, but it's always been a possibility.

jonnny68

murpho999 wrote: »

How is the government all over the place? What have they done for you to say that?

The economy is re-opened as planned but Phase IV that put back which keeps pubs closed but pubs are not the whole economy.

Shops and businesses are open.

Restrictions such as social distancing, mask wearing etc are going to remain in place until either the virus dies out or a vaccine is found and implemented.

surely your taking the proverbial piss here, they have been nothing short of an unmitigated nightmare in their handling of this virus, this latest shambles of a government are making things up as they go along and chopping and changing their mind and back tracking , jaysus when you look at how other country's handled it like New Zealand for example your almost embarrased to be Irish.

dubrov

jonnny68 wrote:

surely your taking the proverbial piss here, they have been nothing short of an unmitigated nightmare in their handling of this virus, this latest shambles of a government are making things up as they go along and chopping and changing their mind and back tracking , jaysus when you look at how other country's handled it like New Zealand for example your almost embarrased to be Irish.

New Zealand has a very different set of circumstances to Ireland.

There is no long term solution in New Zealand either assist from closing borders indefinitely. Even then, the virus will still get in there eventually

jonnny68

dubrov wrote: »

New Zealand has a very different set of circumstances to Ireland.

There is no long term solution in New Zealand either assist from closing borders indefinitely. Even then, the virus will still get in there eventually

how do you know this, are you privvy to information from the NZ government?

regardless, anyone who actually thinks this shambolic government have /are done a good job is deluded and are probably the type of person who would put their hand into the fire if the government said to do so.

jonnny68

And then you have Dr Ronan Glynn the Chief Medical officer using google as an example in othert countries when asked to produce evidence of clusters in pubs in Ireland....only in Ireland :rolleyes:

Donald Trump

Deleted User wrote: »

So what is our plan? Do you think we have one?

Here it is OP.



I would have thought you might have been aware of it - it being on the news almost every day.

seamus

jonnny68 wrote: »

jaysus when you look at how other country's handled it like New Zealand for example your almost embarrased to be Irish.

It's funny how as time goes on, the list of countries who have done "great" that people can rattle off, has been whittled down from 10 or so, to just...New Zealand.

It's almost like there's something special about New Zealand that isolates it from the rest...

jonnny68

jonnny68 wrote: »

surely your taking the proverbial piss here, they have been nothing short of an unmitigated nightmare in their handling of this virus, this latest shambles of a government are making things up as they go along and chopping and changing their mind and back tracking , jaysus when you look at how other country's handled it like New Zealand for example your almost embarrased to be Irish.

New Zealand aren't a member of the open borders EU next door to the worst COVID hotspots on the planet with free movement to and from it.

snotboogie

jackal wrote: »

I think for the various reasons outlined in previous posts here the eradication approach taken by NZ (and literally nobody else) is a complete non starter.

So what I would be interested in is... what is the plan for living with the virus?

That means that the government/NPHET put out an outline of key milestones and what the effect of reaching those would be. At the moment decisions are made behind closed doors and we are treated like children, not given the information but scolded about behaviour. Its wearing very thin with me.

So what I would like to see would be something along the lines of:

x cases per day on average = y actions taken, and why we are doing it
x cases hospitalised = y actions taken, and why we are doing it
x cases in ICU = y actions taken, and why we are doing it
x deaths per day (hopefully not) = y actions taken, and why we are doing it

Imaging they actually treat the population like adults and say what the "magic numbers" (that the clearly have in mind but just wont tell us) are and what actions will be taken.

Maybe I would not like the plan, maybe it would be too conservative or too risky, but I would be happy for some clarity. We have been given no plan since "stop the surge". The easing of lockdowns plan has gone off the rails at this point with no clarity given on what the numbers that they need to be seeing are, just vague, ominous sounding statements on "not looking good" etc.

Plenty of other countries are taking the same approach as New Zealand; China, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia are all attempting the same approach with varying levels of success.

Deleted User wrote: »

I think initially when there was serious talk of 500k deaths in Ireland it was the sensible thing to do. Now we seem to be stuck in a holding pattern of going for zero cases while allowing the world to visit us unimpeded. Now it makes far less sense. We have to accept there will be clusters and outbreaks and bring the country back to some sort of socially distanced normality. Especially schools and medical services. People are dying every day of preventable conditions, but no one is talking about that in the news.

What matters is what our health service can deal with. They have to project months into the future. If we are trending towards the health service breaking down in three months we have to take action now.

aido79 wrote: »

What radical action do you suggest?

If a vaccine doesn't come out, our options are staying between phase 2 and phase 4 for years or working towards a Covid Free Island. Thats it.

dubrov wrote: »

New Zealand has a very different set of circumstances to Ireland.

There is no long term solution in New Zealand either assist from closing borders indefinitely. Even then, the virus will still get in there eventually

The virus has gotten into New Zealand after their lockdown, they tracked effectively and eradicated it quickly without a need for any measures affecting business.

If there is no vaccine the options are;
(i) close the borders for non essential travel for 5-10 years and run the domestic economy at 100%
(ii) keep the borders open and advise against non essential travel for 5-10 years while the domestic economy runs at 40%-60%

I'm taking the former every day. People, in the huge, huge majority are not traveling now anyway, what we have now is about as good as its going to get (maybe we have a few months with pubs open) without a vaccine or a covid free island.

Diarmuid

seamus wrote: »

Well if you take the logical outcome of his point, then you're looking at reopening everything while maintaining the public health measures.

This would necessitate preparing for a large jump in cases - prefab temporary hospitals where the hopeless cases can be put into palliative care while we just wait for this thing to burn out.
.

That's complete scaremongering. Multiple European countries have fully opened up without having to build "prefab hospitals"

Donald Trump

Donald Trump wrote: »

Here it is OP.


I would have thought you might have been aware of it - it being on the news almost every day.

It's a plan with no goals, also known as a wish.

snotboogie

snotboogie wrote: »

The virus has gotten into New Zealand after their lockdown, they tracked effectively and eradicated it quickly without a need for any measures affecting business.

If there is no vaccine the options are;
(i) close the borders for non essential travel for 5-10 years and run the domestic economy at 100%
(ii) keep the borders open and advise against non essential travel for 5-10 years while the domestic economy runs at 40%-60%

I'm taking the former every day. People, in the huge, huge majority are not traveling now anyway, what we have now is about as good as its going to get (maybe we have a few months with pubs open) without a vaccine or a covid free island.

Our domestic economy is something on a par with Albania or Belarus. We are an exporting nation heavily dependent on multinationals.

jonnny68

Deleted User wrote: »

New Zealand aren't a member of the open borders EU next door to the worst COVID hotspots on the planet with free movement to and from it.

so we're back to blaming foreign travel now, how many cases are travel related recently hardly any, in fact the overall picture travel only accounts for a tiny amunts of the cases here, it makes no difference if NZ are far away it was the way they handled it from the outset which was excellent.

snotboogie

Diarmuid wrote: »

That's complete scaremongering. Multiple European countries have fully opened up without having to build "prefab hospitals"

Not a single country on earth, nevermind Europe, has lifted all restrictions

Deleted User wrote: »

Our domestic economy is something on a par with Albania or Belarus. We are an exporting nation heavily dependent on multinationals.

The restrictions would be on the movement of people, not of goods.

seamus

Diarmuid wrote: »

That's complete scaremongering. Multiple European countries have fully opened up without having to build "prefab hospitals"

Which ones? Which countries have pubs and nightclubs fully open, as well as stadiums and concert arenas? And how are their case numbers looking?

Donald Trump

Deleted User wrote: »

It's a plan with no goals, also known as a wish.

Sure have an actual read of it - you might find some goals on it - such as the reopening of pubs. If you haven't read it (and your response would indicate that you haven't) then you might very well think there are no goals on it.



If what you are moaning about is that the plan is adjusted after creation, then that is normal and expected.





(BTW, your statement makes no logical sense......I think you meant to say that a wish is a goal without a plan....which is in itself not a good definition or explanation either)

jonnny68

seamus wrote: »

It's funny how as time goes on, the list of countries who have done "great" that people can rattle off, has been whittled down from 10 or so, to just...New Zealand.

It's almost like there's something special about New Zealand that isolates it from the rest...

From the outset NZ handled this better than anyone, and this is a country similar size to ourselves , what the government here should have done in March was ban all travel unless very essential and test everyone coming into the country and isolate them until they got their test back.

But no none of that happened, and instead then come out with some ridicalous green list with countries on it you cant even fly directly to , and then still try and frighten people into staying in Ireland by saying dont travel, you couldnt make this up if you tried.

aido79

jonnny68 wrote: »

From the outset NZ handled this better than anyone, and this is a country similar size to ourselves , what the government here should have done in March was ban all travel unless very essential and test everyone coming into the country and isolate them until they got their test back.

But no none of that happened, and instead the come out with some ridicallous green list wirth countries on it you cant even fly directly to , and then still try and frighten people into staying in Ireland by saying dont travel, you couldnt make this up if you tried.

Which part of NZ doesn't share a border with another country are you having trouble with?

jonnny68

aido79 wrote: »

Which part of NZ doesn't share a border with another country are you having trouble with?

what part of "this doesnt make any difference in the slightest" are you having trouble with, once someone gets infected in a country irrespective if they share a border with another country or not it can spread very quickly in a very short space of time, so what NZ done was act very quickly to stop this by banning travel except for returning citizens and any citizens arriving back into NZ were tested and isolated until they got their results, did Ireland do this?No and they still arent doing this, that's the whole point im making, how they handled it compared to the utter shambles here and they are only getting worse here making it up as they go along and backtracking and chopping and changing their minds.

aido79

jonnny68 wrote: »

what part of "this doesnt make any difference in the slightest" are you having trouble with, once someone gets infected in a country irrespective if they share a border with another country or not it can spread very quickly in a very short space of time, so what NZ done was act very quickly to stop this by banning travel except for returning citizens and any citizens arriving back into NZ were tested and isolated until they got their results, did Ireland do this?No and they still arent doing this, that's the whole point im making, how they handled it compared to the utter shambles here and they are only getting worse here making it up as they go along and backtracking and chopping and changing their minds.

Of course it makes a difference. The Irish government have no control over who enters Northern Ireland and then onto the Republic. Banning travel into airports in the Republic would just mean people would fly into Belfast instead.

HeidiHeidi

jonnny68 wrote: »

what part of "this doesnt make any difference in the slightest" are you having trouble with, once someone gets infected in a country irrespective if they share a border with another country or not it can spread very quickly in a very short space of time, so what NZ done was act very quickly to stop this by banning travel except for returning citizens and any citizens arriving back into NZ were tested and isolated until they got their results, did Ireland do this?No and they still arent doing this, that's the whole point im making, how they handled it compared to the utter shambles here and they are only getting worse here making it up as they go along and backtracking and chopping and changing their minds.

How do you ban or control travel from another country with which you share a completely open border, and whose citizens have a right to free travel to your country (as indeed do we to their country, as evidenced by the many posters boasting on threads here about how they were able to circumvent the travel/quarantine rules)?

jonnny68

aido79 wrote: »

Of course it makes a difference. The Irish government have no control over who enters Northern Ireland and then onto the Republic. Banning travel into airports in the Republic would just mean people would fly into Belfast instead.

Yes so what they should have done in March was ban all travel but they didnt,and irrespective of this it's all too easy to blame fopreign travel when the harsh reality is somewhat different, a tiny proportion of cases here are related to travel so it makes no difference whatsoever.

HeidiHeidi

jonnny68 wrote: »

Yes so what they should have done in March was ban all travel but they didnt,and irrespective of this it's all too easy to blame fopreign travel when the harsh reality is somewhat different, a tiny proportion of cases here are related to travel so it makes no difference whatsoever.

Did you even read the post you quoted?

Or indeed your own post, before you pressed "submit reply"?

you2008

Deleted User wrote: »

Back in March/April, things were clear. We needed to flatten the curve, avoid hospitals getting overwhelmed, get our testing and tracing up to speed and get the R below 1. Once that was achieved, we needed a reopening plan that would allow us to live with the virus.

The reopening plan was ridiculously long but at least we had some dates to mark off in our calendars. Unfortunately, as soon cases increased the slightest bit, we sh*t the bed and delayed stage 4. Now with 1 or 2 decent sized clusters, we are sh*tting the bed even more, implementing curfews on restaurants, pubs etc

Unfortunately, I have very little confidence that we are going to get the schools right. The plan lacked any real substance. If one or two cases appear in schools, I think all schools will close again. That's if parents even send their kids back at all.

In Ireland, we don't appear to be aiming for Covid zero. We also don't appear to be making much effort to live with the virus. We are just sort of floating along in limbo at the moment. Borrow billions and kick the can further and further down the road. Might not be the worst plan in the world if a vaccine arrives any minute now, but how likely is that?

Since the change in government, things have actually gotten worse. MM doesn't seem to have a notion what to do and Leo is obviously happy enough that that is coming across.

So what is our plan? Do you think we have one?
What will burn out first, the virus or our money?
How long do you think do you think we can carry on the way we are currently?
How likely is it that we'll get a vaccine?
How long can they keep the public onside?

jacdaniel2014 - is not about Sh**t your bed, is about the oldly people, just this week, when I was in the Supermarket, only half had masks and the other half who had masks (half did not cover their nose), so you tell me ........

aido79

jonnny68 wrote: »

Yes so what they should have done in March was ban all travel but they didnt,and irrespective of this it's all too easy to blame fopreign travel when the harsh reality is somewhat different, a tiny proportion of cases here are related to travel so it makes no difference whatsoever.

Ban all travel for how long? Until they vaccinate everyone?

gral6

If Dublin is behaving, why Kildare isn't?
What's wrong with people from Kildare?

jonnny68

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

How do you ban or control travel from another country with which you share a completely open border, and whose citizens have a right to free travel to your country (as indeed do we to their country, as evidenced by the many posters boasting on threads here about how they were able to circumvent the travel/quarantine rules)?

Obviously it's not something you can complety control , im referring to Dublin airport or any other airport in the Republic ,not Belfast, early on in March/April when the virus was at it's peak anyone arriving into Dublin/Shannon/Cork,etc should have been tested and isolated until they got results back when the

But at the risk of repeating myself yet again, blaming foreign travel for cases like some do is a cop out, they only account for a small number.

HeidiHeidi

aido79 wrote: »

Ban all travel for how long? Until they vaccinate everyone?

Ban all travel, how?

HeidiHeidi

jonnny68 wrote: »

Obviously it's not something you can complety control , im referring to Dublin airport or any other airport in the Republic ,not Belfast, early on in March/April when the virus was at it's peak anyone arriving into Dublin/Shannon/Cork,etc should have been tested and isolated until they got results back when the

But at the risk of repeating myself yet again, blaming foreign travel for cases like some do is a cop out, they only account for a small number.

But sure if it's only a small number, why would you ban travel when it's so damaging to the economy?

jonnny68

aido79 wrote: »

Ban all travel for how long? Until they vaccinate everyone?

i never said ban all travel at all, im all for foreign travel to countrys with lower or similar rates as Ireland, im referring to early on when the virus was at it's peak as in March /April when face masks,etc werent compulsary on flights.

jonnny68

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

But sure if it's only a small number, why would you ban travel when it's so damaging to the economy?

im not answering this again, see my above post to another poster.

HeidiHeidi

jonnny68 wrote: »

Yes so what they should have done in March was ban all travel but they didnt,and irrespective of this it's all too easy to blame fopreign travel when the harsh reality is somewhat different, a tiny proportion of cases here are related to travel so it makes no difference whatsoever.

Ahem.....

jonnny68

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Ahem.....

yes back then when the virus was at it's peak not now, jaysus :rolleyes:

you2008

Carter Fit Trance wrote: »

I agree it's a better plan than what we are doing.

Problem is the border. Its not possible to close it.

well if you want to you can close it, did not the French closed to Italy back to Q1 2020?

aido79

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Ban all travel, how?

I have no idea to be honest but it might involve changing a few EU laws and renegotiating the Good Friday agreement.

HeidiHeidi

jonnny68 wrote: »

yes back then when the virus was at it's peak not now, jaysus :rolleyes:

The open border was still there back then, you know...... jaysus :rolleyes:

I'm getting bored with this now, I'll leave you to your multi-contradictory ramblings.

seamus

jonnny68 wrote: »

But at the risk of repeating myself yet again, blaming foreign travel for cases like some do is a cop out, they only account for a small number.

It's pretty clear that you don't understand how New Zealand got to where it did.

It closed down super early, and closed its borders super early. As a result once they go on top of all of the infections, they had it under control.

Both countries went into lockdown at roughly the same time, but we had ten times the infections that they did at that point. It spread considerably faster in Ireland than in New Zealand.

Based on our location and the amount of travel to affected regions, there is functionally no way that we could have achieved what New Zealand did unless we had closed down the country before we even had a confirmed case.

Bit cynical

Deleted User wrote: »

I think initially when there was serious talk of 500k deaths in Ireland it was the sensible thing to do. Now we seem to be stuck in a holding pattern of going for zero cases while allowing the world to visit us unimpeded. Now it makes far less sense. We have to accept there will be clusters and outbreaks and bring the country back to some sort of socially distanced normality. Especially schools and medical services. People are dying every day of preventable conditions, but no one is talking about that in the news.

Where did the number of 500k deaths come from? Singapore, which did a huge amount of testing in the early days, found a case fatality rate of less than 1 percent. This is the problem when you have mathematical models and no outside scrutiny.

Anyway as far as a plan goes, things are going to have to be done which are politically unpopular. Politicians are going to have to explain that what is currently being done is unsustainable and has to change. This will mean a rise in cases and, sadly, deaths. To mitigate harm, support will need to be provided to the elderly and otherwise vulnerable. Major efforts will be expended on protecting nursing and care homes with strict protocols applied. Hospitals and ICUs will need to expand to cope with cases.

I think the politicians also need to be honest with the population that it has been known for some time that for the vast majority of people contracting the virus is comparatively harmless and confers a degree of immunity afterwards.

Politically this will be difficult because a lot of people believe that we had more or less beaten the virus with the previous measures and that there would be some lasting benefit from that.

jonnny68

We seem to be getting sidetracked here from the original post asking what is our plan?

Evidently there isnt one and never has been, they make it up as they go along, they done everything too late, they couldnt make up their minds about face masks for months, then suddendy decided they were compulsary months later when cases had dropped significantly, ironically enough since they made masks compulsary cases have crept up!!

The 2/5/20 km rule was another farce, not closing the borders early on when the virus was at it's peak, coming out with a ridicalous green list, some countries on it had no direct flights from Ireland and in order to get to these countries you had to travel through a country which wasnt on the green list, all this while sending mixed messages saying urging people to stay at home in the wet, why even have a green list in the first place, the unlawful checks on people in the airport who were on the pandemic payment, another cluster **** up of epic proportations and then changing their minds twice on this.

Opening pubs serving the corona €9 meal but you can only stay 105 minutes, yeah like most are going to go out for that short space of time and go home,this is Ireland a nation of piss heads, so you've people making multiple bookings in various pubs so if someone did have the virus they would be infecting mamy more as they'd be on a pub crawl , either keep them all closed or open them all up.

Constanly coming out with the staycation rubbish,frightening and shaming people who have no desire to stay here in the wet, yeah lets all go to Galway or Kerry, overcrowded with Irish staying at home , people get locked standing around and no social distancing = spike in cases, but travel to a country with low rates of covid in near empty resorts in the sun and apparently your in grave danger as opposed to staying in crowded Irish towns.

i could go on and on and on, a cluster **** of epic prorportions.