Have NPHET lost the attention of people?

Dempo1

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

I assume you are asking me whats the point?

I am stating that NPHET made a recommendation that government followed, that actually achieved growth of new cases in Dublin and Donegal.

With Dublin reporting 241 cases alone yesterday.

Am I barking mad here or is it quite obvious that not only what NPHET recommend is not working, its actually doing the opposite.

You know, there is a chance that virus spreads in the households and indeed not restaurants or pubs. In light of this, keeping restaurants opened would actually reduce the spread.

Admitidly the initial level 3 didn't work, my point is that level 3 by its very make up is a farce, as is level 1 & 2, these levels were conjured up by government not NPHET. I'm only pointing out that levels 4 & 5 seem the only levels with real teeth as such. Honestly, the 2.5 weeks we were on level 3 in Laois was a joke and all we hear is the success of the Midlands lockdown. Kildares numbers rarely changed. Its about strict enforcement as much as I hate to say it.

I spent over 30 years in hospitality, I've many friends affected, I don't know the answer re pubs restaurants but I do spare many thoughts for those actually working in this sector. I will say one concern I have is the natural socialising instinct that kicks in, say in pubs, I'm referring to large ones with food, entertainment etc (indeed I helped set up some of Irelands largest superpubs food systems), if and it's a big if, that close personal contact is the issue, then questions need to be asked re there being places of concern. I do tend to think restaurants are not the issue at all, particularly table service only venues. But sadly any reduction in table, patron numbers affects viability, its all about covers, nothing more, nothing less.

3xh

MadYaker wrote: »

You don't think it might be because people are ignoring the advice?



Restaurant, pub, school, house it doesn't matter.

Isn’t it amazing how people who want to open up are being told to follow NPHET’s advice instead by supporters of NPHET.

Yet the same posters are saying it spreads in schools. (I do agree it does)
But it was NPHET who said kids aren’t the threat, the so called vectors of this virus. That schools are safe to re-open. Teachers were urged to return and parents to send their kids back.

Are you going against NPHET’s advice, MadYaker?! Maybe NPHET knowingly lied just to get schools reopened? Imagine that.

MadYaker

3xh wrote: »

Isn’t it amazing how people who want to open up are being told to follow NPHET’s advice instead by supporters of NPHET.

Yet the same posters are saying it spreads in schools. (I do agree it does)
But it was NPHET who said kids aren’t the threat, the so called vectors of this virus. That schools are safe to re-open. Teachers were urged to return and parents to send their kids back.

Are you going against NPHET’s advice, MadYaker?! Maybe NPHET knowingly lied just to get schools reopened? Imagine that.

I've no idea what you're talking about here to be honest you edited out most of my post.

NPHET never said it wouldn't spread in schools.

Millionaire only not

What is the point of a lockdown when we’ve an open border with that ****hole unemployed, no economy covit rotten Northern Ireland .

Dempo1

3xh wrote: »

Isn’t it amazing how people who want to open up are being told to follow NPHET’s advice instead by supporters of NPHET.

Yet the same posters are saying it spreads in schools. (I do agree it does)
But it was NPHET who said kids aren’t the threat, the so called vectors of this virus. That schools are safe to re-open. Teachers were urged to return and parents to send their kids back.

Are you going against NPHET’s advice, MadYaker?! Maybe NPHET knowingly lied just to get schools reopened? Imagine that.

I would just say it's actually been Government vehemently pushing and maintaining opening of schools, NPHETs advice seems to concur but really needs to be pointed out its a government decision, not NPHET

Dempo1

Millionaire only not wrote: »

What is the point of a lockdown when we’ve an open border with that ****hole unemployed, no economy covit rotten Northern Ireland .

A little harsh don't you think? We don't have any say on what happens up north, only short of deploying the entire defence force along the border could we close it off, I really don't think that's either politically, economically or practically sensible. I agree the North is very very bad but it's really out of our hands until the UK government act (and I hate to admit this truth)

paw patrol

3xh wrote: »

Did they though?

You know NPHET is made up of more than Holohan, Glynn, de Gascun and Nolan, yes? There’s about 50 people on it.

Is it run democratically regarding votes on policy change or does Holohan have the final say? I don’t know. I suspect neither do you.

How did they agree mid week that level 3 was fine but on the Sunday, they (I’m assuming a majority as that is how you’d hope NPHET is run) agreed (so we’re told in the media) to move to level 5.

All because Tony returned and somehow saw something different in the numbers? Give over.

NPHET stopped ‘advising’ the government when the 4 lads above realised they’re household names.

Are you ok with Glynn and Holohan tweeting their guidance etc on their twitter accounts? You see no conflict of interest in that or an ability to confuse/dilute a government message? I’m of the view, NPHET should be hidden (sure, publish their names for transparency).

It was sexy at the start of all this to have a politician stand on stage with the CMO/experts. Made it look all-encompassing, like they had it under control, listening to best guidance. We’ve moved on from that now. We know more about Covid. We don’t need Holohan to say; 1000 cases, 100 hospitalisations, etc. Donnelly can do that.

NPHET has subgroups - I would speculate that the Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group subgroup rules the roost with an iron fist.
The other subgroups are appear to be more about preparing the HSE/Hospitals and public communications .

i'd suspect that the civil servant types bow down to the celebrity scientists in terms of decisions like lockdown.

Which is even more worrying when you think about it - according to GOV.ie there are 18 members of the Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group.
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/eca0a9-statement-from-the-national-public-health-emergency-team-first-meeti/

Perhaps NPHET itself is a misnomer in terms of what we think it does and we are really controlled by a politburo of 18.

That's fcuked up not to mince my words.

Vieira82

Another tiny off topic.

Yesterday reported in Portugal over 1600 cases, highest daily increase ever. Third day in a row with over 1000 cases. The major hospital in southern Lisbon metropolitan area has reached it's ICU capacity and is asking patients to be routed to other hospitals. Nationwide 1/3 of covid dedicated ICU beads are now taken with covid cases.

zerosugarbuzz

paw patrol wrote: »

NPHET has subgroups - I would speculate that the Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group subgroup rules the roost with an iron fist.
The other subgroups are appear to be more about preparing the HSE/Hospitals and public communications .

i'd suspect that the civil servant types bow down to the celebrity scientists in terms of decisions like lockdown.

Which is even more worrying when you think about it - according to GOV.ie there are 18 members of the Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group.
https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/eca0a9-statement-from-the-national-public-health-emergency-team-first-meeti/

Perhaps NPHET itself is a misnomer in terms of what we think it does and we are really controlled by a politburo of 18.

That's fcuked up not to mince my words.

Within that 18 there would be 4 who hold the real power, and within that 4, 1 with an iron fist.

faceman

More talk in the papers of the impending lockdown and the 'desire' to do it. If we do go in to another national lockdown, it represents a massive failure of government. There is no such thing as a 'circuit break' when it comes to viruses for a start.

We were in full lockdown for 3+ months. What is the government toying with now? 2 weeks? 3 weeks? It wont make any material difference. Then what? Back to level 3? None of it makes any sense.

Either way the message is clear, lockdown only works if you stay in lockdown and embrace everything that comes with it. Massive unemployment, deferring on non Covid medical procedures, social isolation.

We had over 1,000 cases yesterday which was an unsurprising shock for most. However what didnt make the headlines was that we had more discharges from hospital yesterday than admissions. (stats are available on gov.ie)

We will be the only country in Europe to embrace a second lockdown.

Here's what I think is really happening. The government cant keep up on contact tracing or testing and need those few weeks to allow for the catching up. I seriously doubt any other EU country is taking 6 days from contacting your GP to getting your test result in terms of turn around. (This is how long it took my friend last week) Why are we still using a GP as a middle man to testing? Surely in areas where cases are high, the GP step should be removed and people contact the HSE direct? It would also free up GPs to deal with other community medical needs.

While NPHET are in no way at fault with the above issues, we still haven’t seen up to date meeting minutes for months. Are they making similar recommendations to government on testing and contact tracing? If so, why is not being acted upon? If not, why?

The Valencia region in Spain which has a slightly larger population than Ireland has more full time contact tracers than Ireland. The last time I checked many Ireland's contact tracers were mostly volunteers. There was talk of it changing but has it?

Finally for those calling for a lockdown consider this. Its very easy to think a lockdown is necessary if you will continue to still have you working from home job or whatever during another lockdown. Its very easy for politicians and NPHET to embrace a lockdown when they will continue to receive their 6 figure salaries as its business as usual. The pandemic will cost us €21bn in 2020. How much will it cost us in 2021 and 2022? Is that sustainable? How will we pay it off? How will we get people back to work? How will we deal with the mental health impact? Is anyone asking these questions?

We are on the precipitous of a failure so large its difficult to begin to quantify the wider impact.

paw patrol

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

Within that 18 there would be 4 who hold the real power, and within that 4, 1 with an iron fist.

ain't that the truth.....:(

Vieira82

faceman wrote: »

More talk in the papers of the impending lockdown and the 'desire' to do it. If we do go in to another national lockdown, it represents a massive failure of government. There is no such thing as a 'circuit break' when it comes to viruses for a start.

We were in full lockdown for 3+ months. What is the government toying with now? 2 weeks? 3 weeks? It wont make any material difference. Then what? Back to level 3? None of it makes any sense.

Either way the message is clear, lockdown only works if you stay in lockdown and embrace everything that comes with it. Massive unemployment, deferring on non Covid medical procedures, social isolation.

We had over 1,000 cases yesterday which was an unsurprising shock for most. However what didnt make the headlines was that we had more discharges from hospital yesterday than admissions. (stats are available on gov.ie)

We will be the only country in Europe to embrace a second lockdown.

Here's what I think is really happening. The government cant keep up on contact tracing or testing and need those few weeks to allow for the catching up. I seriously doubt any other EU country is taking 6 days from contacting your GP to getting your test result in terms of turn around. (This is how long it took my friend last week) Why are we still using a GP as a middle man to testing? Surely in areas where cases are high, the GP step should be removed and people contact the HSE direct? It would also free up GPs to deal with other community medical needs.

While NPHET are in no way at fault with the above issues, we still have seen up to date meeting minutes. Are they making similar recommendations to government on testing and contact tracing? If so, why is not being acted upon? If not, why?

The Valencia region in Spain which has a slightly larger population than Ireland has more full time contact tracers than Ireland. The last time I checked many Ireland's contact tracers were mostly volunteers. There was talk of it changing but has it?

Finally for those calling for a lockdown consider this. Its very easy to think a lockdown is necessary if you will continue to still have you working from home job or whatever during another lockdown. Its very easy for politicians and NPHET to embrace a lockdown when they will continue to receive their 6 figure salaries as its business as usual. The pandemic will cost us €21bn in 2020. How much will it cost us in 2021 and 2022? Is that sustainable? How will we pay it off? How will we get people back to work? How will we deal with the mental health impact? Is anyone asking these questions?

We are on the precipitous of a failure so large its difficult to begin to quantify the wider impact.

100% in agreement with you. And again WHO has stated since the beginning, effective contact tracing can stop local, regional or national lockdowns and plenty of examples of countries with this effective system that have controlled the virus more than once. SK just one as an example.

MelbourneMan

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

You know, there is a chance that virus spreads in the households and indeed not restaurants or pubs. In light of this, keeping restaurants opened would actually reduce the spread.

I am an authority on this matter.

A lot of people are making the mistake of simplifying transmission to a single stage. To understand the various contributions of the various societal interractions for virus transmission, the household ones must effectively be excluded.

In practice, they cannot be stopped. Intrahoushold isolation is effectively impossible. And transmission must be understood as a two stage process - transmission outside the household, and then within it. Taken in isolation, any single external interface - pubs, worksplace, schools, shops, etc, have an ostensibly low transmission rate. Giving those who dont really understand what they are talking about, seemingly statisitical justification for their contention thant environment X is hardly at all contributing to the propagation. They state pubs arent, international travel isnt, schools arent, small crowds at sports fixtures arent, etc. But the reality is that they are. And why the non essential - unfortunately therefore the fun things in life - must be shutdown. Its mistaken to regard a single transmission in a sports club as insignificantly small in the overall view. But that single external transmission propagates to 2-6 cases in the home. Then just one of them in an external case of the workplace or visiting of another home. And so on

We cannot close down homes. The chain of transmission must be broken outside it.

kippy

faceman wrote: »

More talk in the papers of the impending lockdown and the 'desire' to do it. If we do go in to another national lockdown, it represents a massive failure of government. There is no such thing as a 'circuit break' when it comes to viruses for a start.

We were in full lockdown for 3+ months. What is the government toying with now? 2 weeks? 3 weeks? It wont make any material difference. Then what? Back to level 3? None of it makes any sense.

Either way the message is clear, lockdown only works if you stay in lockdown and embrace everything that comes with it. Massive unemployment, deferring on non Covid medical procedures, social isolation.

We had over 1,000 cases yesterday which was an unsurprising shock for most. However what didnt make the headlines was that we had more discharges from hospital yesterday than admissions. (stats are available on gov.ie)

We will be the only country in Europe to embrace a second lockdown.

Here's what I think is really happening. The government cant keep up on contact tracing or testing and need those few weeks to allow for the catching up. I seriously doubt any other EU country is taking 6 days from contacting your GP to getting your test result in terms of turn around. (This is how long it took my friend last week) Why are we still using a GP as a middle man to testing? Surely in areas where cases are high, the GP step should be removed and people contact the HSE direct? It would also free up GPs to deal with other community medical needs.

While NPHET are in no way at fault with the above issues, we still have seen up to date meeting minutes. Are they making similar recommendations to government on testing and contact tracing? If so, why is not being acted upon? If not, why?

The Valencia region in Spain which has a slightly larger population than Ireland has more full time contact tracers than Ireland. The last time I checked many Ireland's contact tracers were mostly volunteers. There was talk of it changing but has it?

Finally for those calling for a lockdown consider this. Its very easy to think a lockdown is necessary if you will continue to still have you working from home job or whatever during another lockdown. Its very easy for politicians and NPHET to embrace a lockdown when they will continue to receive their 6 figure salaries as its business as usual. The pandemic will cost us €21bn in 2020. How much will it cost us in 2021 and 2022? Is that sustainable? How will we pay it off? How will we get people back to work? How will we deal with the mental health impact? Is anyone asking these questions?

We are on the precipitous of a failure so large its difficult to begin to quantify the wider impact.

If more people follow the restrictions currently in place, there will be no need for greater restrictions.
That's the irony of it all.
The last few weeks have seen blatent disregard for the restrictions in place on an individual level, some with the attitude of, sure if we don't get this and that done or have that celebration/communion/party/travel to town to pick up xyz, we won't be able do it when the restrictions are increased.
There are obviously certain things like unfortunately anything that involves mass gatherings that will be off the cards for a while but almost everything else can work if people follow the restrictions in place. This means curtailing certain activities but it is more palatable than going back to April like restrictions.

faceman

kippy wrote: »

If more people follow the restrictions currently in place, there will be no need for greater restrictions.
That's the irony of it all.
The last few weeks have seen blatent disregard for the restrictions in place on an individual level, some with the attitude of, sure if we don't get this and that done or have that celebration/communion/party/travel to town to pick up xyz, we won't be able do it when the restrictions are increased.
There are obviously certain things like unfortunately anything that involves mass gatherings that will be off the cards for a while but almost everything else can work if people follow the restrictions in place. This means curtailing certain activities but it is more palatable than going back to April like restrictions.

I don’t know if I entirely agree with blame being placed on people. People will operate within the rules and structures put in place. Put those rules aren’t enforced in Ireland. Since returning to Ireland from a country that has taken things more seriously, of the 3 restaurants/bars I did visit in Ireland, 2 of them were not aligned with the social distancing measures nor was hand sanitising enforced etc. Sure the signage was up and empty tables looked socially distanced. But without the risk of an inspector calling in, what did it matter.

The bigger issue in my eyes, after enforcement, is the failure of the government to put in place an adequate contact tracing and testing regime which we have known since day 1 is essential. As I previously mentioned, a 6 day turnaround from contacting gp to getting a result in completely unacceptable. In the NPHET daily briefing, these kind of stats should also be communicated.

Why GPs are still involved in the process is beyond me.

Anecdotally people in my circles are following guidelines on social distancing and cutting contacts. Although fundamentally there is an issue with people not using hand sanitiser before entering and after leaving shops in Ireland.

faceman

MelbourneMan wrote: »

They state pubs arent, international travel isnt, schools arent, small crowds at sports fixtures arent, etc. But the reality is that they are. And why the non essential - unfortunately therefore the fun things in life - must be shutdown.

I find it deeply offensive someone would suggest international travel as being fun. Flying was never fun and never will be

GazzaL

faceman wrote: »

I don’t know if I entirely agree with blame being placed on people. People will operate within the rules and structures put in place. Put those rules aren’t enforced in Ireland. Since returning to Ireland from a country that has taken things more seriously, of the 3 restaurants/bars I did visit in Ireland, 2 of them were not aligned with the social distancing measures nor was hand sanitising enforced etc. Sure the signage was up and empty tables looked socially distanced. But without the risk of an inspector calling in, what did it matter.

The bigger issue in my eyes, after enforcement, is the failure of the government to put in place an adequate contact tracing and testing regime which we have known since day 1 is essential. As I previously mentioned, a 6 day turnaround from contacting gp to getting a result in completely unacceptable. In the NPHET daily briefing, these kind of stats should also be communicated.

Why GPs are still involved in the process is beyond me.

Anecdotally people in my circles are following guidelines on social distancing and cutting contacts. Although fundamentally there is an issue with people not using hand sanitiser before entering and after leaving shops in Ireland.

NPHET have continually failed to hit testing and tracing targets. This is just brushed under the carpet by blaming pubs or house parties. As far as hand sanitiser use goes, NPHET have failed to achieve clear, consistent messaging.

faceman

GazzaL wrote: »

NPHET have continually failed to hit testing and tracing targets. This is just brushed under the carpet by blaming pubs or house parties. As far as hand sanitiser use goes, NPHET have failed to achieve clear, consistent messaging.

I have issues with NPHET structure and with Holohan for his past failings but they’re an advisory panel. Communication comes from the HSE and the government.

It should be noted that when Sam McConkey was bizarrely screaming for zero covid, Paul Reid the head of the HSE was saying zero covid is fantasy stuff for Ireland

MelbourneMan

GazzaL wrote: »

NPHET have continually failed to hit testing and tracing targets. This is just brushed under the carpet by blaming pubs or house parties. As far as hand sanitiser use goes, NPHET have failed to achieve clear, consistent messaging.

NPHET has no targets or responsibility for testing or tracing implementation. It is explicitly excluded from their brief.

kippy

faceman wrote: »

I don’t know if I entirely agree with blame being placed on people. People will operate within the rules and structures put in place. Put those rules aren’t enforced in Ireland. Since returning to Ireland from a country that has taken things more seriously, of the 3 restaurants/bars I did visit in Ireland, 2 of them were not aligned with the social distancing measures nor was hand sanitising enforced etc. Sure the signage was up and empty tables looked socially distanced. But without the risk of an inspector calling in, what did it matter.

The bigger issue in my eyes, after enforcement, is the failure of the government to put in place an adequate contact tracing and testing regime which we have known since day 1 is essential. As I previously mentioned, a 6 day turnaround from contacting gp to getting a result in completely unacceptable. In the NPHET daily briefing, these kind of stats should also be communicated.

Why GPs are still involved in the process is beyond me.

Anecdotally people in my circles are following guidelines on social distancing and cutting contacts. Although fundamentally there is an issue with people not using hand sanitiser before entering and after leaving shops in Ireland.

I don't disagree with most of that tbf. Testing and tracing isn't where it should be at but again I would say that you can also put that down to people not following the regulations.
Also agree, not enough enforcement of current regulations.
However I can see why people are expected to have a bit of cop on when it come to this. It is a fine line between enforcement and losing the general helpfulness of the people.
So I agree with what you are saying but can also link it back to reason why these are issues

kippy

GazzaL wrote: »

NPHET have continually failed to hit testing and tracing targets. This is just brushed under the carpet by blaming pubs or house parties. As far as hand sanitiser use goes, NPHET have failed to achieve clear, consistent messaging.

Large scale regulation breaking places more strain on the testing and tracking systems. Why wouldn't they place blame on these things?
What do they have to say on hand sanitisation that's so difficult to understand?

Charles Babbage

faceman wrote: »

Here's what I think is really happening. The government cant keep up on contact tracing or testing and need those few weeks to allow for the catching up. I seriously doubt any other EU country is taking 6 days from contacting your GP to getting your test result in terms of turn around. (This is how long it took my friend last week) Why are we still using a GP as a middle man to testing? Surely in areas where cases are high, the GP step should be removed and people contact the HSE direct? It would also free up GPs to deal with other community medical needs.

GPs are in the loop to stop everyone with a sniffle going for a test and further jamming up things. But in badly hit areas other mechanisms could be used.



But there is no doubt that a clear target for test return time and contact tracing times is needed. Any additional restrictions should only be to achieve this.

We need

- quick test return times
- fines for anyone going out while awaiting results or with a positive result
- tracing of where people got the virus and from that an understanding of where it spreads and where it doesn't, so that we can keep all the latter places open.

Rather than the government paying a load of wage subsidies, people in the hotel industry etc should be brought into contact tracing, keeping their incomes afloat and doing some good as well.

Whatever tracing costs it is cheaper than the alternative of closed businesses and full hospitals.

We should have done all this in July, I cannot see why on earth this was not done.

Donald Trump

It is NPHETs job to advise on public health. That is what they do. They are not supposed to take into account whether Mary down the road feels it is unfair that she can't have her 21st birthday party or how publican Joe's, who owns a heap of pubs and donates to a few party HQs, bank balance is looking. They just advise on what you need to do to suppress it. They are not supposed to be discussing the implications of Brexit or any other matter.

I have no idea why anyone would call for them to be disbanded. For those who are calling for that, if you or someone close to you catches the Covid, do you think you might value medical advice then and want to be admitted to a hospital or would you prefer to sit at home and gargle bleach maybe (like the bigliest president told you to)? Or would you suddenly be in favour of having medical advice and assistance then?

Simple fact of the matter is that if people followed the rules then there would be no need for a lockdown. But, as evidenced on this and many other threads, the amount of people who don't want to follow reasonable restrictions or behavioural adjustments is too high. If those people followed the restrictions even 95% of the time then the transmission rates would be down. But they won't.

We can't have an "honour system" in this country. We tried that and it didn't work. The only way to have something is to lock down everything and then people can be easily identified as breaking the rules. Once it goes to self-regulating then for some it become zero restrictions...because, ya know, they feel special.

Vieira82

Donald Trump wrote: »

It is NPHETs job to advise on public health. That is what they do. They are not supposed to take into account whether Mary down the road feels it is unfair that she can't have her 21st birthday party or how publican Joe's, who owns a heap of pubs and donates to a few party HQs, bank balance is looking. They just advise on what you need to do to suppress it. They are not supposed to be discussing the implications of Brexit or any other matter.

I have no idea why anyone would call for them to be disbanded. For those who are calling for that, if you or someone close to you catches the Covid, do you think you might value medical advice then and want to be admitted to a hospital or would you prefer to sit at home and gargle bleach maybe (like the bigliest president told you to)? Or would you suddenly be in favour of having medical advice and assistance then?

Simple fact of the matter is that if people followed the rules then there would be no need for a lockdown. But, as evidenced on this and many other threads, the amount of people who don't want to follow reasonable restrictions or behavioural adjustments is too high. If those people followed the restrictions even 95% of the time then the transmission rates would be down. But they won't.

We can't have an "honour system" in this country. We tried that and it didn't work. The only way to have something is to lock down everything and then people can be easily identified as breaking the rules. Once it goes to self-regulating then for some it become zero restrictions...because, ya know, they feel special.

Never thought I'd give a thumbs up to Donald Trump but there's a first time for everything!

Zebra3

Donald Trump wrote: »

Simple fact of the matter is that if people followed the rules then there would be no need for a lockdown.

We had a major lockdown and the virus didn't go away.

Things started to reopen and the numbers rose again. Inevitable.

Not every lives a life of happy families in a semi d.

There are house shares all over the country with people working in their jobs.

People, not robots.

Somebody works in a petrol station can pick up the virus through no fault of their own.

They go back to the three bed they share with eight other people and they all pick it up through no fault of their own. And off they go to work. And so on, it spreads again.

But our government and NPHET have no idea how the other half lives. They have six figure salaries and if their kids are off in college (or working) they sure as hell ain't living like that.

So policy is driven to achieve the impossible.

In the meantime, just keep blaming the plebs and destroying the economy.

Vieira82

Zebra3 wrote: »

We had a major lockdown and the virus didn't go away.

Things started to reopen and the numbers rose again. Inevitable.

Not every lives a life of happy families in a semi d.

There are house shares all over the country with people working in their jobs.

People, not robots.

Somebody works in a petrol station can pick up the virus through no fault of their own.

They go back to the three bed they share with eight other people and they all pick it up through no fault of their own. And off they go to work. And so on, it spreads again.

But our government and NPHET have no idea how the other half lives. They have six figure salaries and if their kids are off in college (or working) they sure as hell ain't living like that.

So policy is driven to achieve the impossible.

In the meantime, just keep blaming the plebs and destroying the economy.

not exactly cases really skyrocketed when cold and damp weather settled in meaning people where more indoors than outdoors. So the original message still applies...

Also... schools... notice how cases started to go up for real when schools re-open and even more when pubs re-openned... this seems to me is related..

xhomelezz

Vieira82 wrote: »

not exactly cases really skyrocketed when cold and damp weather settled in meaning people where more indoors than outdoors. So the original message still applies...

Also... schools... notice how cases started to go up for real when schools re-open and even more when pubs re-openned... this seems to me is related..

Don't mention schools, there's no virus at all. Foundation of this government at the moment.

faceman

Vieira82 wrote: »

not exactly cases really skyrocketed when cold and damp weather settled in meaning people where more indoors than outdoors. So the original message still applies...

Also... schools... notice how cases started to go up for real when schools re-open and even more when pubs re-openned... this seems to me is related..

I’m interested in the schools piece as I believe education should be treated as an essential service.

For contrast, the Valencia region in Spain (population 5.1m) hired ~4000 new teachers for the September term. They reduced average class sizes from 26 to 12 to allow for social distancing.

And this is the early findings on schools in Spain and covid...

https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-10-07/early-study-in-spain-shows-school-reopenings-have-not-led-to-higher-coronavirus-spread.html

McHardcore

Zebra3 wrote: »

We had a major lockdown and the virus didn't go away.

Things started to reopen and the numbers rose again. Inevitable.

The first major national lockdown brought the number of cases down to single figures. The second lockdown of Laois, Offaly and Kildare brought their numbers down aswell. It was too early to tell with Dublin but the figures also looked to be optimistic. Going by these examples, lockdowns are a strong and viable option. No one wants a lockdown. It should be one of the last options on the list. Unfortunately, without any other viable and proven option, we might not have any other choice.

faceman

McHardcore wrote: »

The first major national lockdown brought the number of cases down to single figures. The second lockdown of Laois, Offaly and Kildare brought their numbers down aswell. It was too early to tell with Dublin but the figures also looked to be optimistic. Going by these examples, lockdowns are a strong and viable option. No one wants a lockdown. It should be one of the last options on the list. Unfortunately, without any other viable and proven option, we might not have any other choice.

The challenge we have is that the government is not exercising the inbetween options given there is no enforcement of even the basics such as mask wearing