Have NPHET lost the attention of people?

kippy · 22-11-2020 3:38pm

ZX7R wrote: »

I wasn't employing people want extra restrictions, but most groups like nphet are still pushing for said restrictions.
I was saying that not just the people but governments have changed there thinking on things

Said restrictions are needed depending on the various metrics being looked at, including between now and vaccine rollout....
Said government are now also planning for vaccine rollouts as well as taking into account restricition requirements.
This is all good news and the way one would expect the timeline and priorities to evolve.
I would be worried if governments didn't change tack slightly based on new information etc....

Cork Lass · 22-11-2020 3:50pm

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

At this point who actually cares? Except retail and recreational activities we are all getting on with our lives.

I care. Admittedly I am getting on with my life as best I can but it’s only half a life. I want to be able to hug people again and to be able to visit and enjoy people’s company. This is not just about retail/economics, it’s about social interaction - that’s a huge part of life.

Fann Linn · 22-11-2020 3:52pm

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

At this point who actually cares? Except retail and recreational activities we are all getting on with our lives.

It's currently an existence, not a life.

gary550 · 22-11-2020 5:10pm

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

At this point who actually cares? Except retail and recreational activities we are all getting on with our lives.

Was chatting to a chap yesterday who's father has to liquidate the restaurant business him and his wife have been building for the last 35 years.

He has to ring 20 families and tell them there is no job for them in the new year.

but sure we are all getting on with our lives, who cares?

nc6000 · 22-11-2020 7:41pm

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

At this point who actually cares? Except retail and recreational activities we are all getting on with our lives.

Eh, I think you'll find that plenty of people care. I'd guess you're in a significant minority of people who are happy with the way things currently are.

bush · 22-11-2020 8:00pm

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

At this point who actually cares? Except retail and recreational activities we are all getting on with our lives.

I care, id like to be working believe it or not.

Richard Hillman · 22-11-2020 9:14pm

If General Holohan wants to go deeper into December, he should do the public announcement himself. Tell the children that Christmas is cancelled. Santa Claus won't be coming to town. The reindeers will be culled along with the Mink.

sydthebeat · 22-11-2020 9:22pm

No ****ing way will an extension be accepted.

The levels we have right now are the levels we will have going forward.

Its time for NPHET to accept this and plan for it

Mr. Karate · 22-11-2020 9:40pm

Richard Hillman wrote: »

If General Holohan wants to go deeper into December, he should do the public announcement himself. Tell the children that Christmas is cancelled. Santa Claus won't be coming to town. The reindeers will be culled along with the Mink.

He should, but he won't because it will destroy the "Savior of Ireland" image that he's trying to build for himself.

Cork Lass · 22-11-2020 9:51pm

I think the government know they are now facing a losing battle, people have had enough and will not tolerate any extension of level 5. I think it’s high time that the whole NPHET team were shipped off to a remote basement and told to email their daily updates. Why in Gods name are they getting so much screen time?

Thats me · 23-11-2020 1:00am

MOH wrote: »

And if you read the minutes from the meeting I specifically referred to, they once again recommended L5. Although some members still wanted to wait for a week to give L3 a chance to take effect.

Government had NPHET's recommendation 5th October, ignored it and went on its own. Situation didn't change - there is no reason why NPHET would change its recommendation.

MOH wrote: »

(I'm going to just ignore the bit where you helpfully linked to the same datasource that I highlighted at the bottom of the post you're replying to )

You have "LaboratoryLocalTimeSeriesHistoricView", i've linked "CovidStatisticsProfileHPSCIrelandOpenData" - it contains different data (cases and hospitalisations by age groups).

MOH wrote: »

Why would you look at daily new cases? The number of tests we were doing roughly tripled in a month. If you do more tests, you'll get higher daily new cases.
That doesn't mean the situation is getting worse - it certainly might mean that, but it might just as well mean that the situation hasn't changed but you missed a large number of positive cases earlier because you weren't testing enough. And you can't know which it is. So the only way to get a consistent picture of how numbers are changing is to allow for the variation in the number of tests being conducted - which is the positivity rate.

No. Look at the diagram below, here i tried to merge data from both datasets (Positive test ratio and hospitalisations multiplied per constant value to make them recognisable, right axis true value for number of tests, left one for the rest, true for new cases):

Query used to extract data:

select * from (
    select 
	s.date as "date"
      , s.Date_HPSC as Date_HPSC
      , s.tests - LAG(s.tests)   OVER w AS 'tests'
      , s.PRate as PRate
      , s.cases - LAG(s.cases)   OVER w AS 'cases'
      , s.hosp  - LAG(s.hosp)    OVER w AS 'hosp'
      , s.hosp AS hosp_ABS
	 
      from(
	select 
	      strftime('&#37;Y/%m/%d',l.Date_HPSC) as "date" 
	    , l.Date_HPSC as "Date_HPSC" 
	    , l.TotalLabs as "tests" 
	    , l.PRate as PRate
	    , csp.Aged1 + csp.Aged1to4 + csp.Aged5to14 + csp.Aged15to24 + csp.Aged25to34 + csp.Aged35to44 + csp.Aged45to54 + csp.Aged55to64 + csp.Aged65up as "cases"
	    , csp.HospitalisedAged5 + csp.HospitalisedAged5to14 + csp.HospitalisedAged15to24 + csp.HospitalisedAged25to34 + csp.HospitalisedAged35to44 + csp.HospitalisedAged45to54 + csp.HospitalisedAged55to64 + csp.HospitalisedAged65up as "hosp"
	from 
	      LaboratoryLocalTimeSeriesHistoricView l
	    , CovidStatisticsProfileHPSCIrelandOpenData csp
	where strftime('%Y/%m/%d',l.Date_HPSC) = strftime('%Y/%m/%d',csp.StatisticsProfileDate)
      ) s
      WINDOW w AS (ORDER BY Date_HPSC)
      order by Date_HPSC
) where 
    Date_HPSC>'2020-07-01'
;

As you can see number of tests nas no direct relation to number of cases, you can have many tests and relatively low number of cases as in second half of August. Interestinly you can have approximately same tests done with same positive rate (as i understand PRate in your dataset "LaboratoryLocalTimeSeriesHistoricView" stands for positive test rate isn't it?) in August and October and have absolutely different number of new cases. For me it is difficult to understand

My reading of all of this - spikes of hospitalisations are triggering spikes of numbers of tests and, of course, more cases found because hospitalisations are result of more cases.
BTW, 20th we see biggest spike of hospitalisations, so at that time anybody would expect the worst scenario. It was just luck numbers started decreasing consistently by some reason, everything could turn opposite and govt could not afford such risk.

Also, it seems number of new hospitalisations didn'd significantly change since October, while there is significant frop in cases, this is just observation, i have no idea why it is.

MOH wrote: »

Again, you clearly missed the bit where I linked to the data which shows that the numbers had started going down even before they actually introduced level 5? (And that includes the raw daily case numbers, in case you still think they're somehow the best measure). And had gone down significantly.
I don't think they give Nobel prizes for pointing out the blindingly obvious.
The 5-day and 7-day averages, positivity rate, and daily raw cases had all started decreasing quite rapidly before the level 5 restrictions had an effect.
This is not my opinion. This is a fact that anyone who's not too lazy to do so can verify for themselves by actually looking at the published data.

I know when number started going down. But "after" does not mean "because of". Unlikely you can prove drop in cases happened because of L3. There could be any other reason.

zerosugarbuzz · 23-11-2020 8:40am

Cork Lass wrote: »

I care. Admittedly I am getting on with my life as best I can but it’s only half a life. I want to be able to hug people again and to be able to visit and enjoy people’s company. This is not just about retail/economics, it’s about social interaction - that’s a huge part of life.

Apologies, I wrote that post badly. Most people I know are visiting significant people in their lives, hugging them etc. It’s evident on the streets parks and beaches that family and friend groups are meeting up and to a lesser extent having house guests. I personally believe the virus isnt anywhere near as bad as made out by the media (clearly neither do RTE). But I do believe it’s dangerous to the elderly and those with certain illnesses. I live my life as normally as possible based on that. We all are responsible adults and need to make our own decisions.

kippy · 23-11-2020 8:53am

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

Apologies, I wrote that post badly. Most people I know are visiting significant people in their lives, hugging them etc. It’s evident on the streets parks and beaches that family and friend groups are meeting up and to a lesser extent having house guests. I personally believe the virus isnt anywhere near as bad as made out by the media (clearly neither do RTE). But I do believe it’s dangerous to the elderly and those with certain illnesses. I live my life as normally as possible based on that. We all are responsible adults and need to make our own decisions.

If every 'responsible' adult chose to ignore the majority of the restrictions the virus spread would easily end up killing people in the at risk groups or end up putting serious pressure on our hospitals.
'Responsible' adults need a lot of people to adhere to the restrictions for their hypothesis on the virus' harm to be maintained.

zerosugarbuzz · 23-11-2020 8:57am

kippy wrote: »

If every 'responsible' adult chose to ignore the majority of the restrictions the virus spread would easily end up killing people in the at risk groups or end up putting serious pressure on our hospitals.
'Responsible' adults need a lot of people to adhere to the restrictions for their hypothesis on the virus' harm to be maintained.

In your opinion and dog course NPHET’s. Feel welcome to stay at level 5 for the remainder of your days.!! You will live a long but incredibly boring life.

kippy · 23-11-2020 9:06am

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

In your opinion and dog course NPHET’s. Feel welcome to stay at level 5 for the remainder of your days.!! You will live a long but incredibly boring life.

My opinion is based on observation and fact.
I don't see any reason to 'stay at level 5' for the remainder of my days if the variables change but right now we should be adhereing to the restrictions for fairly obvious reasons.

JRant · 23-11-2020 9:20am

kippy wrote: »

My opinion is based on observation and fact.
I don't see any reason to 'stay at level 5' for the remainder of my days if the variables change but right now we should be adhereing to the restrictions for fairly obvious reasons.

What facts are these?

If you are under 65 this virus is pretty much harmless at the population level for those over 65 but under 75 it's something to watch out for but not worthy of locking yourself away for. Over 75 is the main cohort that have to be careful.

kippy · 23-11-2020 9:51am

JRant wrote: »

What facts are these?

If you are under 65 this virus is pretty much harmless at the population level for those over 65 but under 75 it's something to watch out for but not worthy of locking yourself away for. Over 75 is the main cohort that have to be careful.

The virus is spread by humans (generally)who are infectious being in close contact with each others (via the air) or when the virus is on a surface and ends up getting from this surface via contact into the humans eyes, ears or mouth (we still don't know a lot of the variables involved in this).
We have a finite number of hospital beds and ICU beds and a finite number of staff to work these beds.
We have no natural immunity and immunity in general is still something we don't know a huge amount about yet.
We have no idea if "Long Covid" is a thing or if it is a thing, how long it effects people, who it effects and what the effects actually are.
There is no natural immunity to this virus.
You can have this virus and transmit it with no or very few symptoms based on current knowledge.

All of the things above coupled with:
No matter how you look at it, when the virus is spread within the community it WILL eventually be spread to higher/at risk people and some of these people will end up in hospital or die (this is based on observations over the past 6 months)

Now, if "responsible" adults believe that it's okay to flout all or some of the restrictions on a regular basis based on the knowledge above (or rather the lack of it in some cases) they needs a lot more actually responsible adults to do the right things the majority of the time to back up their assertion that the virus is "harmless" to all but 25 percent of our population.

JRant · 23-11-2020 10:32am

kippy wrote: »

The virus is spread by humans (generally)who are infectious being in close contact with each others (via the air) or when the virus is on a surface and ends up getting from this surface via contact into the humans eyes, ears or mouth (we still don't know a lot of the variables involved in this).
We have a finite number of hospital beds and ICU beds and a finite number of staff to work these beds.
We have no natural immunity and immunity in general is still something we don't know a huge amount about yet.
We have no idea if "Long Covid" is a thing or if it is a thing, how long it effects people, who it effects and what the effects actually are.
There is no natural immunity to this virus.
You can have this virus and transmit it with no or very few symptoms based on current knowledge.

All of the things above coupled with:
No matter how you look at it, when the virus is spread within the community it WILL eventually be spread to higher/at risk people and some of these people will end up in hospital or die (this is based on observations over the past 6 months)

Now, if "responsible" adults believe that it's okay to flout all or some of the restrictions on a regular basis based on the knowledge above (or rather the lack of it in some cases) they needs a lot more actually responsible adults to do the right things the majority of the time to back up their assertion that the virus is "harmless" to all but 25 percent of our population.

The last census showed we have approximately 19% of the population over 65, I'm not sure if they go into greater details for over 65's. Of that 19% the people over 75 and/or in nursing homes are clearly the most at risk group. NPHET and the government should be focusing their efforts here rather than locking down the entire country for what seems very little gain.

Responsible adults should be allowed live their lives with as little government interference as possible unless their is an extraordinary need for them impose such restrictions. That need is neither present nor has it been demonstrated as a necessity by anyone in NHPET or the government this time around.

Captain_Crash · 23-11-2020 10:42am

JRant wrote: »

Responsible adults should be allowed live their lives with as little government interference as possible unless their is an extraordinary need for them impose such restrictions. That need is neither present nor has it been demonstrated as a necessity by anyone in NHPET or the government this time around.

I was reading this morning MP's in the UK are requesting Government to demonstrate necessary proportionality in implementing stricter measures. Its felt in the Houses of Parliament that the reaction is more damaging than the issue being reacted to... I wonder is there a similar sentiment here, and will TD's push on it?

kippy · 23-11-2020 10:46am

JRant wrote: »

The last census showed we have approximately 19% of the population over 65, I'm not sure if they go into greater details for over 65's. Of that 19% the people over 75 and/or in nursing homes are clearly the most at risk group. NPHET and the government should be focusing their efforts here rather than locking down the entire country for what seems very little gain.

Responsible adults should be allowed live their lives with as little government interference as possible unless their is an extraordinary need for them impose such restrictions. That need is neither present nor has it been demonstrated as a necessity by anyone in NHPET or the government this time around.

The 25 percent is a rough and I think conservative estimate, which would include those over 70 and those that are living with "underlying conditions".

Again, we are in phases of restrictions, not "locking down an entire country".
The very fact that a portion of the populace cannot differentiate between a full on lock down (the closest we got to this was back in March/April) and restrictions would question the very nature of how responsible they are.

The problem is, if the country were full of "responsible adults" we'd hardly need any rules at all to live by.

JimmyVik · 23-11-2020 10:47am

Nphet have been so inconsistent. Masks, no masks. Schools not a problem.
Level 5, no level 5. Level n5 for 6 weeks. Maybe forever.
And making decisions on masks etc slower than the rest of the world.
Nphet, make decisions and then dont explain themselves. They have totally blanked the public on schools.
Their ststs that they release are picked for a certain result. Instead of publishing their dataset.

People just think what are nphet making up today?
So the blame lies entirley at nphet and the governments door.
If you want to take the people with you, you have to always be truthful with them.
Nphets logic is flawed in so many places at this stage and yet they cant be bothered explaining their decisions properly to the people they want to follow them.
Im not surprised so many have given up on following nphets advice. And the sad thing is that that will effect even those who do follow their advice. Its bad for the whole country.

23-11-2020 11:19am

JRant wrote: »

What facts are these?

If you are under 65 this virus is pretty much harmless at the population level for those over 65 but under 75 it's something to watch out for but not worthy of locking yourself away for. Over 75 is the main cohort that have to be careful.

Yet most European governments tend to thing some degree of lockdown is necessary.

Xtrail14 · 23-11-2020 11:21am

Tony is Brilliant. 5 star stuff.

Richard Hillman · 23-11-2020 11:57am

Holohan has to step down after this. If this whole thing disappears in the next few months with the vaccine, he'll be back out next winter banging on about Flu Season. Nobody will take him seriously. They will just see a man trying to get back into the limelight. He has no credibility.

He'll get a buffer pension, his book deal and a cushy job with some dodgy government funded NGO like Alcohol Action Ireland.

JRant · 23-11-2020 12:05pm

kippy wrote: »

The 25 percent is a rough and I think conservative estimate, which would include those over 70 and those that are living with "underlying conditions".

Again, we are in phases of restrictions, not "locking down an entire country".
The very fact that a portion of the populace cannot differentiate between a full on lock down (the closest we got to this was back in March/April) and restrictions would question the very nature of how responsible they are.

The problem is, if the country were full of "responsible adults" we'd hardly need any rules at all to live by.

You can't honestly believe that?
We most certainly are in a lockdown with certain sectors allowed to stay open. I mean you're not allowed leave your home except for some circumstances, nobody allowed in other people's homes, 5km travel limit, not allowed leave your county etc etc.

The majority of deaths are over 75, this is the cohort that needs to be focused on. We shouldn't be shutting down an entire country when we know the most at risk group.

bladespin · 23-11-2020 12:13pm

JRant wrote: »

You can't honestly believe that?
We most certainly are in a lockdown with certain sectors allowed to stay open. I mean you're not allowed leave your home except for some circumstances, nobody allowed in other people's homes, 5km travel limit, not allowed leave your county etc etc.

The majority of deaths are over 75, this is the cohort that needs to be focused on. We shouldn't be shutting down an entire country when we know the most at risk group.

I'm in agreement on a lot of that but it's not that simple, it really boils down to ICU capacity or distinct lack of it and lack of any attempt to improve it. If the rest of us are out and about having accidents and getting sick as usual (and not as usual now) then capacity is limited and if another nursing home gets hit then there's big numbers again, once again down to a failing on the govt side to protect them but that's what we have.

(massive simplification etc but not far off from what I can see)

Thats me · 23-11-2020 12:20pm

JRant wrote: »

The majority of deaths are over 75

But most ICU admissions are in 45-74 yo range.

meeeeh · 23-11-2020 12:32pm

bladespin wrote: »

I'm in agreement on a lot of that but it's not that simple, it really boils down to ICU capacity or distinct lack of it and lack of any attempt to improve it. If the rest of us are out and about having accidents and getting sick as usual (and not as usual now) then capacity is limited and if another nursing home gets hit then there's big numbers again, once again down to a failing on the govt side to protect them but that's what we have.

(massive simplification etc but not far off from what I can see)

Really. We are nowhere near ICU capacity that was increased. Testing improved significantly. There were definitely mistakes made but Ireland actually improved significantly from first lockdown.

We need certain restrictions but it's also clear than unless we start strictly prosecuting there is a limit to how much L5 restrictions will achieve especially around Christmas. And historically based on traffic offence fines there is zero chance of that properly working as a deterrent. People here are up in arms when ID Cards are mentioned and it's hard to expect that will change. There is also a question of when medicine becomes more destructive than the disease. Small businesses employ huge amount of people and pay the most income tax. If we leave shops and restaurants closed their demise might have worse public health effect than Covid and pressure on icu beds.

It annoys me immensely how long it took to make a decision regarding masks and their current reluctance about quick tests. Why are they so reluctant to try less proven methods when there is clear push back against what is supposed to be proven methods? Isn't it better to try something new than just urging people to stick to the rules. You can make all the speeches about selfish individuals if they are ignored you are just wasting your energy.

NIMAN · 23-11-2020 12:34pm

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Holohan has to step down after this. If this whole thing disappears in the next few months with the vaccine, he'll be back out next winter banging on about Flu Season. Nobody will take him seriously. They will just see a man trying to get back into the limelight. He has no credibility.

He'll get a buffer pension, his book deal and a cushy job with some dodgy government funded NGO like Alcohol Action Ireland.

Do you know he has a book deal organised?

Cos thats the one thing I think everytime I see him on TV, "this fella is guaranteed to have a book out next year".

Captain_Crash · 23-11-2020 12:35pm

Thats me wrote: »

But most ICU admissions are in 45-74 yo range.

They tend to only send people with a chance of surviving to ICU and doctors have to make that choice. As sad as it sounds, if an 89 year near end of life is bad enough to require ICU, they likely wont survive anyway and wont get sent.

Have NPHET lost the attention of people?

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