Covid 19 Part XXVI- 50,993 ROI (1,852 deaths) 28,040 NI (621 deaths) (19/10) Read OP

Icyseanfitz

is_that_so wrote: »

Here's Norma to say No! (with data)

https://www.thejournal.ie/schools-open-2-5233372-Oct2020/

Oh ffs, she doth protest too much at this stage

speckle

Good news
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40064558.html

Ireland makes test that helps predict those who may go on to have severe covid early so treatments can be tailored.

rovers_runner

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

I know of a girl who tested positive, two other kids were deemed close contact. Just two. Tell me what other setting where that would be allowed to happen?

Depends on the county or school I suppose.
Can tell you a couple of instances where full class has been sent home for 2 weeks and all tested.
No instances locally differ from that.

Necro

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

I know of a girl who tested positive, two other kids were deemed close contact. Just two. Tell me what other setting where that would be allowed to happen?

Sure as I said earlier, HSE don't deem any work colleagues of mine as close contacts.

But their own Covid App pinged seven colleagues who are out self-isolating.

So... who is right here? It's a nightmare!!

Goldengirl

Str8outtaWuhan wrote: »

Level 3 allows for trick or treating , as Leo says, Tony et al are there to advise to gov, not the public.

Don't think I'll ever take Leo's word for anything again, after that debacle last week!

Blondini

seamus wrote: »

Alright then genius . You get your wish. The schools are closed tomorrow.

If you have to resort to personal, spittle covered, abuse then that says a lot really.

Furthermore, where have I ever said it's my "wish" for schools to close? Nowhere.

Bizarre post.

scamalert

Bunny Colvin wrote: »

What's the point of everyone doing their best to live within the restrictions when the virus is spreading with impunity through the community due to the schools? That's what the government should be asking themselves.

because they said they dont and wont close the schools, so theres no covid there, its all the people you know that have to go to work and those partying 24/7 that are the culprits. a big fcking joke trying to cover cases when schools are prob crawling with em in every part of country by now.

that said it really makes no sense as few counties seem to be moving to lvl4 now and prob in few weeks time they will declare another 3months hard on lockdown, so way this goes makes f all difference as it buys only few weeks time.

Father Hernandez

seamus wrote: »

Alright then genius. You get your wish. The schools are closed tomorrow.
840,000 kids aged 4-18 have nowhere to go tomorrow, and their parents still have to work.

In addition, 300,000 college students and teachers, 90% of them under 30, also have nothing to do.

What do you think is going to happen next? Will they all be packed in styrofoam boxes so they can't spread disease?

In fairness, I don't think the OP has said close the schools.

The poster like I (presumably) is probably wondering why schools have become the elephant in the room.

They're not talked about when it's quite obvious they are an issue, maybe not the issue, but certainly an issue.

Stats will suggest low clusters but kids can be asymptomatic, show no symptoms and spread it like wildfire and then it'll get blamed on family contact or otherwise.

khalessi

is_that_so wrote: »

Here's Norma to say No! (with data)

https://www.thejournal.ie/schools-open-2-5233372-Oct2020/

Foley said her department received updated public health advice from the HSE only today and it showed that “all the available evidence” shows that schools “are not amplification settings” for the transmission of Covid-19.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/breda-o-brien-what-if-children-are-a-key-source-of-covid-spread-1.4375795

When I asked the HSE about this research, their response was: “We know children can spread the disease but it appears to be very much less than other groups and our advice is based on the available evidence, especially in Europe.”

This neatly bypasses the two biggest studies to date from South Korea and India, both of which found that children transmit the disease either at the same rate or higher rates than adults. Is the science in Ireland on transmission lagging behind the available evidence?



Kinda handy the HSE are ignoring 2 of the biggest studies to date in the world which both show that children are spreading this in schools and in community, as they dont suit the narrative being put forward.

Also handy that we are ignoring WHO guidance which said, when community tranmission is high schools should be carrying out online or blended learning. Our own Min for Health and CMO have both stated community transmission is high and covid in community is out of control and that track and tracing is unable to keep up with it.

s1ippy

seamus wrote: »

Alright then genius. You get your wish. The schools are closed tomorrow.
840,000 kids aged 4-18 have nowhere to go tomorrow, and their parents still have to work.

In addition, 300,000 college students and teachers, 90% of them under 30, also have nothing to do.

What do you think is going to happen next? Will they all be packed in styrofoam boxes so they can't spread disease?

Nobody is demanding that.

- People who spend long periods proximal to one another are not regarded as close contacts by HSE.
- There is no transparency around where outbreaks and clusters are occurring until they're so out of control that they have to close.
- Contact tracing has broken down and chains of transmission are now impossible to break.
- There's still no provision requiring blended or online learning in the event of future inevitable closures.
- Our health system is going to be overwhelmed and other health services will be inaccessible by as early as next week.

Blended learning could have enabled schools to stay open. Instead we have one third of secondary schools with a case or outbreak.

Goldengirl

Stheno wrote: »

They need to make the difficult choices imo

They do, but they haven't so far, and that is why we are now..

Inquitus

With cases rapidly spiraling out of control, we need to do something to arrest the exponential growth of Covid-19. Options are limited, we are looking at:

• A National move to Level 4 or 5
• A Regional move to Level 4 or 5 focusing on the worst counties
• Closing the Schools

There is mixed evidence on the Schools front, but 2 of the biggest studies undertaken have concluded that children of all ages catch and transmit the virus in the same manner as adults, even if they are highly likely to be asymptomatic.

I am not sure why the Government is hell bent on keeping schools open, closing schools would have a much lower impact on the economy than moving to Level 4 or 5.

Dublin is a clear example that Level 3 is not working, 7 and 14 day averages are climbing and we are now close to the end of the 4th week of these restrictions.

Other EU nations are now bringing in more severe lockdown restrictions as the risk to their health services becomes a clear and present danger. Due to decades of underfunding our HSE is more vulnerable than most, and we cannot continue to have 1,000 new cases a day and expect it to cope with the ensuing amount of hospitalisations.

Anyone have any other options that are worth considering?

Amirani

9pm curfew announced across a number of French cities. Pretty grim.

Antares35

FortuneChip wrote: »

That mentality is long gone.
Everyone for themselves now

It's been everyone for themselves since those dark days when all the toilet paper sold out

seamus

seamus wrote: »

Alright then genius. You get your wish. The schools are closed tomorrow.
840,000 kids aged 4-18 have nowhere to go tomorrow, and their parents still have to work.

In addition, 300,000 college students and teachers, 90% of them under 30, also have nothing to do.

What do you think is going to happen next? Will they all be packed in styrofoam boxes so they can't spread disease?

I agree with you. This is all about daycare, not education

Kivaro

Jimi H wrote: »

My Dad is in a nursing home. They have been absolutely fantastic and have been taking every precaution. They rang this evening devastated. Their first positive case was confirmed earlier. With widespread community transmission, it is almost impossible to stop the spread to our most vulnerable.

Very sorry to hear that Jim.
My first thought was what if my Dad was in that situation. I hope they will do everything possible to keep him and the other nursing home residents isolated from the positive case(s).

lulublue22

is_that_so wrote: »

I don't know where the public are looking for it but I've read most of the data about schools in that piece before. Glynn mentioned it last week again. Henry has too and they will provide it if asked but I don't know if it's published in any specific location.

Information on schools is not presented in a clear easily accessible format. A close contact in the real world is anyone who is less than 2 m apart without a mask for 15 mins - in schools its anything goes. The HSE decide on a case by case basis is a pile of ****e - Primary school children do not wear masks and though they try to be fair SD is very very hard to maintain both in terms if 1 m distance from each pod and staying away from teacher. Teaching is a very very small profession - lots of teachers know each other from courses over the years subs in and out people they trained with etc - there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of decisions made re contact tracing that would leave you genuinely scratching your head. There have been a number of schools closed at this stage due to clusters - trying to find numvers of schools closed is very difficult. Head lice is a notifiable disease as is impetigo yet an adult or child in my room could have a highly contagious disease with potential serious outcomes during a once in a lifetime pandemic and there is a fairly high chance that I won’t be notified. Confidentiality is a great one to hide behind - yet I have access to a range of personnel information often very sensitive on a number of children. I don’t think that schools are a primary driver of infection but I think it is unrealistic to think there is not transmission in schools and the current system does nothing to alleviate concern around transmission.

Wolf359f

is_that_so wrote: »

I don't know where the public are looking for it but I've read most of the data about schools in that piece before. Glynn mentioned it last week again. Henry has too and they will provide it if asked but I don't know if it's published in any specific location.

I wonder if there's a difference in positivity rate in school aged children. If it's above average, it would suggest it's spreading in schools.
Just need a journalist to ask for the stats.

Antares35

Necro wrote: »

We don't have that sort of policing here unfortunately. Look at the trepidation about bringing in fines, even our neighbours in the UK brought in on the spot fines for breaking restrictions.

France have declared a state of emergency tonight, you just know enforcement will be massively ramped up there.

Spain are well known for having strong enforcement measures.

Policing here for minor matters follows our own national 'ah shure it'll be grand' attitude.

This isn't a minor matter anymore though, we're knee deep in sh1te and continue to dig down instead of fighting out of it.

Yes I never did understand this policing by encouragement approach, and relying on people to do the right thing and practice common sense. My parents were in Spain for their lockdown from March to July, and you literally could not step outside your garden unless for an essential journey. Their friend was out on the pavement cutting his hedge and was told to go back inside sir. We could have done with a bit of that here.

Sad to hear about France. My partner's family live there and we were hoping to go over. They've yet to meet our baby

JP Liz V1

Ireland's 7 day positivity test rate has climbed to 6.2%

Duke of Url

It’s out of control now on this Island

Over 2k cases a day.

May as well start with antibody testing the population every month.

AlphaDelta1

Jimi H wrote: »

My Dad is in a nursing home. They have been absolutely fantastic and have been taking every precaution. They rang this evening devastated. Their first positive case was confirmed earlier. With widespread community transmission, it is almost impossible to stop the spread to our most vulnerable.

That's rough Jim. All the best to him. Hopefully they can keep a lid on it.

Turtwig

Before schools reopened the close contacts definitions for within school environments was given a unique criteria. The cynic in me thinks this was due to the pragmatism of maintaining testing capacity.

However, I do also wonder if this contributing to them detecting less cases in schools than they should. If that is so then you would expect test positivity rates in schools to be biased higher. If they are testing less in the school than they should then a higher proportion of tests would be expected to be positive. If the data shows that positivity rates comparisons between schools and others environments has schools at lower rates then that would suggest schools are not drivers of transmission.

That said, I don't think international evidence supports them. It did in June but not now. Children over 12 in particular are just as bad as spreading as adults was my understanding anyway.

Also, find it farcical no plans for blended learning were put in place in six months. Not all students, especially teens, actually physically need to be in the classroom.

sonofenoch

seamus wrote: »

Alright then genius. You get your wish. The schools are closed tomorrow.
840,000 kids aged 4-18 have nowhere to go tomorrow, and their parents still have to work.

In addition, 300,000 college students and teachers, 90% of them under 30, also have nothing to do.

What do you think is going to happen next? Will they all be packed in styrofoam boxes so they can't spread disease?

That doesn't really answer his assertion that schools are a root problem ........more a yeah but but then what....


Open up Spike island and send them all packing, or do nothing and collectively continue to froth at the mouth on an internet forum with 1million pages a day

<snip>

bb1234567

Amirani wrote: »

9pm curfew announced across a number of French cities. Pretty grim.

Things like this just seem bonkers to me. What is it trying to achieve. Simply focusing on dispersing any group gatherings and closing hospitality in the cities will be just as effective without driving people mad

Anyway the days of us having the strictest rules in Europe are long gone now

HeyV

Jimi H wrote: »

My Dad is in a nursing home. They have been absolutely fantastic and have been taking every precaution. They rang this evening devastated. Their first positive case was confirmed earlier. With widespread community transmission, it is almost impossible to stop the spread to our most vulnerable.

Sorry to hear that Jim, hopefully with the precautions they’ve been taking they might be able to keep positive cases to a minimum. Not a nice phone call to receive. Hope your Dad will be ok

arctictree

So what if nearly everyone gets it? Do we go back to level 0?

is_that_so

khalessi wrote: »

Foley said her department received updated public health advice from the HSE only today and it showed that “all the available evidence” shows that schools “are not amplification settings” for the transmission of Covid-19.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/breda-o-brien-what-if-children-are-a-key-source-of-covid-spread-1.4375795

When I asked the HSE about this research, their response was: “We know children can spread the disease but it appears to be very much less than other groups and our advice is based on the available evidence, especially in Europe.”

This neatly bypasses the two biggest studies to date from South Korea and India, both of which found that children transmit the disease either at the same rate or higher rates than adults. Is the science in Ireland on transmission lagging behind the available evidence?



Kinda handy the HSE are ignoring 2 of the biggest studies to date in the world which both show that children are spreading this in schools and in community, as they dont suit the narrative being put forward.

Also handy that we are ignoring WHO guidance which said, when community tranmission is high schools should be carrying out online or blended learning. Our own Min for Health and CMO have both stated community transmission is high and covid in community is out of control and that track and tracing is unable to keep up with it.

What big studies?

bb1234567

Europe's now the epicentre of COVID, yet again, reporting about 1/3 of all cases globally the last few days in the continent and about 1 in 4 daily deaths worldwide

owlbethere

What is wrong with our government? Can they not look to Australia and see how things are done properly? Are they too dim to do that? Are they not able to do that? New South Wales had a little bit over 4000 cases and 53 deaths. There was a little bit over 27000 cases for the whole of Australia. I know Australia can be very isolated and spaced out but the cities are built up and many country towns are accessible.

We were in a fantastic position after our lockdown with low numbers and our government and some people absolutely fcuking blew it.

We should have had border controls into our country. All the nonsense about - we can't because of the North - they should have adopted the same. We should have had isolation/quarantine centres and heavy penalties for isolation breakers.

I know it might seem extreme or over the top and many people would argue that this virus is just a little cold and nothing more that a flu. It's not a flu. There's similarities between the two for sure. They both cause fever, fatigue, body aches and pains but covid19 is worse. Covid19 can cause the immune system to go into overdrive. It can cause Ards and blood clots in other people. The virus does need to be suppressed. How can businesses survive if too many people fall ill and become poorly at once?