Relaxation of Restrictions, Part VII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

FintanMcluskey

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

It is important to remember the absolute enigma and snake oil that NPHET continue to announce each day.

Many of those cases announced today relate back to December 23rd.

I never understood that argument. Sure, we’ve counted cases back to December 23rd. But we haven’t counted all today’s cases. Today’s numbers will still be being added to the cases on January 23rd. You can’t just deduct historic cases and surmise that today was a good day

But you know this

FintanMcluskey

Deleted User wrote: »

I never understood that argument. Sure, we’ve counted cases back to December 23rd. But we haven’t counted all today’s cases. Today’s numbers will still be being added to the cases on January 23rd. You can’t just deduct historic cases and surmise that today was a good day

But you know this

That doesn’t make a great deal of sense.

Why have an evening bulletin to include an unquantified number of cases over a 14 day period?

Today’s test rate is of course important

A lot has changed in 2 weeks

I suspect you also know this

ceadaoin.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It’s easy to find out for yourself. And if you bothered you would see more than 0.1% of the population of Florida have already died and they are running at 15k cases per day and rising

California is running at 15k cases per day and rising and running out of hospital capacity. This despite being shut down since last year. In fact, they have never fully reopened since the original shut down happened in March 2019.

FintanMcluskey

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

That doesn’t make a great deal of sense.

Why have an evening bulletin to include an unquantified number of cases over a 14 day period?

Today’s test rate is of course important

A lot has changed in 2 weeks

I suspect you also know this

Why have an evening bulletin? Why indeed. We can agree on this. The daily case numbers are a nonsense. But what you can’t do, to suit your narrative, is to deduct all historic cases from the daily case number and surmise that the number is actually very low, that we are being spun a line, and that restrictions are over the top

Some lockdown behind your man on primetime..look at the bloody traffic....

FintanMcluskey

rusty cole wrote: »

Some lockdown behind your man on primetime..look at the bloody traffic....

Is that the guy in Holland?

FintanMcluskey

Deleted User wrote: »

Why have an evening bulletin? Why indeed. We can agree on this. The daily case numbers are a nonsense. But what you can’t do, to suit your narrative, is to deduct all historic cases from the daily case number and surmise that the number is actually very low, that we are being spun a line, and that restrictions are over the top

Or it’s to artificially inflate numbers over a longer period of 14 days to imply that the restrictions imposed on Christmas Eve are still not having effect and more mitigation measures are required.

That likely suits your narrative

JRant

hmmm wrote: »

I described it as trying to control a tiger in your house. I think that's a pretty good description.

If you're looking for someone to say something like "re-opening pubs will lead to 5000 extra cases on January 4th", then you're being unrealistic about what is possible.

NPHET I believe said reopen hospitality or allow Christmas mixing, the government disagreed (and was cheered on), and now we're screwed.

That's not what I'm asking for at all. The people charged with modelling this thing didn't predict these numbers. That's the only point I'm making.

I have to laugh at the hubris in thinking NPHET or the government were going to stop people from meeting over Christmas. That was never going to happen.

almostover

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

It is important to remember the absolute enigma and snake oil that NPHET continue to announce each day.

Many of those cases announced today relate back to December 23rd.

Doesn't really matter that much when they happened. Just shows we were in the throes of a surge in the days leading up to xmas.

MOH

hmmm wrote: »

It wasn't a "guess", it was obvious what was going to happen to anyone who is realistic about this situation.

Here's another "guess". If we reopen indoor hospitality again during a pandemic caused by a respiratory super-spreading virus which transmits through the air, we are going to have an increase in cases.

But why guess, when we have hard data?
Indoor hospitality reopened in summer (pubs excepted) and what happened?

Numbers bumped up slightly, by 10-15% in the first month. Though numbers of tests conducted increased 250% in that time, so the positive rate actually dropped. There was no upward curve, the flat line just moved up slightly.

Then things predictably spiked for the August bank holiday, verrry slowly started coming down, and were slowly heading back towards late July levels by the end of August.
Then schools opened and numbers increased 50% in 3 weeks and kept going upward until lockdowns got stricter.

So no need to guess, there's hard data (I've even filtered it for the relevant period you) that reopening hospitality indoors had minimal effect.

No doubt people will try to claim that during the summer everyone was drinking outdoors, but that's nonsense. Everything had been closed for months, restaurants were jammed. Many of the places which added or expanded outdoor dining for the later restrictions didn't even have an outdoor option then.

The bold Stephen said that the circumstantial EY report showing counties outside Dublin having up to 10% higher case increases than Dublin was "unambiguous" evidence that pubs being open for two weeks was a major driver of the second wave. In that case, a 50% increase in the three weeks after schools opened must be a smoking gun.

Thank god for the teachers standing their ground, they might just save us.

almostover

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Exactly.

However not just indoors but in the home.

Restaurants that had heavily invested in adequate mitigation measure’s was where Christmas dinner should have been eaten!

Did you read the anecdote I wrote. Both indoor environments mentioned lead to COVID transmission. Both the opening of restaraunts/gastropubs and people meeting in houses allied to travel without enforced testing or quarantine lead to that cluster

We had our foot on the throat of COVID in early July. If we had implemented mandatory testing on arrival and associated quarantine at that time I believe it is likely we would be interacting in a far more normal environment in Ireland right now. Notwithstanding the issue with access through NI which if the political will existed could have been dealt with to minimise any spread. People seem to have forgotten BSE and Foot & Mouth.

It was in the summer that measures to ensure a meaningful Christmas should have been enacted. I believe having quarantined international travellers would have discouraged travel and would have allowed us to managed COVID at a far lower spread of infection. We just compounded things then by pandering to vested interests in the lead up to Xmas. Our economy would be functioning far more normally now had we curtailed inward travel.

FintanMcluskey

almostover wrote: »

Doesn't really matter that much when they happened. Just shows we were in the throes of a surge in the days leading up to xmas.

The days leading up to Christmas is when that information was useful though

patnor1011

sprucemoose wrote: »

probably? does literally everyone on boards who are against restrictions know 'a load of people who had it and didn't even know'? I think dismissing people's experiences as 'scare stories' is a bit ignorant too to be honest, these are people that in most cases nearly died, or at least felt so sick that they thought they were going to. fine if you don't think covid is a bit deal, bit at the very least show some human decency to people who have been infected and have had horrible experiences

I have stated it here more than once. I happen to work in a place that had an outbreak back in march. 100 people residents plus about 20 staff. Say 120 people in daily contact with each other.
22 confirmed cases residents only no staff affected. Poor chaps had a deer in a headlights moment when they were told to pack up and go to quarantine in another place. Fast forward one month and another 20 positive cases detected. This time they were happy to go as people taken previously spent 2 weeks in a 4* hotel. None of them had any symptoms bar one person with temperature and cough.
None of them have any lasting symptoms or problems, none of them developed any even while positive.

Similar examples from my own family, perhaps we were lucky or we simply belong to the majority of people for whom covid is no worse than catching the flu or cold.
Of course, some people had it harder, even ended up in the hospital, and survived with some lingering difficulties but we talk about a fraction of cases that experience this.
If you consider restrictions and lockdowns as a form of human decency for people who are in the most vulnerable category then you got it all wrong.
Every few years we have a case of bad flu going around with a lot of people ending up dead or with permanent damage and we never did anything for them. Not to mention that covid while undoubtedly it is risky for mainly old and vulnerable people somehow managed to inflict damage to just them - old and vulnerable. Young people or children are safe from it so far. That is a fact.

FintanMcluskey

almostover wrote: »

Did you read the anecdote I wrote. Both indoor environments mentioned lead to COVID transmission. Both the opening of restaraunts/gastropubs and people meeting in houses allied to travel without enforced testing or quarantine lead to that cluster

We had our foot on the throat of COVID in early July. If we had implemented mandatory testing on arrival and associated quarantine at that time I believe it is likely we would be interacting in a far more normal environment in Ireland right now. Notwithstanding the issue with access through NI which if the political will existed could have been dealt with to minimise any spread. People seem to have forgotten BSE and Foot & Mouth.

It was in the summer that measures to ensure a meaningful Christmas should have been enacted. I believe having quarantined international travellers would have discouraged travel and would have allowed us to managed COVID at a far lower spread of infection. We just compounded things then by pandering to vested interests in the lead up to Xmas. Our economy would be functioning far more normally now had we curtailed inward travel.

Have you data that alludes to restaurants being responsible for transmission?

What happened during foot and mouth?

almostover

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Have you data that alludes to restaurants being responsible for transmission?

What happened during foot and mouth?

Data? I'm an anonymous poster on an internet chat forum. All I have is one anecdote from a friend.

What happened during foot and mouth was cross border collaboration to prevent its spread. It was highly successful

FintanMcluskey

almostover wrote: »

Data? I'm an anonymous poster on an internet chat forum. All I have is one anecdote from a friend.

What happened during foot and mouth was cross border collaboration to prevent its spread. It was highly successful

Ok.


The cross border collaboration was to prevent movement of animals not humans from my recollection anyway.

Dept of agriculture officials were present at the port to ensure no meat products were being smuggled in. An exercise in optics at the time

hmmm

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Have you data that alludes to restaurants being responsible for transmission?

What happened during foot and mouth?

This thread is a sea of delusion. It doesn't help anyone, particularly the businesses involved, to pretend they can safely reopen. We've tried that twice, the businesses have spent the money getting in stock and re-employing people, and then they've had to shut down in a hurry. So instead of trying to reopen pubs and restaurants during a pandemic (and apparently we couldn't be arsed trying outdoor-anything), their trade associations would be better off negotiating a bailout package until the vaccines are here in force.

We know that restaurants and indoor hospitality is risky. The virus in Ireland is the same as it is abroad where these studies have been done:
https://dc.eater.com/2020/12/7/22159468/d-c-releases-covid-19-outbreak-data-restaurants
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/five-minutes-from-20-feet-away-south-korean-study-shows-perils-of-indoor-dining-for-covid-19
https://ny.eater.com/2020/12/9/22165800/indoor-dining-nyc-coronavirus-spread-robert-mujica

MOH

hmmm wrote: »

This thread is a sea of delusion. It doesn't help anyone, particularly the businesses involved, to pretend they can safely reopen. We've tried that twice, the businesses have spent the money getting in stock and re-employing people, and then they've had to shut down in a hurry. So instead of trying to reopen pubs and restaurants during a pandemic (and apparently we couldn't be arsed trying outdoor-anything), their trade associations would be better off negotiating a bailout package until the vaccines are here in force.

We know that restaurants and indoor hospitality is risky. The virus in Ireland is the same as it is abroad where these studies have been done:
https://dc.eater.com/2020/12/7/22159468/d-c-releases-covid-19-outbreak-data-restaurants
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/five-minutes-from-20-feet-away-south-korean-study-shows-perils-of-indoor-dining-for-covid-19
https://ny.eater.com/2020/12/9/22165800/indoor-dining-nyc-coronavirus-spread-robert-mujica

I'm not sure what delusion you're operating under, but plenty of places made significant efforts to try outdoor-everything.

And you're just ignoring the point that when restaurants opened in Ireland in July there was a negligible effect on the numbers, as per the official Irish data.

Two of your links refer to the US, which has been an absolute basket case. I've no idea what restriction were in place during the time period referenced, or how well thy were observed. They also conflate restaurants and bars, the latter of which have not been open here since March.
And the Korean one specifically mentions schools as not being as safe as thought, which does match the Irish data.

0gac3yjefb5sv7

Anyone know a lot about the R number? If it comes down to say .8 will the huge rise in cases drop off as quick as they rose? It took 6 weeks to go from 1200 to 200 so that rate would mean 4/5 months to get down from 8/9k cases.

FintanMcluskey

MOH wrote: »

I'm not sure what delusion you're operating under, but plenty of places made significant efforts to try outdoor-everything.

And you're just ignoring the point that when restaurants opened in Ireland in July there was a negligible effect on the numbers, as per the official Irish data.

Irish restaurants operated under strict mitigation measures at an incredible cost.

I’ve not seen any evidence from any of those establishments that the were a major cause of transmission.

Then again this thread is a sea of delusion for asking for evidence of any claims.

I’d say we may buckle up, going to be a long few years for Ireland

hmmm

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Then again this thread is a sea of delusion for asking for evidence of any claims.

I've just pointed you towards the studies Fintan. Would you like me to post more?

https://sf.eater.com/21561143/covid-19-restaurants-indoor-dining-stanford-chan-zuckerberg
https://www.nrn.com/operations/indoor-dining-major-cause-covid-19-superspreader-events-stanford-led-study-suggests
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201218-covid-19-social-dining-drinking-increases-virus-risk-french-researchers-say

Posting on here that indoor activities are not high-risk during a pandemic caused by a respiratory pathogen is delusional. And unhelpful to the businesses involved - are we going to ask food pubs and restaurants to go to the expense of reopening again, only to be shut down in a hurry for a third time?

Where is your evidence?

Penfailed

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Exactly.

However not just indoors but in the home.

Restaurants that had heavily invested in adequate mitigation measure’s was where Christmas dinner should have been eaten!

You clipped the first part of the quote that says they all contracted Covid in a restaurant and then agree with the second part of the quote...and go on to say that everyone should be eating in restaurants...!?

Penfailed

almostover wrote: »

Notwithstanding the issue with access through NI which if the political will existed could have been dealt with to minimise any spread. People seem to have forgotten BSE and Foot & Mouth.

Firstly, the political will doesn't exist. Unionists could never accept an all-Ireland approach if it meant restrictions on travel from the UK. Secondly, yes, I remember BSE and Foot & Mouth. No one was turned back at the border in either of these cases. Yes, everything was checked and there were massive queues but no one was stopped from crossing.

CIARAN_BOYLE

MattS1 wrote: »

Anyone know a lot about the R number? If it comes down to say .8 will the huge rise in cases drop off as quick as they rose? It took 6 weeks to go from 1200 to 200 so that rate would mean 4/5 months to get down from 8/9k cases.

An r number of. 8 basically means that the number of cases will be 80% of what they are now in one infection cycle.

The average infection cycle is about 5-10 days so let's say 7.

So with an r number of. 8 it will take 17 weeks to go from 8k to sub 200.

JRant

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

An r number of. 8 basically means that the number of cases will be 80% of what they are now in one infection cycle.

The average infection cycle is about 5-10 days so let's say 7.

So with an r number of. 8 it will take 17 weeks to go from 8k to sub 200.

It seems that's what the government are planning for. Keeping this lockdown until the end of March has been hinted at by Leo and MM a number of times now.

weldoninhio

hmmm wrote: »

If you're in an enclosed space with poor ventilation, it doesn't matter if you're 2 metres away from someone with Covid.


Do you know what's worse? Dying alone from Covid.

Those people who are insisting on carrying on as normal need to grow up. Because many insisted on having a "normal" Christmas our case rates are now out of control, and there is a good chance that we will be denying ICU care to people who would otherwise survive over the next few weeks.

Crank up that fear quotient!!! :D

_Kaiser_

Listening to NT earlier they had someone on from the ERSI who apparently have their own worry-o-meter (with a survey pool) that suggests people are concerned and welcoming restrictions.

Dunno about that. Still seems pretty busy locally. Also a texter to that show saying the M50 seemed as busy as usual.

FintanMcluskey

hmmm wrote: »

I've just pointed you towards the studies Fintan. Would you like me to post more?

https://sf.eater.com/21561143/covid-19-restaurants-indoor-dining-stanford-chan-zuckerberg
https://www.nrn.com/operations/indoor-dining-major-cause-covid-19-superspreader-events-stanford-led-study-suggests
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201218-covid-19-social-dining-drinking-increases-virus-risk-french-researchers-say

Posting on here that indoor activities are not high-risk during a pandemic caused by a respiratory pathogen is delusional. And unhelpful to the businesses involved - are we going to ask food pubs and restaurants to go to the expense of reopening again, only to be shut down in a hurry for a third time?

Where is your evidence?

“But nothing has fostered the increase of COVID-19 cases more than private family gatherings, according to de Blasio.”

One of the above links has outbreaks linked to restaurants slightly above food retail, but has no indication of mitigation measures undertaken by the establishments in that region?

You do continue to ignore that the family home is the biggest problem, socialising will continue and it should happen in a relatively controlled environment.

You have no data to link cases to Irish restaurants in any significant number because the mitigation measures and contact tracing measures were incredibly strict, and implemented at great cost

FintanMcluskey

Penfailed wrote: »

You clipped the first part of the quote that says they all contracted Covid in a restaurant and then agree with the second part of the quote...and go on to say that everyone should be eating in restaurants...!?

I clipped it because it came from the moon!

_Kaiser_

News item that the EU has signed up to doubling the numbers of vaccines available to member states.

When? Not till Q2/April for the first lot with the rest through Q3/Q4

Watch this used to justify extending restriction accordigly and our lot comfortably blaming the EU. Which for once I agree with them on!