Covid 19 Part XXX-113,332 ROI(2,282 deaths) 81,251 NI (1,384 deaths) (05/01) Read OP

Annasopra

Marty Bird wrote: »

Same can be said about every winter in recent memory with our health service.

Ah this is worse than a normal winter

growleaves

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Just aswell a deal for capacity in the private hospital sector has been done. I don’t think people understand how to use the word literally though.

You'll regret saying that when we're all buried in rubble from bits of hospitals.

SuperRabbit

Stheno wrote: »

Very few nursing home residents would qualify for.ICU iirc

This has always been the case as they are generally too frail to withstand the rigours of ICU

Ah yeah, I hadn't thought of that but it makes sense. Yeah, awful decision to make but I think its clear which is the less horrible option for most people, if the home can do the basics of keeping you hydrated and on oxygen so that you have some chance

normanoffside

Martina1991 wrote: »

Antigen test have poor performance. They will miss cases and who can afford to miss cases in a healthcare setting on unreliable devices.

The pilot program of using them in Liverool had very poor results.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4848


Antigen tests take at least 15 mins. Plus the time to explain the procedure and document the person's details. That's a throughput of 4 people an hour. So you need multiple devices operated all day every day to test every single staff member, not forgetting those on night shift.
What hospital can spare a team of staff to operate rapid tests that have poor accuracy when they can have a pcr test performed on site in their laboratory.

I dont know why a school was offered these rapid tests when they havent been approved for use in a clinical setting, never mind a school. That could well have been a company looking to make money selling these tests to make users feel like doing something is better than nothing, but when they cant be trusted or controlled it would be a waste of the schools money.

The pilot programme may have had poor performance but only compared to PCR tests which show up dead virus. Antigen tests test for infectiousness (rather than dead virus and past infection) which is perhaps more important?

Hospitals are perhaps ideal locations for their use as they have well trained staff able to take swabs Taking the swab professionally is important to improving their efficacy.

I have real world experience of Antigen tests and in my experience have very positive experience.

Since you are asking for an Example of why a school would be offered them:

We were organising a residential programme for stranded international students (unable to travel home for Holidays due to travel restrictions) over Xmas.
We had a company come and do an Antigen test on everyone before entering (not required but we felt it would be good to be safe and PCR would be too slow in this circumstance).

One of the staff members came up not only positive but highly infectious. Only symptom at the time was a cold-sore. The staff member was sent home and rang their GP for PCR test (which came back positive but several days later) and developed other symptoms a few days later.

That antigen test potentially prevented a super spreader event.
I'm not understanding the resistance to their use as nobody is proposing them instead of PCR, just an addition to them.

Annasopra

jojofizzio wrote: »

That’s limited to just Nursing home/residential units in the health setting AFAIK...also serial testing ongoing in the likes of direct provision centres and “high risk” settings e.g. meat plants

I dont think the meat plants and dp centres were getting regular testing.

jojofizzio

Stheno wrote: »

So if its not too intrusive to ask what are these other nursing homes/residential units outside of a health setting?

If you read what I said again,it’s residential/nursing homes having serial testing within the health system....and outside the”health” setting it’s direct provision centres and meat plants that have it (serial testing)....sorry if worded badly..

yerwanthere123

Stheno wrote: »

People went nuts

Some of those who tested positive had 30 close.contacts over 2 days

I know there's always a few idiots, but I'd like to think the majority were still sensible. Maybe it's the select few who did go mad that tipped the balance. I heard of a family in Dunmanway who hired a marquee for a 50th birthday just before Christmas. Up to 100 apparently attended, several left the party having contracted covid.

CIARAN_BOYLE

iamwhoiam wrote: »

Add in as many from the backlog as it suits ? They could add in 1000 today and 3000 tomorrow
My question is why not simply tell us todays figure and then the added backlog figures added to todays ? It must be an easy thing to do ?

Today's cases could all be backlog.

They could be checking the oldest cases first and the newer cases when they run out of backlog.

Just look at the swabs if you are concerned at the moment.

UrbanFret

Thought it was only the border counties that were out of Control.

SuperRabbit

normanoffside wrote: »

The pilot programme may have had poor performance but only compared to PCR tests which show up dead virus. Antigen test test for infectiousness rather than dead virus and past infection which is perhaps more important?

Hospitals are perhaps ideal locations for their use as they have well trained staff able to take swabs Taking the swab professionally is important to improving their efficacy.

I have real world experience of Antigen tests and in my experience have very positive experience.

Since you are asking for an Example of why a school would be offered them:

We were organising a residential programme for stranded international students (unable to travel home for Holidays due to travel restrictions) over Xmas.
We had a company come and do an Antigen test on everyone before entering (not required but we felt it would be good to be safe and PCR would be too slow in this circumstance).

One of the staff members came up not only positive but highly infectious. Only symptom at the time was a cold-sore. The staff member was sent home and rang their GP for PCR test (which came back positive but several days later) and developed other symptoms a few days later.

That antigen test potentially prevented a super spreader event.
I'm not understanding the resistance to their use as nobody is proposing them instead of PCR, just an addition to them.

My understanding is that the antigen test is fantastic for groups and populations but completely useless for an individual because the margin for error is so wide?

jojofizzio

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

I dont think the meat plants and dp centres were getting regular testing.

They were in some areas(up to December at least)....maybe it depends on location?

normanoffside

Eod100 wrote: »

I think staff are getting PCR tests but not sure how often. Think the anitgen tests aren't backed up by NPHET yet.

That's the problem

They are already being used in several other EU countries for a variety of purposes and the ECDC recommended their use months ago.

Thankfully Tony was quizzed on this on Newstalk earlier today and was pushed on this by PK. He said he sees a use for them going forward (a bit late IMO)

BringBackMick

I am optimistic we are reaching peak cases

I'm hoping beyond hope that hospital numbers will max out around 1400 in 10 days. and we will see steady decline thereafter,

We should be in okay position by early Feb, I am optimistic schools will reopen on 1 Feb.

Stheno

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

I know there's always a few idiots, but I'd like to think the majority were still sensible. Maybe it's the select few who did go mad that tipped the balance. I heard of a family in Dunmanway who hired a marquee for a 50th birthday just before Christmas. Up to 100 apparently attended, several left the party having contracted covid.

The incidence rate.among 18-24 years old yesterday was 900 per 100k

A sizeable minority of people went nuts across all age groups imo

Met mates for a drink, then home to have Christmas Dinner with multiple families

BringBackMick

Schools 1 Feb
Golf/Tennis

Non-essential retail 1 March
Indoor fitness

Outdoor dining 1 April


Indoor dining 1 May

This is pretty much our best case schedule

SuperRabbit

the other one is when they test the sewage, you can tell from that what percentage of the pop have it, it's weird we don't do that

Stheno

BringBackMick wrote: »

Outdoor dining 1 April

Two weeks before Easter?

Stheno

SuperRabbit wrote: »

the other one is when they test the sewage, you can tell from that what percentage of the pop have it, it's weird we don't do that

We do in Dublin anyway and the results are published

jojofizzio

SuperRabbit wrote: »

the other one is when they test the sewage, you can tell from that what percentage of the pop have it, it's weird we don't do that

Lovely job:eek::eek::eek:

BringBackMick

Stheno wrote: »

Two weeks before Easter?

outdoor stuff i reckon, there'll be pressure for it once cases in some sort of control

normanoffside

SuperRabbit wrote: »

My understanding is that the antigen test is fantastic for groups and populations but completely useless for an individual because the margin for error is so wide?

My experience is different, every person who we have had test positive on an antigen test, subsequently tested positive in a PCR.
And there was no reason to give them a PCR as they weren't sick.

Again nobody is proposing to use them as a substitute to PCR but an addition, to catch infections in casual situations that normally wouldn't warrant PCR testing.

Cluedo Monopoly

SuperRabbit wrote: »

the other one is when they test the sewage, you can tell from that what percentage of the pop have it, it's weird we don't do that

I had seafood penang curry this evening with fried rice and extra Covid. Yum.

KrustyUCC

Stheno wrote: »

Two weeks before Easter?

True lol

We can't have much open for bank holidays here

Restrictions can only be lifted after bank holidays

Gael23

SuperRabbit wrote: »

the other one is when they test the sewage, you can tell from that what percentage of the pop have it, it's weird we don't do that

Why not just post a few stool sample kits to every house

SuperRabbit

Stheno wrote: »

We do in Dublin anyway and the results are published

Oh well that's cool!!! how come it didn't seem to help (

landofthetree

Professor Chris Whitty: Corona restrictions may be needed next winter.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-new-national-lockdown-covid-vaccine/amp/


Told you all it will be 2023 at the earliest before a return to normal.

Away With The Fairies

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Dublin and Cock City have big numbers, should be some stricter rules there,

On one hand they say virus is spreading by gathering indoors, on other hand ...a stay at home order.

I think you know well at this stage that it's people mixing indoors. People are safe in their own homes, it's when they bring over their family or friends. You don't know what they're carrying.

SuperRabbit

If level 3 with inter-county travel actually worked it would be a level of restriction I could totally live with

I bet level 2 and level 1 are lovely, remember them? I've never even seen them... or level 4!

Stheno

SuperRabbit wrote: »

Oh well that's cool!!! how come it didn't seem to help (

Dunno tbh how its used, its done by a research team in UCD

bb1234567

2% at this very moment! WTF!
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1346542015278948354