When will it all end?

aido79

HansKroenke wrote: »

The sole purpose of lockdown is not to eradicate covid but to prevent the health service from being overwhelmed. This is the only goal in the fight against covid in Ireland and Europe. People will get infected, people will need treatment and people will die. Such is life and dealing with covid has been treated the same way in Ireland and Europe. In that context, the health service did not get overwhelmed so lockdown worked. Vaccines speed up the process to get to herd immunity.

Unfortunately lockdown has its limits as the vast majority of deaths happened despite having society in lockdown as they were caused by health staff going about their jobs as usual. Therefore, lockdown of society has its limitations and it must be accepted that people will get covid and die, it is just like how they could get other illnesses like the flu and die.

Vaccines are going to get us, rather soon, to a point where deaths and hospitalisations drop massively (98% just from vaccinating the over 60s and under 60s with chronic conditions). This is weeks to a few months, not months to years away. I don't understand what you are getting at, noting all of this, by saying that someone needs to put their neck on the line and risk making things worse by easing restrictions while all this is going on.

Easing all restrictions, knowing that there is strong data on efficacy of vaccines combined with significant rollout among elderly and vulnerable groups, is the only acceptable course of action and I would argue the person(s) arguing not to ease all restrictions in this context are risking doing far worse harm in the long run due to the severe, negative economic and social impact of restrictions.

All I'm saying is that even though there is evidence that the vaccine will stop transmission and massively lower hospitalizations in the short term at least there is no proof that it definitely protects anyone longterm so there may still be a need for an element of caution.

El_Duderino 09

eggy81 wrote: »

I’d say we’re the most easily controlled people in Europe. Who’s easier to get to toe the line?

This is a foolish game in the abstract.

But i could point to Irish people being told all about how to transfer covid and how to avoid transferring covid over the last year, and being asked not to do the things that would lead to increased risk of covid transfer over the christmas period. After christmas we had the highest rate of covid transmission in the world. That would suggest we didn't stick to the rules. All the countries with lower rates of covid while having similar rules, could be said to have stuck to the rules better than we did.

How would you measure how much we stick to the rules in this context?

eggy81

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

This is a foolish game in the abstract.

But i could point to Irish people being told all about how to transfer covid and how to avoid transferring covid over the last year, and being asked not to do the things that would lead to increased risk of covid transfer over the christmas period. After christmas we had the highest rate of covid transmission in the world. That would suggest we didn't stick to the rules. All the countries with lower rates of covid while having similar rules, could be said to have stuck to the rules better than we did.

How would you measure how much we stick to the rules in this context?

Is it only Christmas that we are counting when dealing with the rates?

Frilly Knickers

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I'm ok that box is ticked but if you listen to women heading close to the menopause their last crack at having kids has been stolen from them, it's very hard to start a normal relationship at the moment, I know a few in this situation, Tinder isn't a solution.

Your right it's a wait and see game for the next while we've come so far to undo it now over hopefully a couple of months.

IVF was deemed non essential also for many months.

Bit cynical

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

This is a foolish game in the abstract.

But i could point to Irish people being told all about how to transfer covid and how to avoid transferring covid over the last year, and being asked not to do the things that would lead to increased risk of covid transfer over the christmas period. After christmas we had the highest rate of covid transmission in the world. That would suggest we didn't stick to the rules. All the countries with lower rates of covid while having similar rules, could be said to have stuck to the rules better than we did.

Although of course, not everyone stuck to the rules, the very high cases over Christmas could very well be accounted for by ordinary people's increased social activity entirely within the rules, exacerbated perhaps by Ireland's early and fairly strict set of restrictions leading up to December.

W123-80's

thebiglad wrote: »

The issue a lack of belief it will be a couple of months - when other Eu citizens, UK & US are allowed their freedom including the ability to take a holiday in 2021 (when some will visit Ireland as we are not allowed to leave) we will still be making a graduated exit from stage 4. something

If we were told at 50%/60% of adults vaccinated = some form of freedom then so be it, knuckle down till we get there. What we hear is we'll see with no metrics or targets, and the goalposts such as they are constantly being moved - low double digit cases, hospital waiting lists etc etc.

Just go outside to a major road and see the amount of traffic on the move, people have given up and those of us who are still following the rules are being mugged off.

The Goverment has lost the large majority of the public and cannot sustain this lockdown as-is without some realistic exit dates to raise morale and make lockdown worthwhile to continue to adhere to

UK, Israel & some US states will be the canary in the mines - they do well not he back of high vaccination and ease of lockdown measures and lockdown here will crumble and FF/FG if they try to maintain know they will make themselves unelectable next time round if they try to fight public opinion.

Who said EU, UK and US citizens were 100% going to be able to take holidays this summer?

Alot of the problem at the moment is the blinkered view that Ireland are the only country in this **** show. We aren't. Economies are in trouble all over the world.
Another trend I am noticing is the assumption the UK and other EU countries etc have given 100% definite dates and unbreakable plans to their populations. They haven't. They can't. They won't.

No one knows what is down the line.
I'll tell you what I think though, we need to continue to supress the numbers while the vaccination programme gains momentum. Unfortunately that is taking a while because we started the year as the most infected country on the planet.
We have a final push which is being enabled and assisted by the vaccine. This has not been the case in the past.

Once vaccinations prove effective and variants don't unsteady or sink the ship, we should be in a far better place by late summer. I would go as far to say we will be no worse off than our UK & EU neighbours.

Caveat; Vaccine efficacy & tricky variants

PTH2009

This fourth wave and winter lockdown talk is upsetting people and will be lingering around the minds when things reopen

ingo1984

HansKroenke wrote: »

The sole purpose of lockdown is not to eradicate covid but to prevent the health service from being overwhelmed. This is the only goal in the fight against covid in Ireland and Europe. People will get infected, people will need treatment and people will die. Such is life and dealing with covid has been treated the same way in Ireland and Europe. In that context, the health service did not get overwhelmed so lockdown worked. Vaccines speed up the process to get to herd immunity.

Unfortunately lockdown has its limits as the vast majority of deaths happened despite having society in lockdown as they were caused by health staff going about their jobs as usual. Therefore, lockdown of society has its limitations and it must be accepted that people will get covid and die, it is just like how they could get other illnesses like the flu and die.

Vaccines are going to get us, rather soon, to a point where deaths and hospitalisations drop massively (98% just from vaccinating the over 60s and under 60s with chronic conditions). This is weeks to a few months, not months to years away. I don't understand what you are getting at, noting all of this, by saying that someone needs to put their neck on the line and risk making things worse by easing restrictions while all this is going on.

Easing all restrictions, knowing that there is strong data on efficacy of vaccines combined with significant rollout among elderly and vulnerable groups, is the only acceptable course of action and I would argue the person(s) arguing not to ease all restrictions in this context are risking doing far worse harm in the long run due to the severe, negative economic and social impact of restrictions.

Well let's clarify that that's the Irish purpose of lockdown.

The globally accepted purpose of lockdown is to surpress the spread long enough in order to increase hospital capacity so as to permit life to return to some sort of normality (WHO)

We just ignore that advice.

PTH2009

ingo1984 wrote: »

Well let's clarify that that's the Irish purpose of lockdown.

The globally accepted purpose of lockdown is to surpress the spread long enough in order to increase hospital capacity so as to permit life to return to some sort of normality (WHO)

We just ignore that advice.

Yeah and the public are suffering cause of it while the people responsible still keep there high salaries

Tchaikovsky

eggy81 wrote: »

I’d say we’re the most easily controlled people in Europe. Who’s easier to get to toe the line?

Most of the countries that were behind the Iron Curtain and those that had military dictatorships, I'd imagine.

Tchaikovsky

Frilly Knickers wrote: »

IVF was deemed non essential also for many months.

Incredible. No doubt the knock-on effect of Covid and the measures put in place will also have a negative effect on fertility rates.

branie2

Hopefully soon

drunkmonkey

Hopefully this puts an end to the asymptomatic argument, 4 fold reduction in asymptomatic hospital workers https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/single-dose-of-pfizer-vaccine-can-reduce-asymptomatic-infection-by-four-fold-40136787.html

Is it enough?

Morries Wigs

eggy81 wrote: »

I’d say we’re the most easily controlled people in Europe. Who’s easier to get to toe the line?

voted no in the lisbon treaty

Deeper Blue

It's amazing that when negative studies come out nobody ever mentions if they're peer reviewed or not.

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

After christmas we had the highest rate of covid transmission in the world. That would suggest we didn't stick to the rules. All the countries with lower rates of covid while having similar rules, could be said to have stuck to the rules better than we did.

I mean. That *could* be said.

It could also be said that thanks to proximity and migration, we were the first country outside the UK to see the effect of an increasing presence of the much more transmissible variant B117 that is coincidentally currently causing many of those countries with lower rates of Covid back in December/January to start seeing surges.

drunkmonkey

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I'm ok that box is ticked but if you listen to women heading close to the menopause their last crack at having kids has been stolen from them, it's very hard to start a normal relationship at the moment, I know a few in this situation, Tinder isn't a solution.

Your right it's a wait and see game for the next while we've come so far to undo it now over hopefully a couple of months.

Heard the same thing very hard to meet anyone now. Wonder if there’d be a drop in births because of that. Probably too early to say. But really would be awful if there were.

newuser99999

gansi wrote: »

Heard the same thing very hard to meet anyone now. Wonder if there’d be a drop in births because of that. Probably too early to say. But really would be awful if there were.

Definitely will be. Also thinking of couples who would put off having a child because they don’t feel financially secure anymore.

drunkmonkey

gansi wrote: »

Heard the same thing very hard to meet anyone now. Wonder if there’d be a drop in births because of that. Probably too early to say. But really would be awful if there were.

We had a decline in 2020 of 2.66% but I'd guess there was a build up of pregnancies in 2020 that aren't born until this year, could see a boost in 2022 as well with a lot of pregnancies in the last few months of this year, I've a feeling it's going to be like the swinging 60's when all those pent up hormones are unleashed on each other after lockdown.

Risteard81

Morries Wigs wrote: »

voted no in the lisbon treaty

Also known as voting correctly in the Lisbon Treaty (which is actually the renamed so-called "EU" Constitution).

eggy81

Morries Wigs wrote: »

voted no in the lisbon treaty

How did it get through then?

SilentGreenx32

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

Do they have the UK variant there?

No its on holiday over here

Coillte_Bhoy

eggy81 wrote: »

How did it get through then?

Wasting your time

Scotty #

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Hopefully this puts an end to the asymptomatic argument, 4 fold reduction in asymptomatic hospital workers https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/single-dose-of-pfizer-vaccine-can-reduce-asymptomatic-infection-by-four-fold-40136787.html

Is it enough?

It's good news.

0.8% positive without vaccine (seems very low?)
02% positive with vaccine.

So a 75% drop. (incidentally, that's 'four times' reduction, not a 'four-fold' reduction. There's a big difference. Sloppy journalism).

Is it enough? to stop lockdowns?
We saw at Christmas how fast the virus spreads when unchallenged. We quickly got to over 6,500 cases per day after just 3 weeks of being open. Reduce that by 75% and we get 1625 new cases per day and that's still based on just 3 weeks of being open. 1625 cases per day is currently enough for lv5 lockdown but with vaccines we may be able to drastically reduce the % of that 1625 who end up in hospital and thus ICU.

Fingers crossed.

the kelt

Deleted User wrote: »

I mean. That *could* be said.

It could also be said that thanks to proximity and migration, we were the first country outside the UK to see the effect of an increasing presence of the much more transmissible variant B117 that is coincidentally currently causing many of those countries with lower rates of Covid back in December/January to start seeing surges.

Shhhh now, facts like that don’t compute with a lot of people, easier to self flagellate.

Scotty #

Deleted User wrote: »

We failed to protect our vulnerable. This one stat says it all:

Percentage of people over 65 died with/from COVID
Sweden 0.55% (17.Feb.2021)
Ireland 0.60% (24.Feb.2021)

A damning indictment of our approach.

Huh? Of all people in Ireland over 65 who died on the 24th Feb only 0.6% had Covid? That's just 6 in every 1000!! and you had this info within 48 hours? Or is this based over a longer period? 0.6% seems remarkably low no matter how long it's over. You sure it's not 6%.. or 60% even... do you have a source for the info.

drunkmonkey

Is that the case fatality rate 0.6%? it still makes it worse than the flu with 0.2%. Actually if you adjust the 0.6% and include the under 65's your probably very close to the dare I say it...

El_Duderino 09

eggy81 wrote: »

Is it only Christmas that we are counting when dealing with the rates?

No. It was an example of how well Irish people stuck to the rules during the Christmas period. All year we were told not how to avoid spreading the virus. At Christmas we were given the freedom and asked to stick to the rules by ourselves, without enforcement. And we know the result - highest transmission rate in the world for a while. My conclusion is that, without enforcement, we didn’t stick to the rules very well at all.

My question to you was: “ How would you measure how much we stick to the rules in this context?”

Lantus

I would like to see masks become mandatory over the winter season in all shops to help reduce flu and other coughs colds and sneezes. It's such an easy and simple thing to do.

El_Duderino 09

Bit cynical wrote: »

Although of course, not everyone stuck to the rules, the very high cases over Christmas could very well be accounted for by ordinary people's increased social activity entirely within the rules, exacerbated perhaps by Ireland's early and fairly strict set of restrictions leading up to December.

Ah yes but now we’re into enforced rules vs personal response where you explain how the virus spreads and ask people not to take the p1ss.

So, yes over Christmas it was the latter approach. We left it up to people to choose how to behave (knowing how the virus spread) and asked them to maintain distance from each other. To exercise discipline, to show good judgement, to behave well in the absence of enforcement - to be sticklers for the rules around how covid spreads. And we can learn a lot from what happened - we had the highest transmit in the world for a while.

Like it or not ( and I don’t like it btw) the people in Ireland showed what would happen with light-touch enforcement - they would collectively push the boat out a bit.