When will it all end?

Quazzie

Gradius wrote: »

Tell me there's a point to climbing over a mountain and I'll begrudgingly do it. Have me climb a mountain for no benefit at all?...that's how you lose the confidence and control of a situation.

To use this analogy, we've been climbing the mountain for the last year because the sea is rising up around us, and sometime we have climb quicker because the sea rises quicker.

I hope that clears it all up for you

Gradius

Quazzie wrote: »

To use this analogy, we've been climbing the mountain for the last year because the sea is rising up around us, and sometime we have climb quicker because the sea rises quicker.

I hope that clears it all up for you

So in other words, rather than productively challenging the real problem, "rising sea" in this case, we are simply reacting in the most basic, unthoughtful way, to "keep climbing".

That's not going to solve anything, unless you love mountaineering for the sake of it

El_Duderino 09

Gradius wrote: »

It was foresight back then, not hindsight now.

As to how people react to the necessary steps, well you either want a solution or you don't.

All the lockdowns so far, all the misery, all the coming lockdowns and coming misery...what has it been for? What has been accomplished? Nothing. It's been all for nowt.

Tell me there's a point to climbing over a mountain and I'll begrudgingly do it. Have me climb a mountain for no benefit at all?...that's how you lose the confidence and control of a situation.

They took short-cuts to save money, have ended up costing untold billions and jobs, and here we are, still back at the starting point.

And it's for that simple root point that I don't foresee any meaningful progress for years. I hope I'm wrong, but it's a 70/30 bet I'd confidently place.

“They took short-cuts to save money, have ended up costing untold billions and jobs, and here we are, still back at the starting point”. So you’re saying they took the approach because hey thought it would be cheaper and it turned out not to be cheaper - in hindsight.

There were loads of options on the table and they chose the options they thought were best. It’s absolutely fine to look back and apply hindsight to know what we’re the best options so we could take those options in the future. But I don’t think we can fault the governor not closing the borders. Nobody else in a comparable country was closing the borders. Australian and New Zealand did it, but they’re an exceptional case because they’re so isolated.

None of Ireland’s peers were doing it so it’s not as if we were the only ones not doing it. But yes, in hindsight, we should have closed the borders. In hindsight, all governments should have closed the borders for all except essential purposes.

Quazzie

Gradius wrote: »

So in other words, rather than productively challenging the real problem, "rising sea" in this case, we are simply reacting in the most basic, unthoughtful way, to "keep climbing".

That's not going to solve anything, unless you love mountaineering for the sake of it

It'll stop ya drowning in the mean time

Gradius

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

“They took short-cuts to save money, have ended up costing untold billions and jobs, and here we are, still back at the starting point”. So you’re saying they took the approach because hey thought it would be cheaper and it turned out not to be cheaper - in hindsight.

There were loads of options on the table and they chose the options they thought were best. It’s absolutely fine to look back and apply hindsight to know what we’re the best options so we could take those options in the future. But I don’t think we can fault the governor not closing the borders. Nobody else in a comparable country was closing the borders. Australian and New Zealand did it, but they’re an exceptional case because they’re so isolated.

None of Ireland’s peers were doing it so it’s not as if we were the only ones not doing it. But yes, in hindsight, we should have closed the borders. In hindsight, all governments should have closed the borders for all except essential purposes.

No, I'm saying that people warned them, with meaningful foresight, NOT to do what they wanted to do.


They did NOT choose the best options, they chose the quickest "hope for the best" options. They gambled to save money, and they lost.

And again, leadership isn't about copying other countries. The correct course of action remains correct, even if nobody else chooses it. It's weak sauce to hide behind other failures as if that's an excuse.

So it was all a matter of ignoring FORESIGHT.

Gradius

Quazzie wrote: »

It'll stop ya drowning in the mean time

No need, I'll be happily in my boat relaxing while watching you breaking your balls in front of me climbing for nothing

El_Duderino 09

Gradius wrote: »

No, I'm saying that people warned them, with meaningful foresight, NOT to do what they wanted to do.


They did NOT choose the best options, they chose the quickest "hope for the best" options. They gambled to save money, and they lost.

And again, leadership isn't about copying other countries. The correct course of action remains correct, even if nobody else chooses it. It's weak sauce to hide behind other failures as if that's an excuse.

So it was all a matter of ignoring FORESIGHT.

Yeah, this is all hindsight. There wasn’t a clear and obvious correct course of action which the government ignored. It was unprecedented and they hoped it wouldn’t go on for as long as it did.

You’re applying hindsight and suggesting it was obvious. If the pandemic was short lived, and Ireland had shut the borders, it could have done irreparable damage to business in Ireland and foreign investment- which is something Ireland really relies on.

If everyone else was closing their borders and Ireland didn’t close their borders, then there would be a serious case to answer. In reality, they did the same as everyone else re the borders and it was the wrong decision. It’s not some special failing by the Irish government.

Gradius

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah, this is all hindsight. There wasn’t a clear and obvious correct course of action which the government ignored. It was unprecedented and they hoped it wouldn’t go on for as long as it did.

You’re applying hindsight and suggesting it was obvious. If the pandemic was short lived, and Ireland had shut the borders, it could have done irreparable damage to business in Ireland and foreign investment- which is something Ireland really relies on.

If everyone else was closing their borders and Ireland didn’t close their borders, then there would be a serious case to answer. In reality, they did the same as everyone else re the borders and it was the wrong decision. It’s not some special failing by the Irish government.

Jesus H. Christ, man.

If I told you not to jump off a cliff, citing all manner of reasons, backed up by mountains of relevant information, simulation and logic as to why you shouldn't jump off a cliff...that is FORESIGHT.

FORE-FOOKING-SIGHT.

When you land on the ground pulverising your body to dust, you can't start telling me that I was telling you in hindsight. Like, holy shoite!

I can't explain this any further, you either get it or you don't. Good luck

mcsean2163

TimeUp wrote: »

As of today 0.1 of the Americas' population have died because of the pandemic, 0.088 of Europe's 0.007 of Asia's 0.005 of Africa's and 0.002 of Oceania's.

Why do you think this whole thing has affected Western civilisation the most?

It really doesn't seem to be a big issue in Africa. It's not the richest countries cause rich countries in East Asia have handled it much better than the West, and South Korea, Taiwan or Japan cannot be thought of as the kind of authoritarian regime China is, so it cannot be put down to democracies being ineffective either.

What I wonder is whether it has anything to do with our way of living. Much more unnecessary movement of people in the West? Older people? But South Africa has one of the youngest populations in the world and has 8 times more deaths than Japan (the country with the oldest population in average).

I'm trying to come up with an explanation.

It could be that we have successfully kept our populations alive for longer due to many medical advances etc. One in particular has a positive correlation.

Japan in particular is very interesting. China Thailand too but less so.... Also, Uruguay and Norway escaped.

El_Duderino 09

Gradius wrote: »

Jesus H. Christ, man.

If I told you not to jump off a cliff, citing all manner of reasons, backed up by mountains of relevant information, simulation and logic as to why you shouldn't jump off a cliff...that is FORESIGHT.

FORE-FOOKING-SIGHT.

When you land on the ground pulverising your body to dust, you can't start telling me that I was telling you in hindsight. Like, holy shoite!

I can't explain this any further, you either get it or you don't. Good luck

Yeah. That would be a good analogy if we had never seen a cliff before and didn't understand gravity. I think you're demonstrating that you're taking the hindsight for granted. Closing the airports wasn't the only option at the time and there severity and duration of the pandemic wasn't known back then. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know it would have ben better to lose the airports and other borders to all but essential travel.

It it was so obviously th eonly option back then, the lots of countries would have done it. But they didn't, because it wasn't

Gradius

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Yeah. That would be a good analogy if we had never seen a cliff before and didn't understand gravity. I think you're demonstrating that you're taking the hindsight for granted. Closing the airports wasn't the only option at the time and there severity and duration of the pandemic wasn't known back then. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know it would have ben better to lose the airports and other borders to all but essential travel.

It it was so obviously th eonly option back then, the lots of countries would have done it. But they didn't, because it wasn't

It was the best option to close airports. Full stop.

It was the best option BECAUSE there was so little known.

Hence, the government, like lots of others, decided it was better to gamble.

They had the information and they ignored the information for the sake of money. It's cut and dry.

To go back to the cliff analogy, it's that we both want to get to the bottom of the cliff. I suggest, with all reason, that it's less guaranteed safety-wise, to climb the cliff, while pointing out that we can take a meandering route that is logically much safer, but will take twice as long.

You weigh it up, and decide to "take your chances" taking the least sensible option.

In other words, gambling. The government took the less-than-best option. And they lost because of it.

Bit cynical

Gradius wrote: »

It was the best option to close airports. Full stop.

No one knew at the time that if you keep people who might be infected out of the country, the result would be people who might be infected staying out of the country.

Gradius

Bit cynical wrote: »

No one knew at the time that if you keep people who might be infected out of the country the result would be people who might be infected staying out of the country.

Yes, they are a tricky bunch these diseases. You don't know when to trust them and not!

El_Duderino 09

Gradius wrote: »

It was the best option to close airports. Full stop.

It was the best option BECAUSE there was so little known.

Hence, the government, like lots of others, decided it was better to gamble.

They had the information and they ignored the information for the sake of money. It's cut and dry.

To go back to the cliff analogy, it's that we both want to get to the bottom of the cliff. I suggest, with all reason, that it's less guaranteed safety-wise, to climb the cliff, while pointing out that we can take a meandering route that is logically much safer, but will take twice as long.

You weigh it up, and decide to "take your chances" taking the least sensible option.

In other words, gambling. The government took the less-than-best option. And they lost because of it.

I really don't think the cliff analogy is as good as you think it s. We know what cliffs are, we know exactly what happens when you jump off a cliff. We have reliable understandings of those things and can predict those things. Lets not use the cliff again.

Instead: we both encounter something we have never seen before, a hundred other people suggest things to do, and you suggest a drastic course of action which none of the comparable countries are doing and you're claiming you're obviously right. course of action.

Look, You're right that it was the right thing to do in hindsight. But that wasn't clear at the time, only with hindsight. Maybe you're more clever than the government of Ireland and pretty much all the other countries in the world, or maybe you're just doing a Captain Hindsight...

Bit cynical

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Look, You're right that it was the right thing to do in hindsight. But that wasn't clear at the time, only with hindsight. Maybe you're more clever than the government of Ireland and pretty much all the other countries in the world, or maybe you're just doing a Captain Hindsight...

In fairness, I think a lot of people early on knew things like international travel from countries with infections was not a good idea. Probably most people if you had asked them would have cautioned against it.

El_Duderino 09

Anyone fancy some good news?

"Moderna's Covid vaccine appears to work against new, more infectious variants of the pandemic virus found in the UK and South Africa, say scientists from the US pharmaceutical company.

Early laboratory tests suggest antibodies triggered by the vaccine can recognise and fight the new variants."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55797312

That would have been a disaster if the current variants weren't covered by the vaccine. Lets hope all future variants are also covered by the vaccines.

Thespoofer

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Anyone fancy some good news?

"Moderna's Covid vaccine appears to work against new, more infectious variants of the pandemic virus found in the UK and South Africa, say scientists from the US pharmaceutical company.

Early laboratory tests suggest antibodies triggered by the vaccine can recognise and fight the new variants."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55797312

That would have been a disaster if the current variants weren't covered by the vaccine. Lets hope all future variants are also covered by the vaccines.

Great stuff.

JohnnyKq

Thespoofer wrote: »

Great stuff.

The Pfizer vaccine has a much more complicated supply chain with its -70 degrees.
The risk of a temperature spike en route or during administration is much higher.

saabsaab

Bit cynical wrote: »

In fairness, I think a lot of people early on knew things like international travel from countries with infections was not a good idea. Probably most people if you had asked them would have cautioned against it.

+1, It was clear to many posters on the early covid threads from Feb on that something should be done about air travel. (check it out if you don't believe me) Those same posters have called it right all along since.

Responder XY

Talking about air travel is a massive red herring now though. Maybe those early posters were right (but most likely they were actually too late by then anyway), but that water is so far under the bridge it's completely irrelevant.

We have Covid, it's very pervasive in the community. The only way to control it now is through restrictions and modifying behavior. Focus needs to move 100% to what people do rather than where they do it. 5km has no impact. Borders have no impact. Airplanes have no impact. People need to behave properly. They need to stop being given excuses.

For now, behavior is appropriate, but unsustainable, numbers will come down, restrictions need to be lifted once they do. Once that happens, forget about if others travel or not - they are not the problem if they behave appropriately. Focus needs to shift to keeping social contacts lower and less regular, keeping them outdoors if possible and keeping distance between people. 
And most importantly test and trace! bring in rapid testing - end this absolute nonsense from NPHET on that one. They may have a high error rate, but even if they only work half the time, that's 50% less spreaders in the community!

JDD

Responder XY wrote: »

Talking about air travel is a massive red herring now though. Maybe those early posters were right (but most likely they were actually too late by then anyway), but that water is so far under the bridge it's completely irrelevant.

We have Covid, it's very pervasive in the community. The only way to control it now is through restrictions and modifying behavior. Focus needs to move 100% to what people do rather than where they do it. 5km has no impact. Borders have no impact. Airplanes have no impact. People need to behave properly. They need to stop being given excuses.

For now, behavior is appropriate, but unsustainable, numbers will come down, restrictions need to be lifted once they do. Once that happens, forget about if others travel or not - they are not the problem if they behave appropriately. Focus needs to shift to keeping social contacts lower and less regular, keeping them outdoors if possible and keeping distance between people. 
And most importantly test and trace! bring in rapid testing - end this absolute nonsense from NPHET on that one. They may have a high error rate, but even if they only work half the time, that's 50% less spreaders in the community!

I must say I really do agree with this. It doesn't matter if you fly to Spain as long as you are behaving the same as you would do at home, i.e. staying apart from people at the airport, wearing your mask in all indoor situations including the airplane and keeping your contacts low or minimal while on holiday. Then completely restrict your movements when you get back. You have the added protection that the people on the airplane have had a negative test also - no such comfort in the supermarket or in a meat factory. I can't see how that behaviour is any different to going to the supermarket, keeping your distance and wearing your mask.

The main point in all of this is to reduce your physical contacts. It doesn't matter whether that's in Dublin today, or Donegal tomorrow, or Spain next week.

saabsaab

JDD wrote: »

I must say I really do agree with this. It doesn't matter if you fly to Spain as long as you are behaving the same as you would do at home, i.e. staying apart from people at the airport, wearing your mask in all indoor situations including the airplane and keeping your contacts low or minimal while on holiday. Then completely restrict your movements when you get back. You have the added protection that the people on the airplane have had a negative test also - no such comfort in the supermarket or in a meat factory. I can't see how that behaviour is any different to going to the supermarket, keeping your distance and wearing your mask.

The main point in all of this is to reduce your physical contacts. It doesn't matter whether that's in Dublin today, or Donegal tomorrow, or Spain next week.

By all means reduce your contacts but flying thousands of miles, being in airports with people from where ever in the world is not a good idea. How did it get here in the first place? Or how did the new variants arrive? Or the next new variant? Needn't take my word ask Prof Tomas Ryan TCD.

GT89

Why is everyone so envious of Australia it was the same in Ireland last summer minus the good weather and Australia were in lockdown.

mandrake04

GT89 wrote: »

Why is everyone so envious of Australia it was the same in Ireland last summer minus the good weather and Australia were in lockdown.

That’s funny, I live in Australia and I don’t remember being in a lockdown.

Pubs/Cinemas/Gyms etc closed for 10 weeks last April/May was more of an inconvenience, Restaurant's/Cafes were takeaway only but all retail was open, schools didn’t close just had an extra 2 weeks holiday at Easter. More of a knee jerk reaction because the rest of the world doing the same. Nothing like a lockdown in Ireland...actually been fairly normal here since end of May/June except few local areas that were dealt with more harsher measures.

46 Long

mandrake04 wrote: »

That’s funny, I live in Australia and I don’t remember being in a lockdown.

Pubs/Cinemas/Gyms etc closed for 10 weeks last April/May was more of an inconvenience, Restaurant's/Cafes were takeaway only but all retail was open, schools didn’t close just had an extra 2 weeks holiday at Easter. More of a knee jerk reaction because the rest of the world doing the same. Nothing like a lockdown in Ireland...actually been fairly normal here since end of May/June except few local areas that were dealt with more harsher measures.

You must have missed that time the police barricaded thousands of people inside their apartments and prevented them from leaving.

Sam Hain

mandrake04 wrote: »

That’s funny, I live in Australia and I don’t remember being in a lockdown.

Pubs/Cinemas/Gyms etc closed for 10 weeks last April/May was more of an inconvenience, Restaurant's/Cafes were takeaway only but all retail was open, schools didn’t close just had an extra 2 weeks holiday at Easter. More of a knee jerk reaction because the rest of the world doing the same. Nothing like a lockdown in Ireland...actually been fairly normal here since end of May/June except few local areas that were dealt with more harsher measures.

Do you know what's funny, that's pretty much a lockdown that you described.

eastie17

Thespoofer wrote: »

Great stuff.

And this info will barely get noticed in the media. I don’t understand the constant negativity out of them, are they trying to push us all over the edge. Surely 1 good news story a week wouldn’t kill them?
And by 1 good news story a week I don’t mean a feature spread on some C list celebrity who has to tell us all about their mental health during lockdown and how fabulous they are for losing 10 lbs on the “eat cardboard on Tuesdays” diet

mandrake04

46 Long wrote: »

You must have missed that time the police barricaded thousands of people inside their apartments and prevented them from leaving.

Yes of course I missed it because I live in Sydney and that happened in Melbourne, the other 80% population were living near normal lives. You can’t say Australia was in a severe lockdown when only part of it was. LOL

mandrake04

Sam Hain wrote: »

Do you know what's funny, that's pretty much a lockdown that you described.

If that was a lockdown the I don't know what you are complaining about. I hardly even remember it. LOL

El_Duderino 09

eastie17 wrote: »

And this info will barely get noticed in the media. I don’t understand the constant negativity out of them, are they trying to push us all over the edge. Surely 1 good news story a week wouldn’t kill them?
And by 1 good news story a week I don’t mean a feature spread on some C list celebrity who has to tell us all about their mental health during lockdown and how fabulous they are for losing 10 lbs on the “eat cardboard on Tuesdays” diet

The link is to BBC news. So yes, the media is covering it.

I wonder where people are getting all the negativity narrative. Is it people who just read tabloids or get their news from Facebook?

If you chance reading the big papers, they’ll give a balanced view of what’s happening and far fewer celebrity cardboard dirt articles. It always amazes me that so many people give out about the media, and so few are willing to pay for a decent media source.

If you read the small papers, you know what you’re getting. If you get your news from Facebook, then you’re not getting news at all.

There was a good article in the Financial Times yesterday about how the vaccine was oversold as the panacea for the virus. Clearly we need a vaccine to get back towards normal, but there is more to think about than simple vaccinating the vulnerable and then going back to normal.

It’s a global pandemic and the real risk is that it will mutate and not be covered by the vaccine. One way it could do that is by transferring to domestic animals and then back to humans in a form that isn’t covered by the vaccine. All very real, even though remote possibilities, which have to be planned for.

It’s not a simple topic. If you’re reading sh1t news sources then don’t complain that the media is sh1t. Take some responsibility for your own education and read some better news sources.