When will it all end?

hmmm

Government buildings wrote: »

So lockdowns don't work?

Are we really going to have this discussion for the third time since the start of the pandemic?

Of course lockdowns work, how do you think we got our numbers down from the disgraceful numbers we had at Christmas.

Apparently we're dealing with a more infectious variant, and that's unfortunate - and our numbers seem to have stopped falling in the past week which is concerning. Anyone who thinks we will see relaxations in the near future is dreaming.

It's a real pity that we're not seeing a proper push by everyone (particularly the councils) to build outdoor facilities for pubs and restaurants for Summer. I doubt we're going to see indoor dining this side of 70%+ vaccinated, and that's probably July at the earliest.

beauf

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Same reason they've come down in every place in the world that has not implemented lockdowns?

Put more explicitly: Viruses require hosts and there are a finite number of them in any given location.

Except they've gone down and then up again. If you had achieved herd immunity you wouldn't have further waves. Also people have got this more than once. That's not immunity. What you need for herd immunity is a vaccine. Which we now have.

appledrop

Numbers stating to rise again, quick quick press release from NPHET that it's everyone fault for parties on St.Stephen Day.

Oh wait it's too soon for those figures to be shown yet it must be down to something else???????

Meanwhile secondary school in Kildare has sent all 5th years home(in school one week) back to online learning for them due to staff shortages/ Covid 19.

Lundstram

appledrop wrote: »

Numbers stating to rise again, quick quick press release from NPHET that it's everyone fault for parties on St.Stephen Day.

Oh wait it's too soon for those figures to be shown yet it must be down to something else???????

Meanwhile secondary school in Kildare has sent all 5th years home(in school one week) back to online learning for them due to staff shortages/ Covid 19.

Yep, KTCS in Kildare Town. Funny thing is, one of the teachers brought it in so all 5th years deemed close contacts and all off school for another week.

Utter madness this is.

saabsaab

Looking North their figures are rapidly falling as they approach 50% vaccinated. The same should happen here as we reach 50% around June.

lee_baby_simms

hmmm wrote: »

Of course lockdowns work, how do you think we got our numbers down from the disgraceful numbers we had at Christmas.

I agree that they can get you out of an acute bind but what about the long term? When they go on indefinitely and the public inevitably become fatigued and bored?

Do you think annual excess deaths over the next 2 or 3 years will demonstrate the benefit of lockdowns especially against the economic damage that be evident for decades?

I’m not so sure. No one is. This is a grand experiment.

saabsaab

saabsaab wrote: »

Looking North their figures are rapidly falling as they approach 50% vaccinated. The same should happen here as we reach 50% around June.

Ours will plummet naturally by June. Look at last summer when people were mixing outdoors far more and the numbers collapsed.
My worry about the disgracefully slow EU vaccine rollout is that we'll see the UK and US hit high rates by summer, restrictions lifted massively. The virus will continue circulating but mostly among the lower risk groups like last year and by the time winter comes around they'll have close to herd immunity.
We, meanwhile, will still be dragging along towards the end of the summer and won't have a solid base and super-low base levels of cases/deaths going into the dangerous time of year.

noserider

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ours will plummet naturally by June. Look at last summer when people were mixing outdoors far more and the numbers collapsed.
My worry about the disgracefully slow EU vaccine rollout is that we'll see the UK and US hit high rates by summer, restrictions lifted massively. The virus will continue circulating but mostly among the lower risk groups like last year and by the time winter comes around they'll have close to herd immunity.
We, meanwhile, will still be dragging along towards the end of the summer and won't have a solid base and super-low base levels of cases/deaths going into the dangerous time of year.

Agree 100 %. Add to that our traditional flu season come winter.
I can see flu numbers going up replacing the fear of COVID with something else. Hospital numbers blahdy blah...

beauf

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

I agree that they can get you out of an acute bind but what about the long term? When they go on indefinitely and the public inevitably become fatigued and bored?
...

According to some it's not a real lockdown and people are ignoring it, then how are people are getting fatigued and bored with something they are largely ignoring.

.... Depending

beauf

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ours will plummet naturally by June. Look at last summer when people were mixing outdoors far more and the numbers collapsed.
....

I like the way you ignored everything else going on and you attribute the decrease to the fact it was simply June. Maybe if we moved to somewhere with better weather it would disappear.

lee_baby_simms

beauf wrote: »

According to some it's not a real lockdown and people are ignoring it, then how are people are getting fatigued and bored with something they are largely ignoring.

.... Depending

But surely that’s the inherent weakness of extended lockdowns?

Our government said as much at the start of this.

Blaming the public repeatedly ultimately becomes an admission of failure.

Shutting down businesses may buy you time in the short term but we need some kind of creative solution out of this that is workable for 3-6 months.

beauf

beauf wrote: »

I like the way you ignored everything else going on and you attribute the decrease to the fact it was simply June. Maybe if we moved to somewhere with better weather it would disappear.

We had the fewest restrictions during the summer yet cases and deaths went off a cliff and didn't start increasing til September into October.

the kelt

hmmm wrote: »

Are we really going to have this discussion for the third time since the start of the pandemic?

Of course lockdowns work, how do you think we got our numbers down from the disgraceful numbers we had at Christmas.

Apparently we're dealing with a more infectious variant, and that's unfortunate - and our numbers seem to have stopped falling in the past week which is concerning. Anyone who thinks we will see relaxations in the near future is dreaming.

It's a real pity that we're not seeing a proper push by everyone (particularly the councils) to build outdoor facilities for pubs and restaurants for Summer. I doubt we're going to see indoor dining this side of 70%+ vaccinated, and that's probably July at the earliest.

Lockdowns work to a certain extent. And then they tail off and numbers stagnate

At this stage it’s not that hard to pin point why, schools are back and still people are following the bull **** that community cases going up coinciding with schools going back must be something else apart from schools! Easier to just blame people rather than decisions being made.

A year ago schools didn’t go back and by summer numbers were low, as a result lockdown must work, right?

Come September through to the end of year with schools back and lockdown brought in, numbers reached a plateau

The same thing has just happened again within the last few weeks and people are scratching their heads, must be not trying hard enough is the cry.

This isn’t about people not trying hard enough, it’s about the situation that happens with a more virulent strain coupled with schools going back. Cue some report now detailing how schools are relatively safe but cases in the community going up mysteriously.

Nphet know this, the government know this but they’ve made such a balls of the whole thing the only positive they have now is being able to say “well we got the schools back” and will deflect to the people etc etc rather than admit numbers are rising because schools are back.

High case numbers are the price to pay for schools going back and our only way out is to vaccinate as many as possible as quickly as possible and based on what’s happened so far with that I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

I could tell ye my own experience of following up for my fathers vaccination but it was like something out of fawlty towers to be honest.

Mr. Karate

saabsaab wrote: »

Looking North their figures are rapidly falling as they approach 50% vaccinated. The same should happen here as we reach 50% around June.

of what year?

Mr. Karate

St.Spodo wrote: »

People believe the authorities that we don't have any alternative to lockdown at present, although we will soon. I don't think that means people are satisfied with how the government has handled the pandemic.

If these clowns in Govt and NPHET weren't enriching themselves during all of this they would have found an alternative to all these lockdowns.

Rosita

Could be 2027 it thereabouts according to some.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56475807

And that's in a country with a proper vaccine process.

bucketybuck

beauf wrote: »

Your are probably right. Personally I don't listen to them, never really have. I just look at the numbers now and then. Sometimes look up someone else's summary of any changes. Thats probably because I don't have live TV and almost never listen to the radio.

Let me guess, full time work from home and a settled private life?

After all, no need to look too hard at things that dont really affect you too much...

I guarantee that if you were facing financial ruin you would have a new found interest in the daily reports and wouldn't just be glancing at it "now and then."

Plumbthedepths

Christ alot of posters on the main thread have jumped the shark. You really would have to wonder at the ( tenuous) grasp on reality some people have.

Mr. Karate

Rosita wrote: »

Could be 2027 it thereabouts according to some.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56475807

And that's in a country with a proper vaccine process.

BBC is as useless as RTE. No way we'll be wearing masks until then. We'll be going to the polls before then you can bet these clowns will want this done and dusted by then.

If lockdown works, why did we have 700+ cases today after spending the majority of half a year in lockdown with only 8 days of inter county travel allowed...

Not to mention crashing the economy, borrowing billions, having record levels of unemployment and huge hospital backlogs.

Maybe it’s time to accept that the illness just naturally peaks in winter and spring for a few weeks.

Plumbthedepths

[Deleted User] wrote: »

If lockdown works, why did we have 700+ cases today after spending the majority of half a year in lockdown with only 8 days of inter county travel allowed...

Not to mention crashing the economy, borrowing billions, having record levels of unemployment and huge hospital backlogs.

Maybe it’s time to accept that the illness just naturally peaks in winter and spring for a few weeks.

The important thing to remember is those tanking the economy will still have guaranteed state jobs and protected pensions. Hard to be objective when you have no skin in the game.

GT89

hmmm wrote: »

Are we really going to have this discussion for the third time since the start of the pandemic?

Of course lockdowns work, how do you think we got our numbers down from the disgraceful numbers we had at Christmas.

Apparently we're dealing with a more infectious variant, and that's unfortunate - and our numbers seem to have stopped falling in the past week which is concerning. Anyone who thinks we will see relaxations in the near future is dreaming.

It's a real pity that we're not seeing a proper push by everyone (particularly the councils) to build outdoor facilities for pubs and restaurants for Summer. I doubt we're going to see indoor dining this side of 70%+ vaccinated, and that's probably July at the earliest.

I agree that lockdowns work to prevent the spread of covid but for a relatively harmless virus they are disproportionate. Lockdowns are like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly highly effective to kill the fly 100% but break the window or damage the wall while your at it. The fly being covid, the sledgehammer being lockdowns and the smashed window or damaged wall being the mental health distruction and economic damage.

Reduced covid numbers are where the positive effects of lockdowns begin and end. Many businesses will not reopen once restrictions are lifted many small businesses have already gone under because of the effects of the insanity of the last 12 months.

I think most pubs will be gone for good once lockdown ends for example my local pub for example is gone for good.

Bit cynical

Every so often you read of experts saying that restrictions of one sort or another will be in place for many years. The reason cited is usually that currently it is mainly rich countries that being vaccinated. Most of the world has done very few vaccinations. Consequently, the reasoning goes, the virus will still be circulating even after the current vaccination programmes are complete and therefore will be necessary until all the world is vaccinated and the virus eventually dies out. This will take years.

Once again, behind this is delusional zero-covid thinking. This is the belief that all ends are justified in eliminating the virus. It is not enough that deaths and serious illnesses are reduced to negligible levels, the virus mus be eliminated even if people must die in the process. It is forgetting what the problem was in the first place.

A better course of action, in my opinion, is that once the elderly and vulnerable have been vaccinated we need to change our attitude to the virus itself. Deaths and hospitalizations are drastically reduced once this has happened and, while a small minority of otherwise healthy people will fall ill due to the virus (some with long-covid), the vast majority will suffer only minor or negligible illness and moreover will gain a degree of immunity and lower potential to spread the virus thereafter. Therefore let people get on with their lives if they wish at this point while the vaccination programme continues. The problem is not virus transmission; it is deaths and serious illness. Focus on the right thing.

GT89

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

The important thing to remember is those tanking the economy will still have guaranteed state jobs and protected pensions. Hard to be objective when you have no skin in the game.

We are all in the same storm but we are very much not in the same boat. Some have massive yachts and others are clinging on to life rafts.

GT89

The possibility of new mutations is a scare tactic to keep the lockdowns going for longer than nessecary. Do the media have a crystal ball, how the hell do they know new mutations are going to be vaccine resistant or more deadly. It could just aswell mutate into a less deadly strain that's what viruses do.

It would have been like locking us down in 2019 because of the possibility of a new virus emerging.

beauf

Deleted User wrote: »

We had the fewest restrictions during the summer yet cases and deaths went off a cliff and didn't start increasing til September into October.

These things take time to develop. its not a video game or marvel action movie.

beauf

bucketybuck wrote: »

Let me guess, full time work from home and a settled private life?

After all, no need to look too hard at things that dont really affect you too much...

I guarantee that if you were facing financial ruin you would have a new found interest in the daily reports and wouldn't just be glancing at it "now and then."

I said I made those changes before Covid, so it had nothing to do with Covid. I noticed the obsessive negativity before Covid. This thread though has very similar traits.

Actually no as a household, we are quite badly effected by the Pandemic.

beauf

GT89 wrote: »

The possibility of new mutations is a scare tactic to keep the lockdowns going for longer than nessecary. ...

To what end?

Samsonsmasher

beauf wrote: »

To what end?

Power of course.

beauf

GT89 wrote: »

...

I think most pubs will be gone for good once lockdown ends for example my local pub for example is gone for good.

Pub trade was in trouble long before Covid or lockdown.

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/irish-pub-closures-the-slow-death-of-the-local-bar-1.4016286

Covid certainly sped that up.