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

Newuser2

Newuser2 wrote: »

BJ ?

QE2 I thought

Newuser2

[Deleted User] wrote: »

QE2 I thought

Never?

Would she disclose that type of information?

Sadly, a lot of posters just bought into the social media hysteria of Covid and believe that lockdown is the only thing that prevented millions of deaths.

One poster even astonishingly admitted he thinks lockdown prevented 48M deaths.

These posters fail to see the role that age plays.
They fail to acknowledge countries or states that had no lockdown or light restrictions and positive outcomes. They fail to acknowledge countries that have had really long and harsh lockdowns and negative outcomes.

They generally tend to be not financially or socially impacted too much by lockdown either.

GazzaL

Deleted User wrote: »

One poster even astonishingly admitted he thinks lockdown prevented 48M deaths.

And that's just in Ireland :pac:

ceadaoin.

ceadaoin. wrote: »

North Dakota did put in capacity limits and stopped some school sports. And the mask mandate. South Dakota didn't. Same result. Their surges are over.

We are talking about lockdowns and your contention that they are the only way to control the virus. Places like the Dakotas and California show that perhaps the virus follows a similar path regardless. No one is denying that lockdowns stem the flow, but its temporary, unless you stay in that state indefinitely. Things pick back up where they left off on reopening with the added collateral damage caused by them

Try to even pretend to inform yourself. Double the death rate in what are largely wilderness and corn fields is the similar?

Kunta Kinte

Newuser2 wrote: »

BJ ?

Deleted User wrote: »

QE2 I thought

8/5 it was Camilla.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Sadly, a lot of posters just bought into the social media hysteria of Covid and believe that lockdown is the only thing that prevented millions of deaths.

One poster even astonishingly admitted he thinks lockdown prevented 48M deaths.

These posters fail to see the role that age plays.
They fail to acknowledge countries or states that had no lockdown or light restrictions and positive outcomes. They fail to acknowledge countries that have had really long and harsh lockdowns and negative outcomes.

They generally tend to be not financially or socially impacted too much by lockdown either.

Others fail to acknowledge reality

johnboy1298

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Try to even pretend to inform yourself. Double the death rate in what are largely wilderness and corn fields is the similar?

You've totally missed the point of his post,, North Dakota and South Dakota have brought in different levels of lockdown with almost the same outcome, this brings into question the effectiveness and point of restrictions.

Both states have similar population and density making it one of the best places to compare the actual impact of restrictions.

This is similar to the Sweden vs rest of EU argument, despite notably lower level of restriction they are not at the top of table for cases per population.

ceadaoin.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Try to even pretend to inform yourself. Double the death rate in what are largely wilderness and corn fields is the similar?

There are currently just under 21,000 people hospitalised with covid in California, with over 4000 in ICU. Their surge isn't over yet, unlike the dakotas unfortunately.

So, the dakotas - huge surges over despite having no blanket lockdowns. California, in the middle of a huge surge despite having the strictest and longest lockdowns in the country. What conclusions do you draw from that information?

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

Sadly, a lot of posters just bought into the social media hysteria of Covid and believe that lockdown is the only thing that prevented millions of deaths.

One poster even astonishingly admitted he thinks lockdown prevented 48M deaths.

These posters fail to see the role that age plays.
They fail to acknowledge countries or states that had no lockdown or light restrictions and positive outcomes. They fail to acknowledge countries that have had really long and harsh lockdowns and negative outcomes.

They generally tend to be not financially or socially impacted too much by lockdown either.

yes, thankfully most people have bought into the facts and reality and not hysteria as facts are not hysteria, and realise that the approach taken by most countries is the only one that actually does work in terms of minimising the spread of the virus, so that the vast majority of people can continue their lives in a basic manner, and so that the country can keep operating, even if only at a basic level.
there were no countries or states that had no lockdown or light restrictions and had positive outcomes, they either had to go into restrictions/lock downs in the end, or they ended up basket cases.
no country was ever going to get out of this with no negative outcomes, it was always a case of minimise the damage.
we already know that as a whole, agreement or disagreement with various measures are not based along income lines as people are not hive minds, so it would be impossible for that to happen.

ceadaoin.

ceadaoin. wrote: »

There are currently just under 21,000 people hospitalised with covid in California, with over 4000 in ICU. Their surge isn't over yet, unlike the dakotas unfortunately.

So, the dakotas - huge surges over despite having no blanket lockdowns. California, in the middle of a huge surge despite having the strictest and longest lockdowns in the country. What conclusions do you draw from that information?

I will look more into what happened in the Dakotas. On the face of it though almost 0.2% of the populations of those states have died from Covid so far. Less than 0.1% of the population of California

silverharp

Deleted User wrote: »

I will look more into what happened in the Dakotas. On the face of it though almost 0.2% of the populations of those states have died from Covid so far. Less than 0.1% of the population of California

Dakota has an older population, higher obesity and long winters (vit D) would probably explain a lot of the difference

fin12

Kunta Kinte wrote: »

Ask your buddy Van.

Who are talking about? Van Morrison?

Idbatterim

just read the below! This way worse than we expected pre christmas or even a week or two ago, is now probably a best case scenario! Going to be very interesting to see what they do with the pup payments etc, the cost is going to be off the scales for all of this, the decisions they took at the start and have persisted with are LUNACY!

https://www.independent.ie/news/lockdown-to-continue-well-into-february-fine-gael-meeting-hears-39993011.html

Most public health restrictions will continue well into February, a Fine Gael meeting heard tonight.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney told the meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party that the restrictions will be in place for quite a number of weeks and it was unclear how this would apply to schools.

The slower-than-hoped for decline in case numbers and the continuing pressure on the health service will force the Coalition to extend the Level 5 restrictions when the Cabinet meets on Tuesday, Government sources indicated this evening.

Ministers are likely to review the situation again at the end of February but there is no expectation of any substantive reopening of the economy before April with daily case numbers still above 2,000 and hospitalisations and ICU admissions still considered too high.

Almost all of the existing public health restrictions will be extended for several more weeks beyond the end of January with the Government’s immediate focus being on trying to reopen schools.

However, ministers are unable to provide any clarity or indicative date when this might happen.

A senior Coalition figure said tonight they hoped to be able to reopen schools at some point next month, but said cases were not going down as fast as the Government would like.

One Government source cast doubt over whether schools could reopen before St Patrick’s Day, but other senior figures insisted this possibility had not been discussed, insisting the priority was to reopen schools.

Junior education minister Josepha Madigan told her parliamentary party that talks to reopen special schools would restart next week after unions rejected proposals to have them reopen this week.

A senior Government source said there was ongoing engagement with teaching unions and they needed further reassurances which are being “worked through”.

The hospitality sector expects to be shut until after Easter, with the Government privately warning it could be the summer before bars, restaurants and hotels are able to reopen in any way.

Some hospitality industry figures believe so-called wet pubs will be shuttered until the autumn, while any form of international tourism from overseas this year is being ruled out.

After schools, the Government hopes to reopen the construction sector, but no date has been mooted for this.

The Cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19 is likely to finalise plans to extend restrictions at a meeting on Monday where public health officials will brief the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and senior ministers before the decisions are finalised at Cabinet on Tuesday.

end of the road

Idbatterim wrote: »

just read the below! This way worse than we expected pre christmas or even a week or two ago, is now probably a best case scenario! Going to be very interesting to see what they do with the pup payments etc, the cost is going to be off the scales for all of this, the decisions they took at the start and have persisted with are LUNACY!

https://www.independent.ie/news/lockdown-to-continue-well-into-february-fine-gael-meeting-hears-39993011.html

the vital public health measures you describe as lunacy were and are necessary.
if you really care about the cost of this then you should be supporting the measures, as the costs while big are nothing compared to the costs of lerra rip, which we already know fails.

Idbatterim

someone tell me, why so much of the economy was closed, when numbers were near nothing, if the borders etc were wide open and we were not adopting a zero covid policy?

Idbatterim

end of the road wrote: »

the vital public health measures you describe as lunacy were and are necessary.
if you really care about the cost of this then you should be supporting the measures, as the costs while big are nothing compared to the costs of lerra rip, which we already know fails.

i dont suggest letting it rip at all, but there was a sustained period where the numbers were extremely low... so why was so much of the economy shut down? what were they waiting for? zero covid can be the only answer OR they had absolutely no plan, other than a wing and a prayer. Which is what I said at the start of this pandemic thousands of posts back!

Irish Steve

Idbatterim wrote: »

i dont suggest letting it rip at all, but there was a sustained period where the numbers were extremely low... so why was so much of the economy shut down? what were they waiting for? zero covid can be the only answer OR they had absolutely no plan, other than a wing and a prayer. Which is what I said at the start of this pandemic thousands of posts back!

When this first broke, there was no one who truly knew what was going to happen, and no one who could predict how this thing was going to spread.

The last massive pandemic that went around the world was close on 100 years ago, and then, there was no instant delivery system that would take it to every continent on the world in a matter of hours, it could spread over land at the speed of horses, or trains, and to get to another continent, it had to survive a sea voyage of possibly several weeks, sometimes longer.

Now, with the number of international non stop flights, it was in most countries and silently spreading before most countries even knew it existed, and when the Chinese eventually informed the WHO about it, very few people realised that it had already established substantial footholds in a massive number of places around the world.

The specialists were all caught off guard, and the brutal reality is that no one knew how to deal with it, or how to stop it.

The same to an extent is happening still, the UK variant was already here some time before the UK made the rest of the world aware of their findings, so there was no way to take preventive actions to stop it.

We're too dependent on things like Ro Ro freight to close the ports, and there's also a fundamental political problem with trying to make the island of Ireland into a closed zone, due to things like the Good Friday agreement.

We are where we are, significant mistakes have been made at high levels, and some of those mistakes are nothing to do with Covid, and everything to do with social policy, which Covid has now exposed as being poor decisions.

Someone commented to me recently, we're all very much trapped in the same storm, but there is no way that we're all in the one boat. So true, and some of the boats are starting to look like they are very leaky, and may not be able to survive for much longer.

Idbatterim

yeah, I agee with a lot of what you say Steve. Given it was unprecedented in modern times, they had no clue how long it could run for, at the very least, the PUP rates were an absolute farce. I totally expected it though, we werent overrun with covid like some other countries, due to good decision making, it was the hyper conservatism here. Dont take any risks, but leave the borders etc open.

I totally appreciate there are a lot of moving parts, much of it unprecedented in modern history, but I also think, you cant just say that and dismiss it all. There are serious questions to be asked and failings.

Did I vote for Tony? I dont remember him being on the ballot sheet. The nursing home deaths at the start of pandemic and the oversight of not protecting what were obviously the most vulnerable.

I am absolutely shocked, the vaccine is being rolled out. Without years of debate here, public consultations, reports etc...

Irish Steve

The unfortunate reality is that Tony is probably one of the better qualified people on this island to be advising and formulating the decision making process, I suppose we should be thankful that he was already working for the state, if someone like him had had to be brought in from the private sector as a consultant, which is the standard stock in trade of the political system these days, I wouldn't like to be hazarding a guess at the sort of package that would have been paid to get that person.

I am very much not dismissing the mistakes they've made, but now is not the time for recriminations, the time for that will be when the country is operating at some sort of normal level again, which will be some time, and then there will need to be much closer scrutiny of things like Golfgate, and the like, and a very public discussion about the way that our economy operates, with a much stronger reference point, to look at things like Working from Home, zero hours contracts, unemployment benefit, social protection in general, the way that the HSE and health service operates and is funded, and about making people in high places truly accountable for their actions, as it's become more than clear that there are some very serious and in some cases long standing questions that should have been asked a long time ago.

We were very much not alone in the failings on things like nursing homes, the chronic shortage of effective PPE, and the over use of agency staff that work a few hours in many different locations each week both in the hospitals and the nursing homes contributed massively to bringing Covid into them, and the residents of nursing homes were always going to be massively vulnerable to any sort of infection of this nature, and it's a failing even now that there is no effective and quick Covid test that can be applied on a very short term basis, and it's not practical or feasible to have nursing home staff locked down on site to prevent infection getting in, there's not the space or facility to make that happen any time soon.

They had no choice in the vaccine roll out, if there'd been the usual clusterfcuk that goes with state service procurement, they'd have been rightly lynched.Even now, they have the ability to screw things up if their normal way of doing things is allowed to continue, and it behoves all of us to make very sure that whatever happens at the next election, there are some fundamental changes in Health (and other areas) that have to happen, and that needs to be non negotiable.

Time will tell, there are some hints of light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm not going to hold my breath, Covid may yet throw a few more curve balls before it's put back in its cage.

Idbatterim

They had no choice in the vaccine roll out, if there'd been the usual clusterfcuk that goes with state service procurement, they'd have been rightly lynched.Even now, they have the ability to screw things up if their normal way of doing things is allowed to continue, and it behoves all of us to make very sure that whatever happens at the next election, there are some fundamental changes in Health (and other areas) that have to happen, and that needs to be non negotiable.

Time will tell, there are some hints of light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm not going to hold my breath, Covid may yet throw a few more curve balls before it's put back in its cage.

Totally agree. My level of optimism on reform etc, look at the last bust and the chance for reform was there on a plate and wasnt sniffed at. Absolutely no chance in my opinion, no chance! Hell will freeze over before they would address anything...

ceadaoin.

The WHO have changed their guidance on testing. In the absence of symptoms, the number of test cycles needs to be taken into account and another test performed and a diagnosis done based on all these things.

Its been known for a while that using a high number of PCR cycles was creating a large amount of false positive results. There was an article in the New York times months ago about how up to 90% of "positive" results probably shouldn't be counted. Well this new change reflects this and should result in a large drop in cases if the criteria is followed.


I predict the pandemic to be over within months. Too optimistic?

WHO guidance Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 states that careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed (1). The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load. Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.

WHO reminds IVD users that disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases (2). This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.

Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information

Ted_YNWA

rusty cole wrote: »

There's a certain profile of person who goes to work, never attends social gatherings, gets anxious at the idea of going on holidays and perhaps may be terrible at attracting a partner for meaningless sex or a worthwhile relationship...you'll find tons of them in the civil service, being the next in a family generation to do so...they want a lockdown which is a virtual stop to all things social and pleasurable, they want it because the were never really a part of society anyway, in any great respect...thesaurus on tap, full of high horse quips at the low brow geriatricide driven mob de jour...they want a lockdown because they literally have feck all to lose...if it all ended in the morning, they'd be back in work making up excuses as to why they didn't leave the house over Xmas because drink lowers your intelligence quotient and your inhibitions....

There's a few on boards who have passive aggressive to a fine art...

Mod

You are still threadbanned. Week off.

GazzaL

ceadaoin. wrote: »

The WHO have changed their guidance on testing. In the absence of symptoms, the number of test cycles needs to be taken into account and another test performed and a diagnosis done based on all these things.

Its been known for a while that using a high number of PCR cycles was creating a large amount of false positive results. There was an article in the New York times months ago about how up to 90% of "positive" results probably shouldn't be counted. Well this new change reflects this and should result in a large drop in cases if the criteria is followed.


I predict the pandemic to be over within months. Too optimistic?

Based on NPHET's track record they'll do the opposite of the WHO's recommendation and increase test cycles of asymptomatic people and increase the number of positives.

Tandey

Will the hotels be open for valentines weekend? Asking for a friend?

bloopy

ceadaoin. wrote: »

The WHO have changed their guidance on testing. In the absence of symptoms, the number of test cycles needs to be taken into account and another test performed and a diagnosis done based on all these things.

Its been known for a while that using a high number of PCR cycles was creating a large amount of false positive results. There was an article in the New York times months ago about how up to 90% of "positive" results probably shouldn't be counted. Well this new change reflects this and should result in a large drop in cases if the criteria is followed.


I predict the pandemic to be over within months. Too optimistic?

Wasn't this a 'conspiracy theory' just a few weeks ago?
Even the Journal did a 'debunked' piece on it.

walus

Idbatterim wrote: »

someone tell me, why so much of the economy was closed, when numbers were near nothing, if the borders etc were wide open and we were not adopting a zero covid policy?

It is quite simple really. It is a part of all this lockdown-until-vaccine franchise/deal that the government signed up to. Those who have come up with that strategy and sold it to a number of government across the world (mainly western world btw) have planned to benefit from the effects of economic shutdown. The wealth transfer up the ladder will accelerate dramatically in these next couple of years. This process has started already. Corporations started hoovering up smaller businesses already. It is a great deal if you can get them cheap with money at almost negative interest rate, and long terms debt maturity.

Since 1980s middle class participation in the job market in Ireland has fallen from 60% to about 40% prior to covid. These jobs are just going away and this 'pandemic' will push it even further. The need for improvement in productivity post-covid will be so high that it will be only possible to achieve with AI and automation not only in production/manufacturing but also in all other sectors where mundane work is now performed by a human (i.e. office, accounting etc.)

I'm totally staggered to watch this government play into the hands of corporations, bankers and pharma. They clearly don't understand what they have subscribed us to. Looking at the data and risk associated with retail, hairdressers, hotels I cannot see justification for slaughtering the middle class.

Newuser2

walus wrote: »

It is quite simple really. It is a part of all this lockdown-until-vaccine franchise/deal that the government signed up to. Those who have come up with that strategy and sold it to a number of government across the world (mainly western world btw) have planned to benefit from the effects of economic shutdown. The wealth transfer up the ladder will accelerate dramatically in these next couple of years. This process has started already. Corporations started hoovering up smaller businesses already. It is a great deal if you can get them cheap with money at almost negative interest rate, and long terms maturity.

Since 1980s middle class participation in the job market in Ireland has fallen from 60% to about 40% prior to covid. These jobs are just going away and thi 'pandemic' will push it even further. The need for improvement in productivity post-covid will be so high that it will be only possible to achieve with AI and automation not only in production/manufacturing but also in all other sectors where mundane work is now performed by a human.

I'm totally staggered to watch this government play into the hands of corporations, bankers and pharma. They clearly don't understand what they have subscribed us to. Looking at the data and risk associated with retail, hairdressers, hotels I cannot see justification for slaughtering the middle class.

Some of these posts would just crack you up

Don't Chute!

Tomas Ryan on Newstalk this morning saying the lockdown isn’t working so wants more restrictions. He wants a 2km travel restriction now. Also said we need to get down to 10 cases per day before we can start lifting these restrictions! All said from the comfort of his home with his nice salary still rolling in.

ceadaoin.

ceadaoin. wrote: »

The WHO have changed their guidance on testing. In the absence of symptoms, the number of test cycles needs to be taken into account and another test performed and a diagnosis done based on all these things.

Its been known for a while that using a high number of PCR cycles was creating a large amount of false positive results. There was an article in the New York times months ago about how up to 90% of "positive" results probably shouldn't be counted. Well this new change reflects this and should result in a large drop in cases if the criteria is followed.


I predict the pandemic to be over within months. Too optimistic?

Any concerns raised about the PCR test are thoroughly dealt with in the HSPC guidance on testing.

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/guidance/outbreakmanagementguidance/PCR%20weak%20results%20guidance.pdf

Its like the charlatans who raise these "issues" dont think the viral labs all around the world dont already know this stuff and have procedures and guidlines in place to control for them.

And probably for the 100th time on this thread, I will ask the question, why did all the false positives disappear last summer?

And one who is asked this question usually just quietly slinks off