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

Boggles

Deleted User wrote: »

Think there’s a bit of a difference between a world war and a mild respiratory illness to be fair...

Wasn't me who brought up the war.

Ginger n Lemon

ArthurDayne wrote: »

Where I think you are going wrong here though, and of course this is just my own opinion, is that you are applying the “normal” parameters for political success in the context of what has become an extraordinary situation where the parameters have changed and now boil down to one single rubric — Covid cases.

If you were look at the media narrative right now in Ireland — and as we know, politicians know well the importance of media narratives — what is the success of this country and other countries being ‘assessed’ on primarily? It’s not economic performance, it’s certainly not employment, it’s not education, it’s not how countries are trying to safeguard other important medium to long term interests. The measure of success is quite simply Covid case numbers — countries are either “doing well”, “deteriorating” or are effectively in an ongoing state of all-out apocalypse depending on how their case numbers are.

The government knows this — and I think you also need to boil it down not just to parties as a whole but to individuals. Who wants to be the person who went against the grain? Who wants to be the person who argued that more Covid deaths might be a price worth paying for a sustainable policy? Who wants to be that scapegoat who will be wheeled out and given a media lynching as the man / woman who made the call that sentenced another 1,000 pensioners to death — or the one responsible for an ICU unit being overwhelmed?

You are correct in saying that people are massively pissed off with the situation — but remember the mass sense of civic duty last March? Remember the nation getting behind the ‘flatten the curve’ mantra? People are getting more pissed off now yes, but I still think the government is banking on the idea that people being pissed off in lockdown (with the very helpful narrative that ‘irresponsible people’ are at fault) is something they can stand behind — because they can say it was based on a public health need. As long as cases are low, the country is deemed to be succeeding.

You are just killing it this morning. Top posts.

Fintan has been saying for a while - we need to have an adult discussion.

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

You are just killing it this morning. Top posts.

Fintan has been saying for a while - we need to have an adult discussion.

The adults are having a conversation. They're the ones in government.

Penfailed

retro:electro wrote: »

What’s clear is that we seem to have any number of headless chickens up there making decisions. Our “decision making” so far seems to be to copy whatever the UK are doing. There is sense behind that but if that is our only approach then we are always going to be on the back foot and never ahead of this thing. Deciding a year later that they are thinking about mandatory quarantine for people coming in. Well done lads. According to Leo last night he didn’t seem to think travel was a big issue in relation to Covid, yet the UK strain is the most dominant one here. So what, someone sneezed over on England and it landed here? I can’t go outside 5k, can’t see family until after March but it’s okay guys. The lads in office are “thinking about” mandatory quarantine a year on since the virus arrived here.

We haven't copied the UK at all. Our government's decision making was much more incisive than the UK. Their message was all over the place - Stay At Home To Save Lives...but Eat Out To Help Out. Complete mess.

Penfailed

MOH wrote: »

It's interesting to see Leo basically saying we should get rid of all restrictions.

He seems to think there's no point introducing a quarantine since it won't be 100% effective, since the border will be open. But none of the other restrictions are 100% effective, people will always evade them. So logically, he must be against all other forms of restrictions too.

There's nothing logical about the conclusion you've drawn.

Boggles

ArthurDayne wrote: »

Who wants to be the person who argued that more Covid deaths might be a price worth paying for a sustainable policy? Who wants to be that scapegoat who will be wheeled out and given a media lynching as the man / woman who made the call that sentenced another 1,000 pensioners to death — or the one responsible for an ICU unit being overwhelmed?
.

They would want to be a special simpleton to be advocating running the country without a health system and the subsequent Covid and non Covid deaths relating to that dangerously stupid policy with vaccines being rolled out and more to come online soon.

It's also strange you put a figure of 1000 on it, would that be your max culling exercise, if it was 2000 or 3000 would the policy have been wrong?

Tenzor07

ArthurDayne wrote: »

You are correct in saying that people are massively pissed off with the situation — but remember the mass sense of civic duty last March? Remember the nation getting behind the ‘flatten the curve’ mantra? People are getting more pissed off now yes, but I still think the government is banking on the idea that people being pissed off in lockdown (with the very helpful narrative that ‘irresponsible people’ are at fault) is something they can stand behind — because they can say it was based on a public health need. As long as cases are low, the country is deemed to be succeeding.

People are getting pissed off as opposed to last March for a number of reasons...
The constant blaming of the public through the Media, mostly coming from NPHET is grinding on the majority who have been following all the rules yet are still more or less confined to home on and off for 10 months.

The "Do as we say, not as we do..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oireachtas_Golf_Society_scandal

RTE stars preaching constantly on TV and Radio yet do the opposite:
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/news-opinion/pat-flanagan-column-entitled-rte-23076264

We locked down all Summer to get the health service prepared...now it looks like they are totally unprepared... What happened to the DOB Citywest overflow wards?
Why aren't private hospitals nationalised?

Tenzor07

Penfailed wrote: »

We haven't copied the UK at all. Our government's decision making was much more incisive than the UK. Their message was all over the place - Stay At Home To Save Lives...but Eat Out To Help Out. Complete mess.

The UK or Irish Governments are both no Shining lights when it comes to the (mis)management of the Virus response...

Doctor Jimbob

Deleted User wrote: »

If you think "They wouldn't be discouraging anyone from taking Vitamin D" is "getting the word out" about a low-cost, simple, incredibly safe, effective measure for significantly reducing the severity and death rate of the biggest pandemic in a century—almost an ENTIRE YEAR after the effectiveness of Vitamin D started to be demonstrated (I know this because I mailed some to my mother at the time)—then I don't know what to tell you.

I can understand believing that level 5 restrictions are the correct path currently. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see the logic in it and I can see how someone would come to that conclusion quite solidly. What I cannot understand is the abject refusal to hear a bad word said about the government's handling of this pandemic, unless you think someone is just waiting for you to "admit" they mishandled one area only to smuggle in an "Ah-ha! So you admit the restrictions are bad!" on you when you turn your back. But that's not what's going on here, and criticising the government where they've erred is the only way we'll ever manage to improve on this performance when the next, possibly much worse, pandemic hits.

Even when the evidence of Vitamin D's role in the course of Covid-19 was shaky (a long time ago now), we still knew that Vitamin D was important for immune health, we knew it was an incredibly safe supplement even in very high doses, and we knew that more than half of the Irish population are deficient. And here we are in 2021, a year into the pandemic, deaths spiking, cases higher than ever, with health officials saying "They wouldn't be discouraging anyone from taking Vitamin D". If you don't think that is an utter, shameful disgrace, then I don't know what to say.

I'll go further and say that anyone talking about "granny killing" and not utterly disgusted by this failure is being disingenuous.

There are a number of posters on this thread trying to do exactly that.

JRant

DeanAustin wrote: »

The thing about that theory is this. There has to be an end game for the people looking to restrict our freedoms. Something that will benefit them.

FF/FG and the Greens want to get re-elected. That's their whole point of existence. What they are doing now won't help them to get re-elected. Quite the opposite. People are massively pissed off with the situation at the moment and many are, incorrectly in my view, blaming the government. And a conspiracy on this scale would require the co-operation of just about every other government in the world. And never before in history has that level of co-operation existed.

There is no conspiracy here. It's just a bunch of politicians trying to do what they think is right in a really ****ty situation for everyone.

Maybe some confuse conspiracy with incompetence but more and more people are starting to see it for what it is.

We've hitched our wagon to the lockdown model when it had never been tried before and was a result of widescale political panic back in March. We know more now, a lot more, yet our approach has remained the same.

Politicians are by their nature terrified to make a change and even worse when it comes to admitting a previous strategy may not have been the most optimum. Easier to plough on than admit mistakes were made and try a different approach.

MOH

Penfailed wrote: »

There's nothing logical about the conclusion you've drawn.

I was being facetious. And there's still more logic in that than in Leo's nonsense, or the government's ongoing failure to implement an effective travel policy.

Penfailed wrote: »

The adults are having a conversation. They're the ones in government.

Yeah, they're so adult. Our former Taoiseach must be feeling the strain a bit, he hasn't slipped in any film quotes for the craic into any of his speeches for while.

Penfailed

MOH wrote: »

I was being facetious. And there's still more logic in that than in Leo's nonsense, or the government's ongoing failure to implement an effective travel policy.



Yeah, they're so adult. Our former Taoiseach must be feeling the strain a bit, he hasn't slipped in any film quotes for the craic into any of his speeches for while.

In that case, who are the adults that Fintan thinks should be having that conversation, I wonder?

FintanMcluskey

Boggles wrote: »

Shop online, buy a razor.

It's what they did in World Word 2, adapted.

This always makes me smile

Nobody alive during world war 2 would have given 2 hoots about Covid

Thousand’s of young soldiers were sent to their deaths during world war 2

The biggest danger of covid is from social media

Doctor Jimbob

Penfailed wrote: »

In that case, who are the adults that Fintan thinks should be having that conversation, I wonder?

The ones who think that the pandemic is pretend and governments worldwide are shutting down economies for the craic, obviously.

VonLuck

There seems to be a lot of rhetoric about how lockdowns don't work and that the government are failing in their handling this. So what is the realistic alternative? How can hospital numbers be managed without lockdowns?

Penfailed

Tenzor07 wrote: »

We locked down all Summer to get the health service prepared...

No, we didn't. The first lockdown stopped in the middle of May.

Penfailed

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

The biggest danger of covid is from social media

*sigh*

FintanMcluskey

Penfailed wrote: »

We haven't copied the UK at all. Our government's decision making was much more incisive than the UK. Their message was all over the place - Stay At Home To Save Lives...but Eat Out To Help Out. Complete mess.

No, it wasn’t a complete mess.

The UK realised Covid isn’t the only show in town.

They realised the reaction to it will cause generations of economic, educational & mental health carnage.

They decided to try and limit damage from other genuine issues and while it didn’t work excellently they haven’t done much worse than Ireland.

Certainly they also failed to protect their vulnerable over 65’s in a similar manner to Ireland.

FintanMcluskey

Penfailed wrote: »

No, we didn't. The first lockdown stopped in the middle of May.

No it didn’t

Ginger n Lemon

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

You are just killing it this morning. Top posts.

Fintan has been saying for a while - we need to have an adult discussion.

"My fellow echo chamber inhabitants, echo my view therefore they are spot on"

Some of you at least attempt to engage on other threads where actual fact based discussion exits

Doctor Jimbob

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

There are a number of posters on this thread trying to do exactly that.

Perhaps, but it's easily argued against, and being incapable of conceding a point or changing your mind when presented with new evidence for fear that disingenuous people will try to railroad you is cowardly. Not to mention a quick path to extremes.

MOH

Penfailed wrote: »

No, we didn't. The first lockdown stopped in the middle of May.

Nope. *sigh*

Penfailed

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

No it didn’t

Link?

FintanMcluskey

VonLuck wrote: »

There seems to be a lot of rhetoric about how lockdowns don't work and that the government are failing in their handling this. So what is the realistic alternative? How can hospital numbers be managed without lockdowns?

The realistic alternative is to relax suppression measures when hospital numbers are low.

Ireland was twice as long suppressed last Summer as most of Europe

JRant

VonLuck wrote: »

There seems to be a lot of rhetoric about how lockdowns don't work and that the government are failing in their handling this. So what is the realistic alternative? How can hospital numbers be managed without lockdowns?

I mentioned it earlier today but simplify everything.

If you have symptoms, assume it's COVID, contact your GP, get a test and isolate. Government support can then be directed at those isolating rather than the current PUP which is only paying people who want to work not to.

Close contacts, 5 day isolation with rapid antigen testing on day 1 and day 5. If all clear, get on with it, if it's positive get a PCR test to confirm. It's not 100% accurate but it will case enough cases to keep numbers down.

Open schools, gyms, retail, etc with extra emphasis on hand hygiene and diet.

Keep all large events shutdown until we hit a critical mass of vaccinations (60/70%)

Increase ICU capacity, which is more of a medium term goal but the money should be made available immediately to do this. Even before COVID we didn't have enough ICU beds to deal with any type of a surge.

Would this work? Maybe, maybe not.
Does our existing strategy work? Absolutely not when you look at every metric available that isn't COVID cases.

Ginger n Lemon

Penfailed wrote: »

No, we didn't. The first lockdown stopped in the middle of May.

:D:D

Ah shure Pen. We didnt have a lockdown :rolleyes:

Penfailed

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Ireland was twice as long suppressed last Summer as most of Europe

...and yet, you were trying to say that most of Europe is relatively relaxed currently, like we were last summer. Which is it?

FintanMcluskey

ArthurDayne wrote: »

If you were look at the media narrative right now in Ireland — and as we know, politicians know well the importance of media narratives — what is the success of this country and other countries being ‘assessed’ on primarily? It’s not economic performance, it’s certainly not employment, it’s not education, it’s not how countries are trying to safeguard other important medium to long term interests. The measure of success is quite simply Covid case numbers — countries are either “doing well”, “deteriorating” or are effectively in an ongoing state of all-out apocalypse depending on how their case numbers are.

This is exactly the issue. The following is completely irrelevant it seems

-how many will die from undetected cancer
-how many will succumb to mental health issues
-the full societal and educational damage from schools being shut
-a couple of hundred thousand jobs may not return
-the fact Ireland’s GNP is one of the worst hit in the EU. GDP is irrelevant in Ireland

The only metric is Covid cases/deaths. The future is utterly irrelevant. The next generation can man up and pay the bill

trellheim

They decided to try and limit damage from other genuine issues and while it didn’t work excellently they haven’t done much worse than Ireland.

You deserve to be called out for spouting utter BS. As of now UK Coronavirus deaths = approx 100,000 . Thats one hundred thousand. Ireland is at 3,000 . Proportionally they've lost two and a half times what we have, and because its real people thats 97,000 people .

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

:D:D

Ah shure Pen. We didnt have a lockdown :rolleyes:

Great constructive input. Thanks.

We were locked down from mid-March until mid-May. Restrictions were eased bit by bit and then lockdown was reinstated nationwide in October (yet schools remained open).

Penfailed

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

No, it wasn’t a complete mess.

The UK realised Covid isn’t the only show in town.

They realised the reaction to it will cause generations of economic, educational & mental health carnage.

They decided to try and limit damage from other genuine issues and while it didn’t work excellently they haven’t done much worse than Ireland.

Did you type that with a straight face?

FintanMcluskey

trellheim wrote: »

You deserve to be called out for spouting utter BS. As of now UK Coronavirus deaths = approx 100,000 . Thats one hundred thousand. Ireland is at 3,000 . Proportionally they've lost two and a half times what we have, and because its real people thats 97,000 people .

Try to get a basic grasp of demographics and statistics before calling people out

Most of the deaths occur in the over 65 population, of which they have almost 19 times more than Ireland.

Deaths in Ireland among the over-65s were the third highest in Europe relative to population. The rate to early October in Ireland was 2,359 deaths per million. Only Belgium and England/Wales had higher rates of deaths. Death rates in Ireland at 390 per million are similar to the EU/UK average of 380 per million. The countries with the highest rates of fatalities were Belgium (1,015), Spain (764) and the UK (699 per million).

The report notes that in almost every country in Europe at least 90 per cent of Covid-19 deaths were amongst people aged 60 and over.

Albeit this was up to late November

Ginger n Lemon

Penfailed wrote: »

Great constructive input. Thanks.

We were locked down from mid-March until mid-May. Restrictions were eased bit by bit and then lockdown was reinstated nationwide in October (yet schools remained open).

Can you state what exactly happened mid May to constitute end of lockdown?

Maybe you should try to be constructive for once rather than post vague statements "lockdown finished :pac:"

trellheim

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Try to get a basic grasp of demographics and statistics before calling people out

Most of the deaths occur in the over 65 population, of which they have almost 19 times more than Ireland.



Albeit this was up to late November

I'm well aware of the demos . Still utter BS and strawman arguments by spouters. go find other crackpot theories. 97,000 more deaths "haven't done much worse" . Keyboard warriors eh. I'm out.

Hector Savage

https://twitter.com/Niall_Boylan/status/1353864755186905092?s=20

Incredible, Christmas is 11 months away.

I can see no end to this sh1t...

FintanMcluskey

trellheim wrote: »

I'm well aware of the demos . Still utter BS and strawman arguments by spouters. go find other crackpot theories. 97,000 more deaths "haven't done much worse" . Keyboard warriors eh. I'm out.

Nah ya haven’t the foggiest if you start this emotional nonsense of 97000 more deaths.

FintanMcluskey

Hector Savage wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Niall_Boylan/status/1353864755186905092?s=20

Incredible, Christmas is 11 months away.

I can see no end to this sh1t...

Yep he said it last night on CB.

Ginger n Lemon

Hector Savage wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Niall_Boylan/status/1353864755186905092?s=20

Incredible, Christmas is 11 months away.

I can see no end to this sh1t...

Pfff he didnt say that surely?

Some posters here were laughing at comparisons to WW2.

Having said that, same posters were saying "business going bankrupt were on their way out even before covid". :rolleyes:

Ginger n Lemon

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Yep he said it last night on CB.

Fintan this is the new normal.

Get your papers in order quick if you want to see your relatives or else :pac:

opinionated3

Hector Savage wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Niall_Boylan/status/1353864755186905092?s=20

Incredible, Christmas is 11 months away.

I can see no end to this sh1t...

Wouldn't normally be a fan of boylan but I have to say I agree with him here. As another poster said elsewhere, it's like they've succeeded in "breaking" the people to the point where everyone just thinks "f**k it...... What can we do about it"

Doctor Jimbob

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Pfff he didnt say that surely?

Some posters here were laughing at comparisons to WW2.

Having said that, same posters were saying "business going bankrupt were on their way out even before covid". :rolleyes:

It's selective quoting. He did say it, but it was in the context of explaining why the government wouldn't be keen on imposing mandatory quarantines.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/tanaiste-mandatory-quarantine-not-ruled-out-but-if-brought-in-will-probably-be-for-a-year-40010937.html

Loafing Oaf

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Yep he said it last night on CB.

It was conditional. He said this would probably happen if we introduced mandatory quarantine. May have been signalling his relucdtance to down that road...

hynesie08

Hector Savage wrote: »

https://twitter.com/Niall_Boylan/status/1353864755186905092?s=20

Incredible, Christmas is 11 months away.

I can see no end to this sh1t...

Not what he said though is it...... Not that I'm shocked niall boylan would twist someone's words.

Ginger n Lemon

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

It's selective quoting. He did say it, but it was in the context of explaining why the government wouldn't be keen on imposing mandatory quarantines.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/tanaiste-mandatory-quarantine-not-ruled-out-but-if-brought-in-will-probably-be-for-a-year-40010937.html

Leo's quote

“So, I’m not saying we won’t be doing it, we are looking at it…. but people need to understand that it wouldn't be fully effective.”

typical politicians BS.

mandatory quarantine was overruled in Germany already good few months ago, as you cant be so stupid to assume that every1 who lands has covid.


Morale of the story? Irish independent generating clicks. Nothing to see here....another day, another BS article.

froog

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

No it didn’t

not being able to get a pint indoors does not = lockdown.

Doctor Jimbob

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Leo's quote

“So, I’m not saying we won’t be doing it, we are looking at it…. but people need to understand that it wouldn't be fully effective.”

typical politicians BS.

mandatory quarantine was overruled in Germany already good few months ago, as you cant be so stupid to assume that every1 who lands has covid.


Morale of the story? Irish independent generating clicks. Nothing to see here....another day, another BS article.

I'd agree it's a fairly empty article, but it gives more context to the quote than Niall Boylan's guff.

Do you think Niall is engaging in click generation as well, or would that be too much consistency to hope for?

Penfailed

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

Can you state what exactly happened mid May to constitute end of lockdown?

Maybe you should try to be constructive for once rather than post vague statements "lockdown finished :pac:"

Restrictions began to ease, ergo, lockdown finished. Maybe your definition of lockdown differs from mine. We weren't locked down over summer either way.

Doctor Jimbob

Penfailed wrote: »

Restrictions began to ease, ergo, lockdown finished. Maybe your definition of lockdown differs from mine. We weren't locked down over summer either way.

Indeed. I recall travelling around the country and supporting Irish businesses over the summer after restrictions eased while some of this thread's resident champions of the Irish economy were jetting off abroad.

Ginger n Lemon

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

Indeed. I recall travelling around the country and supporting Irish businesses over the summer after restrictions eased while some of this thread's resident champions of the Irish economy were jetting off abroad.

Yes. Were you doing that before 29th of June or after?

BredonWimsey

where is the info re the 12 month international travel ban i cant find it now......