Covid 19 Part XXXII-215,743 ROI (4,137 deaths)111,166 NI (2,036 deaths)(22/02)Read OP

WWEfansince90s

This feels like the weekend where the government blew it. Case in point: for the last year my own parents (late 60’s) had the attitude of ‘well as long as we avoid the virus that’s all that matters’ and ‘well if we make it to Patrick’s Day we’ll be alright’.

But then:
1) reports of the Brazilian variant making it into the country while the Irish people are in the middle of level 5 lockdown and prohibited from traveling over 5km and
2) reports of a 9 bloody week additional level 5 lockdown
3 the UK and other countries actually developing plans to reopen the economy

I think that’s pushed everyone over the edge. Time to ease restrictions - this farce has gone on too long.

Enough!!!

WoollyRedHat

Wolf359f wrote: »

I was actually expecting a different user to bring that up.
No prizes for guessing who!

Interesting they waited so long to contact the WHO after the fact!

I think any country that is not upfront about disease surveillance and risk of spillover to neighbouring nations and outwards should face economic sanctions going forward.We.need to have a global pandemic strategy with am international disease surveillance system that majority countries sign up to, with any countries without reasonable cause who do not sign up or engage with system imposed with travel restrictions of its citizens. Harsh maybe, necessary, yes. Naturally this requires investment by major global powers to facilitate this, but it is a long-term investment which is in the interests of everybody.

Wolf359f

WWEfansince90s wrote: »

This feels like the weekend where the government blew it. Case in point: for the last year my own parents (late 60’s) had the attitude of ‘well as long as we avoid the virus that’s all that matters’ and ‘well if we make it to Patrick’s Day we’ll be alright’.

But then:
1) reports of the Brazilian variant making it into the country while the Irish people are in the middle of level 5 lockdown and prohibited from traveling over 5km and
2) reports of a 9 bloody week additional level 5 lockdown
3 the UK and other countries actually developing plans to reopen the economy

I think that’s pushed everyone over the edge. Time to ease restrictions - this farce has gone on too long.

Enough!!!

2) unconfirmed reports, we haven't actually had a coherent message about that, we've had far too much leaks and ****, which is worse.
3) Believe it or not, Ireland is also developing a plan to reopen the economy, like the UK. Both countries have not confirmed the plan, but I'm sure you criticize the UK also.

Just because the public or some of it feel pushed over the edge, maybe, just maybe the government knows better? I know that's a weird thing to say, but it's not like they are enjoying wrecking the economy and peoples mental health just for ****s and giggles.

We were in this position back last year demanding a plan to get out of lockdown, the government came up with a plan initially with no dates and people started screaming. (I think it had no dates, or something which caused people to complain)
People need to realize, ICU and hospital figures are roughly the same as the peak last March, so there's still a way to go.

froog

Ironhead93 wrote: »

Don't think I've ever seen such a dramatic shift in attitudes in the space of a few days, at least from everyone I've talked to in work and almost all the posters on this thread which was, at least a few weeks ago very pro-restrictions. Maybe the camel's back has finally been broken, happened a lot later than I thought it would.

The problem is the government communication this week has been appaling. Various ministers casually dropping speculative easing of restrictions dates in random media appearances. There is no urgency whatsoever when they speak, and this is totally tone deaf to the vast majority of people who are reaching breaking point due to slower than expected reductions of cases, constant media coverage of variants, and slow rollout of vaccines. There is little posivity at all, no plan and no kind of tangible end point for people to aim for. And i say this as someone who has been fully behind restrictions all along and always had a positive take on things. I'm incredibly fed up right now.

Wolf359f

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

I think any country that is not upfront about disease surveillance and risk of spillover to neighbouring nations and outwards should face economic sanctions going forward.We.need to have a global pandemic strategy with am international disease surveillance system that majority countries sign up to, with any countries without reasonable cause who do not sign up or engage with system imposed with travel restrictions of its citizens. Harsh maybe, necessary, yes. Naturally this requires investment by major global powers to facilitate this, but it is a long-term investment which is in the interests of everybody.

I totally agree.
We've experienced many animal diseases which effect mainly animals and to keep our reputation, we always act fast, Foot & Mouth, the Dixon in pig meat.
The latter cost a fortune to the pig trade, but the reputation came through.
It's all mainly down to countries banning pig meat imports overnight, so admitting something went wrong and taking the hit initially is better over the long term.

I know it's not the same with this pandemic, but if countries faced strict travel bans on people and goods, for fear of spreading infection, it may make countries where a new outbreak occurs act sooner, rather than try cover it up or delay reporting it.

MrMusician18

Cork2021 wrote: »

What do people make of this? I’m all for easing restrictions when the time is right and stand by all of these businesses but will this hamper them going forward especially in a future (hopefully not) waves of this..
They need more then Tralee to follow suit on the same day to make the government notice..

Silly idea. They'll be backing down the very next day.

Wolf359f

froog wrote: »

The problem is the government communication this week has been appaling. Various ministers casually dropping speculative easing of restrictions dates in random media appearances. There is no urgency whatsoever when they speak, and this is totally tone deaf to the vast majority of people who are reaching breaking point due to slower than expected reductions of cases, constant media coverage of variants, and slow rollout of vaccines. There is little posivity at all, no plan and no kind of tangible end point for people to aim for. And i say this as someone who has been fully behind restrictions all along and always had a positive take on things. I'm incredibly fed up right now.

That's exactly how I feel, you literally read my mind!
All this wild speculation etc...and not one single press conference from Government. It's all been interviews with selective media or media reporting sources etc... It's like they are afraid of being asked a tough question.

SeaMermaid

WWEfansince90s wrote: »

This feels like the weekend where the government blew it. Case in point: for the last year my own parents (late 60’s) had the attitude of ‘well as long as we avoid the virus that’s all that matters’ and ‘well if we make it to Patrick’s Day we’ll be alright’.

But then:
1) reports of the Brazilian variant making it into the country while the Irish people are in the middle of level 5 lockdown and prohibited from traveling over 5km and
2) reports of a 9 bloody week additional level 5 lockdown
3 the UK and other countries actually developing plans to reopen the economy

I think that’s pushed everyone over the edge. Time to ease restrictions - this farce has gone on too long.

Enough!!!

This is what I'm experiencing too. A **** it attitude from a lot of people who were on board with the restrictions.
People are going to die from boredom.

Wolf359f

Wolf359f wrote: »

maybe, just maybe the government knows better?

Extraordinary that we're entering the fourth month of our three week lockdown, with the Taoiseach governing through the Daily Mirror, and people are still pushing this line.

iamwhoiam

iamwhoiam wrote: »

They are playing mind games with us . They will drip about mid May opening then concede it will be late April and we will be relieved it isn’t May .
It’s obvious now what they are doing in my opinion

I hope you are right but does that mean they are deliberately lying to us? "We haven't a clue but we will say May even though it's likely April".

Wolf359f

b0nk1e wrote: »

Extraordinary that we're entering the fourth month of our three week lockdown, with the Taoiseach governing through the Daily Mirror, and people are still pushing this line.

I don't disagree the communication has been appalling, disgraceful actually.
Feels more like entering the 3rd month of lockdown, but I'll admit, time is a blur to me.

So what's your idea, just open everything up right away?

There's a line between

"the government has had a terrible week, between variants entering the country through the seemingly totally-open airport and the cabinet flying kites in the tabloids and then avoiding any further messaging"

and

"we can therefore disregard the dangers still inherent in a global pandemic"

Would urge ppl to try to stay the right side of the line for the greater good. This last run hasnt been easy but im not seeing too many posters attacking the govt that would appear to have any solutions themselves other than hindsight, which makes geniuses of us all

Martin should apologise for his behaviour this week and commit to decisions at cabinet and clear communication of same from now on

eagle eye

I said yesterday that the government should be thanking everybody for showing great discipline and courage.
They'll never do that but to all of you I'll say well done. We'll beat this thing eventually and then we can hug our loved ones, shake hands with our friends and get back to our hobbies and things that entertain us and go abroad.
Until then stay strong and stay safe and keep up the hard work that is this lockdown.

Strumms

SeaMermaid wrote: »

This is what I'm experiencing too. A **** it attitude from a lot of people who were on board with the restrictions.
People are going to die from boredom.

Boredom can’t kill you

Covid on the other hand...

I don’t think I’ve been very bored.... I’ve tried to have a goal each week or two...

I’m mostly finished redesigning and redecorating my bedroom... got rid of loads of clutter, old clothes, general crap, PS3/4 games that won’t see the light of day again... Shopped online for a bedside table and new decorative light to replace my old broken one as well as some stuff for the living room including that vinyl storage cabinet table I posted about elsewhere earlier..

Bagged some old clothes for the charity that they will collect from the porch...

Ordered and got delivered a load of new gym clothing, probably a bit overdue but happy with that, everything fits ! ....

Added to my ‘fly before I die’ list of places I want to get to in this lifetime...

My parents both have birthdays in the next 10 weeks so I’ve been online to look for ideas as to what I might buy them, my mother isn’t too difficult but my Dad, being a quite modest guy, non drinker and non smoker is a bit of challenge as he has pretty much everything butttttt as I’m typing this I remember him asking me about a turntable so he could play his old records again... he likes listening to the radio too so I found a turntable with a built in smart radio that has DAB / DAB+ And 10000 stations apparently.... £149 so a steal considering the use he’d get... done ! hopefully get it before his birthday.

Lots of stuff to be getting on with...

Exercise, learn to cook new things, dabble in art, I’m giving my guitars about three hours more a week strumming than any of them had in a decade... if you don’t play, take it up, learn... be doing ! Don’t be complaining be DOING !

Now, here is Tom with the weather.....

Ficheall

WWEfansince90s wrote: »

But then:
1) reports of the Brazilian variant making it into the country while the Irish people are in the middle of level 5 lockdown and prohibited from traveling over 5km and

Did someone not say earlier they stopped them in the airport, which is what we wanted them to do? (Going to wildly imagine they also enforced quarantine and are keeping excellent tabs on everyone else who was on the plane.....hmm.....)

AlmightyCushion

eagle eye wrote: »

I said yesterday that the government should be thanking everybody for showing great discipline and courage.
They'll never do that but to all of you I'll say well done. We'll beat this thing eventually and then we can hug our loved ones, shake hands with our friends and get back to our hobbies and things that entertain us and go abroad.
Until then stay strong and stay safe and keep up the hard work that is this lockdown.

They have done it. Martin only done it a week ago. Any time they make a speech, they usually thank the people somewhere in it. There are plenty of things to criticise the government over without making stuff up.

Sofa King Great

Up to very recently I considered myself very much pro restrictions. While I might not have liked them, I saw the requirement to put something in place and also the damage that could be done without them.

However, the last week or so has really pushed me over the edge. The people have been playing their part and following restrictions for the most part (the obvious exceptions are rare but make headlines) but the Government have not been keeping up their side of it.

There has been no clear communication since level 5 was reintroduced, instead it is drip fed through a combination of leaks in newspapers and contradictory interviews and TV appearances.

Things that were deemed non essential last March were non essential for the few weeks in the early days of a pandemic. People could do without a haircut, new shoes, a trip to the gym for a few weeks and that was fine. But when they close for 4+ months, these things start to become more essential.

We are a full year on from when this all started and rather than our plan evolving and becoming more nuanced to meet the changing situation, has become even more bored brush in terms of restrictions with no plan for a way out.

The fact that we have a vaccine now shouldn't mean we are all locked up for 9 months while we wait for it. What would we be doing without the vaccine? Whatever happened to localised restrictions, building the extract and trace systems, "living with covid".

Yes we hear a plan is on the way but it always seems to be "coming soon". We need it now.
We need MM to clearly address rumours that circulate and get the cabinet singing off the same hymn sheet.

mandrake04

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

I disagree with that. It's about reducing the movement of people that may represent a transmission risk. It's not bulletproof but it's something. I think it's wrong to say unworkable, in that it presents something absolute, imperfect maybe, but certainly workable once you accept it won't have as much success as say New Zealand. If you had an effective hotel quarantine scheme in December, it would if certainly have reduced the numbers carrying UK Variant as a transmission risk.

Plus on a basic level, the optics of people )lhaving no issue flying into a country with movement restrictions of its residents is awful and undermines compliance indirectly.

I somewhat agree that back in December is would have helped, I have said many times before that reducing the sheer number of battle fronts enables a fighting chance. But that time has passed, and the fact that its still not in play 2 months later indicates that the government is not really taking it seriously and as we have seen that people are willing to factor in fines into the cost of holidays just means that there will always be a few intent on finding loopholes and in turn ruining it for the majority.

Ll31

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

"However, a same-day service is continuing for emergencies including bereavement, illness or medical treatment overseas.

A weekly urgent service is still also being provided for Irish citizens resident overseas who require a passport for local immigration purposes.

These applicants are advised contact their local Irish Embassy or Consulate General."

and the reason:

"The Department of Foreign Affairs has said that Passport Service staff "do not have access to private, personal data when working outside of our secure offices and so cannot process passport applications remotely.''

So they haven't banned anything. It's just a practical issue for WFH.

I would have thought that if you can't do your job at home then you shouldn't be working at home. Surely they can have a small number of people working in office on just this particular part of applications...

When lockdown ends things like this, driving lessons and tests etc will have massive delays further restricting people...

jackboy

Cork2021 wrote: »

What do people make of this? I’m all for easing restrictions when the time is right and stand by all of these businesses but will this hamper them going forward especially in a future (hopefully not) waves of this..
They need more then Tralee to follow suit on the same day to make the government notice..

The risk of catching the virus in those shops in minuscule so they shouldn’t be closed anyway.

is_that_so

jackboy wrote: »

The risk of catching the virus in those shops in minuscule so they shouldn’t be closed anyway.

That's not the logic behind this, it's the movement of people to these shops and therefore the potentially higher numbers contacts that drives our strategy. They really are haunted by Christmas.

jackboy

is_that_so wrote: »

That's not the logic behind this, it's the movement of people to these shops and therefore the potentially higher numbers contacts that drives our strategy. They really are haunted by Christmas.

Yeah well that is a nonsense strategy. People don’t spread the virus driving around in their cars or walking around outside. At Christmas and now it is house parties and indoor events without mask wearing that is spreading the virus. How long is it going to take the government to realise that.

is_that_so

jackboy wrote: »

Yeah well that is a nonsense strategy. People don’t spread the virus driving around in their cars or walking around outside. At Christmas and now it is house parties and indoor events without mask wearing that is spreading the virus. How long is it going to take the government to realise that.

They do but they also know that they cannot have a realistic policy based on managing house parties. It's all about what they think they can control. I'm not defending it and some parts of it are just brutally blunt but I see what the thinking is.

Richard Hillman

The spread over Christmas was nothing to do with retail. Absolutely zip. Otherwise Dublin would have been making up an outrageously high percentage of the cases. What we did get was Dublin being lower or on a par with its percentage population over the first weeks of January.

I worked in one of the busiest shops in the country over Christmas. There must have been over 100k through the doors. Not one staff member contracted the virus. There were no outbreaks in the store and social distancing was near impossible.

jackboy

is_that_so wrote: »

They do but they also know that they cannot have a realistic policy based on managing house parties. It's all about what they think they can control.

Does that not sound insane. Because they can’t control what needs to be controlled they control what they can control even though that has no impact on the spread of the virus.

is_that_so

jackboy wrote: »

Does that not sound insane. Because they can’t control what needs to be controlled they control what they can control even though that has no impact on the spread of the virus.

Not really. How does one legally control house parties and other private socialisation? The way to do it is by contact tracing and testing but PCR will never be nimble enough for that and rapid testing has never come up to the quality standard.

Happydays2020

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The spread over Christmas was nothing to do with retail. Absolutely zip. Otherwise Dublin would have been making up an outrageously high percentage of the cases. What we did get was Dublin being lower or on a par with its percentage population over the first weeks of January.

I worked in one of the busiest shops in the country over Christmas. There must have been over 100k through the doors. Not one staff member contracted the virus. There were no outbreaks in the store and social distancing was near impossible.

I think that is a fair assessment otherwise we would have heard from supermarket workers on risks there.

This is my take on what went wrong:

- general complacency by Government and the population.
- opening too much at once.
- the deep importance of Christmas to Irish families.
- the NPHET communication mess up in October and the Government response.
- Opening of hospitality - and a pent up demand which led to breaking of rules.
- the early December hospitality and house party cases then being transported from cities to towns and villages from 18th December.
- returning emigrants from the UK.
- when the **** was hitting the fan around 18/19 a December, not being tough enough with messaging on 22 December.

jackboy

is_that_so wrote: »

Not really. How does one legally control house parties and other private socialisation? The way to do it is by contact tracing and testing but PCR will never be nimble enough for that and rapid testing has never come up to the quality standard.

So restricting activities that have no impact on spread of the virus is ok? Your suggesting we legally can’t control house parties but we can fine someone for walking on a beach. Surely you can see the governments strategy is ineffective to say the least.

TonyMaloney

Nearing Christmas, and in the days following, retail was open while we had a huge outbreak.
To suggest that retail, or the public transport used to get to it, wasn't a source of infection at this time shows you still understand **** all.

If you were in shopping centers or whatever around this time, you were rubbing shoulders with large numbers of infected people. Indoors. Wtf do you think is going to happen?

Turtwig

This time last year there no were official cases linked to pubs, restaurants and retail. Ergo, covid doesn't spread in these places.