Strategy - Poll

Keyzer

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The armed forces should have been sent north to Man the Border. A shoot to kill policy for anyone caught trying to sneek in.

Too many Michael Bay movies for you Dick...

AdamD

I don't think people realise how long we'd need to be in level 5 to achieve 'zero covid', with no guarantee of it happening. NZ & AUS never at any point had the level of cases we currently have

Red Silurian

We need mandatory and secured 14 day quarantine the self isolation via a passenger locator form didn't work last summer and the requirement for a PCR test 5 days after arrival didn't work last Christmas

SheepsClothing

AdamD wrote: »

I don't think people realise how long we'd need to be in level 5 to achieve 'zero covid', with no guarantee of it happening. NZ & AUS never at any point had the level of cases we currently have

Last summer, it took us 3 months to get to single figures in daily new cases. If we do stay in level 5 until March 5th as is being proposed, I'd imagine we will be pretty close to that again.

Hector Savage

CrabRevolution wrote: »

You'll get told "Just protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us live our lives" with no further detail on how this is even possible and obviously no examples for us to follow because nobody on earth has managed it yet.

Sweden says hello with excess deaths % less than other countries with massive lockdowns

ginoginelli

Regarding the north. Since the issue seems to be solely travel from Britain that the unionists do not want to prohibit, an idea might be to enforce the mandatory hotel quarantining for all other countries to start. And then use another less intrusive measure for British travel, ie home quarantining with daily checks, similar to the polish model.

The south could also have some measure in place up there if we both shared our passenger arrival forms, and people planning on crossing the border from the airport would be immediately flagged.

There is a lot that could be tried but frustratingly there is zero political will from our goverment.

The scientific community, as well as 90 % of the public are calling for strict hotel quarantining now. The goverment are supposed to represent us, what the **** are they playing at? They are exposing us to unnecessary risk.

People are dying, businesses are being ruined, everyones living in fear. This could all be prevented.

timeToLive

open up the 5km

ElektroToad

Open up. Our Govt has borrowed over 220bn euros since this began to put half our country out of work and businesses shut for past 10 months. It was an experiment and it failed (as I understand it, no one ever tried a full nation wide lockdown to counter-act a before the Chinese in Wuhan)

Imagine what we could've been if we invested that amount into tangible improvments / outright reform of our healthcare system? Instead it looks like we wasted it to maintain a zombie economy.

People are saying now's the time for a zero-COVID strategy? I think it's too little too late for that one, unfortunately

See you all in October during the next Budget measures. Don't forget the lube...

Opening up won't save the economy and quarantine for arrivals is a waste if time unless it's for everyone and unless the the British do it too

Ronaldinho

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The armed forces should have been sent north to Man the Border. A shoot to kill policy for anyone caught trying to sneek in.

Same goes for the shebeens. Send in the ERU and shoot them all where the sit/stand. That'll soon put a stop to that carry on.

New Zealand and Australian experience shows that zero covid is possible, with huge effort, but is not successful with half hearted efforts.

Ireland may be about to get the worst of both worlds

Del Griffith

Zero covid is impossible in Ireland for all the reasons already stated 100s of times here and by the government.

Vaccinate the vulnerable groups and then open up, live with it, end of story.

Concentrate only on the old and vulnerable for vaccine rollout.

Stalling the reopening to vaccinate healthy non risk people is a waste of time and to be honest a waste of a vaccine too.

Start counting recently positive tested people along with vaccinations. They have anti-bodies for now, we can top them up with a vaccine later.

Maybe introduce an air purification/ventilation solution in indoor social spaces to help lower spread of air borne pathogens and virus. (*not expected to stop spread completely)

Phase out the mandatory masks. Although as they're widely accepted in culture now the option is always there for anyone that wants to wear them permanently.

Closing down countries in fear of new strains that don't even exist yet is bat**** crazy beyond belief.

That its being considered just goes to show how normalised warped thinking has become.

Qwertyminger

It's amusing to me that the most vocal and aggressive voices across all forums are those shouting against zero covid, to the point that it feels like that's the majority opinion.

The poll shows zero covid is the most popular option and twitter agrees.

Is almost as though there's a concerted effort by a cohort of people actively trying to make it look like it doesn't have popular support. Hey weird coincidence, that's what the government would rather everyone believed is the case too.

quokula

Deleted User wrote: »

New Zealand and Australian experience shows that zero covid is possible, with huge effort, but is not successful with half hearted efforts.

Ireland may be about to get the worst of both worlds

Do you think it's pure coincidence that not a single country on the whole of this half of the planet has achieved it? It's purely down to the miraculously identical achievements of the NZ and Australian governments, even though NZ has a left wing government and Australia has a right wing government and they generally have few policy similarities?

Meanwhile not a single country on this half of the entire globe, from Ireland to Israel, Switzerland to Sweden, Portugal to Poland, Canada to Croatia, USA to UK, has managed to come close to the same thing.

Yet somehow it's all just because Ireland specifically is doing it all wrong, and nothing to do with the one thing that Aus and NZ have in common, which is that they're extremely isolated countries in the middle of the Pacific ocean thousands of miles away from anywhere else, which is something we simply can't replicate.

ronnie085

Zero covid sounds great in theory and seems to be getting a big media push, just cant help wondering what's the point at this late stage?
With vacinations hopefully ramping up around March and again hopefully lower cases in the summer giving a window for the vulnerable plus more to be vaccinated by next Autumn.
Will we just be restricting ourselves to get the same result?

ceadaoin.

quokula wrote: »

Do you think it's pure coincidence that not a single country on the whole of this half of the planet has achieved it? It's purely down to the miraculously identical achievements of the NZ and Australian governments, even though NZ has a left wing government and Australia has a right wing government and they generally have few policy similarities?

Meanwhile not a single country on this half of the entire globe, from Ireland to Israel, Switzerland to Sweden, Portugal to Poland, Canada to Croatia, USA to UK, has managed to come close to the same thing.

Yet somehow it's all just because Ireland specifically is doing it all wrong, and nothing to do with the one thing that Aus and NZ have in common, which is that they're extremely isolated countries in the middle of the Pacific ocean thousands of miles away from anywhere else, which is something we simply can't replicate.

This is it. How tf anyone thinks zero covid is a viable strategy anywhere in the world outside of these 2 countries is ridiculous. Its on the way to being endemic everywhere. They cant reopen their borders normally without being inundated with cases, and they are still locking down various regions on a fairly regular basis as soon as they get a few cases. Non citizens have basically been purged from the country or left to fend for themselves without any entitlement to benefits. There are over 25000 people waiting to get back to their own country. Most people can't leave. This is not "normal life".

You know who are pretty much living normally? The US. they look to be one of the first countries to actually "beat" covid with actual herd immunity, through both infections and vaccines. And the UK is probably 2nd, although they arent anywhere near back to normal right now.


https://asiatimes.com/2021/01/us-likely-to-be-first-western-nation-to-crush-covid-19/

Nz and Aus have just kicked the can a lot further than the rest of the world but I dont think they can avoid it. They'll still be dealing with it long after everywhere else is done.

ceadaoin.

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Nz and Aus have just kicked the can a lot further than the rest of the world but I dont think they can avoid it. They'll still be dealing with it long after everywhere else is done.

Will they not just vaccinate their populations?
I know where id rather be now anyway




Thailand,singapore,taiwan,vietnam among others have persued similar stragidies with great success


It looks,fairly obvious to me the responce in the west has been totally inadequate

ceadaoin.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Will they not just vaccinate their populations?
I know where id rather be now anyway




Thailand,singapore,taiwan,vietnam among others have persued similar stragidies with great success


It looks,fairly obvious to me the responce in the west has been totally inadequate

The most widely used vaccines haven't been proven to actually stop transmission or infection. Ive already read of several cases of people being infected after full vaccination. They have practically zero immunity. If it gets in, particularly into care homes as seems to be the weak points the world over, it will rip through.

I'm in the US. Between here and Ireland I know where I'd rather be now, even though I want to get home to see my family. Its been hard for them to go through the lockdowns, they havent even been able to see each other for the best part of a year, let alone me on the other side of the world. Meanwhile life here has been normalish since may of last year. As in, we can go to bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, parks, all shops open etc, anywhere in America we want to go to we can (we havent gone anywhere). We've been wearing masks inside and outside since June. Hospitals haven't been overwhelmed, medical care for other issues hasnt been stopped. My child has been back at school continually since August with one case in the entire school so far that didn't pass it on to anyone else.(They wear masks, are separated into cohorts etc.) I think we have been successfully living with the virus. I know maybe 3 people who have had it and they are all ok now even though all of America should be dead right now according to the predictions on here last year.

lonestargirl

A good few US states have quarantine and/or testing when coming from other states though so you can’t just travel wherever you want.

is_that_so

Deleted User wrote: »

The death and infection rate among most vulnerable in Israel fell 95%.....this is an endorsement of vaccination programme for me anyway



I don't think the 450K death toll in America is worth it myself....I don't think the 1000 dead here for opening up for Xmas was worth it either, but each to their own i guess

A NY times piece on Israel, stressing that data, while it seems good, is still preliminary.

Early results show a significant drop in infection after just one shot of a two-dose vaccine, and better than expected results after both doses.

Public health experts caution that the data, based on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, is preliminary and has not been subjected to clinical trials.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/world/middleeast/israels-vaccine-data.html

ceadaoin.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The death and infection rate among most vunerable in isreal fell 95%.....this is an endorsement of vaccination programe for me anyway



I dont think.the 450K deadtoll in america is worth it myself....i dont think the 1000 dead here for opening up for xmas was worth it either,but each to their own i guess

Per capita, there are countries in Europe doing worse than the US. There are states who locked down the most ranked in the top 10 of deaths in the US per capita. Cases in Israel still aren't dropping at same rate as the UK or US right now despite the mass vaccination program and strict lockdown.

I mean, its not a simple equation that locking down equals saved lives from the virus. In the long term there are many more consequences. Obviously people in Ireland and most of Europe dont feel that immediately because of the social protections in place, but you will when the debt becomes payable. Here, without such systems in place, people have lost their jobs, homes, overdose deaths are through the roof in many states. Small businesses are destroyed in record numbers. Thats without even going into the effects on children of not being in school for the best part of a year in many places. I dont think that was worth it but each to their own I guess.

quokula

quokula wrote: »

Do you think it's pure coincidence that not a single country on the whole of this half of the planet has achieved it? It's purely down to the miraculously identical achievements of the NZ and Australian governments, even though NZ has a left wing government and Australia has a right wing government and they generally have few policy similarities?

Meanwhile not a single country on this half of the entire globe, from Ireland to Israel, Switzerland to Sweden, Portugal to Poland, Canada to Croatia, USA to UK, has managed to come close to the same thing.

Yet somehow it's all just because Ireland specifically is doing it all wrong, and nothing to do with the one thing that Aus and NZ have in common, which is that they're extremely isolated countries in the middle of the Pacific ocean thousands of miles away from anywhere else, which is something we simply can't replicate.

Or maybe its because no one has tried. I'd actually argue that Ireland came close last year when it had single digital figures daily