How would you rate the governments performance tackling Covid so far

DessieJames

jcon1913 wrote: »

Well we do agree on the fact that the lockdown is hogwash

Either do or do not- there is no try

All we have now is a try. Like I said in a previous post the government has had a year and endless resources to get this right. To quote one of the reporters in the Indo today- once the vulnerable groups are vaccinated people’s patience will run out

agree with you here

GlobalSun

Car crash.

They had partially lost my trust in September. Now, it's completely gone with this third lockdown.

Anybody with half a brain could foresee an even longer lockdown resulting from the lifting of restrictions for Christmas. They took a negligent risk in order to boost the economy and now we're paying the price 10 folds. The losses incurred during this endless lockdown will be far greater than the profits generated around Christmas. The uncertainty around this third lockdown is even more shocking, especially now that there is a vaccine available.

During the first lockdown, they elaborated a completely unrealistic roadmap, but it at least gave us hope despite the fact that there was no vaccine in sight. We now have a vaccine available, but no roadmap, just a whole bunch of talking with no concrete information. Hot air.

I absolutely love Ireland. It's always been home to me, but as an expat who moved here 12 years ago, I'm seriously contemplating leaving if this debacle doesn't get any better by the end of year. Never have I contemplated leaving Ireland as I love this country so much and saw a future here, but with the current situation it's hard to imagine a future of quality. Moving has now been on my mind more than ever.

The way this situation has been managed since September is a complete farce if you ask me. At this rate, we'll still be in a lockdown even if all the vulnerable people get vaccinated. They'll use these new "variants" as an excuse to remain "conservative".

Additionally, because the economy will have been frozen for so long, the job market is going to take ages to recover. The rental market might turn into a renter's market, but with the lack of jobs and low salaries, it's still going to be an issue. The option to purchase a property will seem even less reachable. As much as I love Ireland, we're slowly falling apart.

GlobalSun

GlobalSun wrote: »

Car crash.

They partially lost my trust in September and it's now completely gone with this third lockdown.

Anybody with half a brain could foresee an even longer lockdown resulting from the lifting of restrictions for Christmas. They took a risk in order to boost the economy and now we're paying the price 10 folds. The uncertainly around this third lockdown is even more shocking, especially now that there is a vaccine available.

During the first lockdown, they elaborated a completely unrealistic roadmap, but it at least gave us hope despite the fact that there was no vaccine in sight. Now, we have a vaccine available, but no roadmap, just a whole bunch of talking with no concrete information. Hot air.

I absolutely love Ireland and it's always been home to me, but as an expat who moved here 12 years ago, I'm seriously contemplating leaving if this debacle doesn't get any better by the end of year. Never have I contemplated leaving Ireland as I love this country so much, but it has constantly been on my mind lately.

The way this situation was been managed since September is a complete farce if you ask me. At this stage, we'll still be in a lockdown even if all the vulnerable people get vaccinated. They'll use the new "variants" as an excuse to be conservative.

Ditto. My kids are grown up. Ive always loved Ireland but this is becoming a big issue for me, we are a complete mess in our handling of this. I can't live the rest of my life this way. The uncertainty is a killer. I'm young enough to leave and move to somewhere in a warmer part or Europe, ideally Northern Spain where I have friends.

ShineOn7

Another day, another incident for the shambles that is Donnelly

https://twitter.com/aoifegracemoore/status/1367501581055311883


Video here

https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/lxo078/catherine_connolly_calls_stephen_donnelly/

Glenbhoy

GlobalSun wrote: »

Car crash.

They partially lost my trust in September. Now, it's completely gone with this third lockdown.

Anybody with half a brain could foresee an even longer lockdown resulting from the lifting of restrictions for Christmas. They took a negligent risk in order to boost the economy and now we're paying the price 10 folds. The losses incurred during this endless lockdown will be far greater than the profits generated around Christmas. The uncertainty around this third lockdown is even more shocking, especially now that there is a vaccine available.

During the first lockdown, they elaborated a completely unrealistic roadmap, but it at least gave us hope despite the fact that there was no vaccine in sight. We now have a vaccine available, but no roadmap, just a whole bunch of talking with no concrete information. Hot air.

I absolutely love Ireland. It's always been home to me, but as an expat who moved here 12 years ago, I'm seriously contemplating leaving if this debacle doesn't get any better by the end of year. Never have I contemplated leaving Ireland as I love this country so much and saw a future here, but with the current situation it's hard to imagine a future of quality. Moving has now been on my mind more than ever.

The way this situation has been managed since September is a complete farce if you ask me. At this rate, we'll still be in a lockdown even if all the vulnerable people get vaccinated. They'll use these new "variants" as an excuse to remain "conservative".

Additionally, because the economy will have been frozen for so long, the job market is going to take ages to recover. The rental market might turn into a renter's market, but with the lack of jobs and low salaries, it's still going to be an issue. The option to purchase a property will seem even less reachable. As much as I love Ireland, we're slowly falling apart.

Out of interest, where are you contemplating moving to?

I don’t think there is an option low enough on the poll to really show my dissatisfaction.

Disastrous is close. But they’ve being worse.

GlobalSun

Glenbhoy wrote: »

Out of interest, where are you contemplating moving to?

Belgium, potentially. Lived there before. Plus, I speak both local languages.

Taxes are certainly higher but salaries are better than in Ireland. The rental market is also far better as no housing crisis in sight. The job market doesn't seem to be as frozen as Ireland's and more importantly, you can clearly see what your feed into.

Ideally, exiting the EU/Europe would have been a good plan, but given the current circumstances, it's not a realistic/viable trajectory at all.

Even if I leave, I'll more than likely end up coming back. It's just that Ireland's (or at least Dublin's) quality of life has significantly deteriorated in the last few years with no hope for improvement in the near future.

This lockdown has simply allowed for Ireland's dysfunctionalities to raise to the surface. Again, every country is dysfunctional in one capacity or another. Ireland is a great country, just poorly managed at the moment and it's sad to see such a great nation absorbing the daily ramifications of poor-decision making at the highest level.

Oranage2

I see Rte having an article saying how basically students in West caused a massive outbreak. What Rte fails to say is how the government delayed the decision to close universities so that the students would rent the houses owned by themselves and their lackies. A decision based on pure greed.

Another terrible decision was allowing the meat factories to stay open after the first outbreak but closed all the other businesses in Laois, offaly and Kildare. Another I scratch your back decision by our greedy overlords.

ShineOn7

Oranage2 wrote: »

Another terrible decision was allowing the meat factories to stay open after the first outbreak but closed all the other businesses in Laois, offaly and Kildare. Another I scratch your back decision by our greedy overlords.

And the dogs on the street know all of Goodman's factories got a heads up before inspections or didn't get them at all.

His political friends protecting him again

"shure it's a grand oul' country"

is_that_so

Oranage2 wrote: »

I see Rte having an article saying how basically students in West caused a massive outbreak. What Rte fails to say is how the government delayed the decision to close universities so that the students would rent the houses owned by themselves and their lackies. A decision based on pure greed.

Another terrible decision was allowing the meat factories to stay open after the first outbreak but closed all the other businesses in Laois, offaly and Kildare. Another I scratch your back decision by our greedy overlords.

Meat plants have had an ongoing testing cycle from last summer.

acequion

GlobalSun wrote: »

Belgium, potentially. Lived there before. Plus, I speak both local languages.

Taxes are certainly higher but salaries are better than in Ireland. The rental market is also far better as no housing crisis in sight. The job market doesn't seem to be as frozen as Ireland's and more importantly, you can clearly see what your feed into.

Ideally, exiting the EU/Europe would have been a good plan, but given the current circumstances, it's not a realistic/viable trajectory at all.

Even if I leave, I'll more than likely end up coming back. It's just that Ireland's (or at least Dublin's) quality of life has significantly deteriorated in the last few years with no hope for improvement in the near future.

This lockdown has simply allowed for Ireland's dysfunctionalities to raise to the surface. Again, every country is dysfunctional in one capacity or another. Ireland is a great country, just poorly managed at the moment and it's sad to see such a great nation absorbing the daily ramifications of poor-decision making at the highest level.

I find your posts really interesting. I love to get the perspectives of non Irish. It's nice that you love Ireland so much and are so complimentary towards the Irish.

As a native I agree with you completely on all the bad points and disagree on the good. I don't think this is a great country, far from it. Our quality of life all over the country has hugely deteriorated and it's generous of you to say that we're poorly managed "at the moment" because the fact is that we've always been poorly managed. Power and control in this country have always been autocratic and indeed corrupt, right back to De Valera's time, right back to the stranglehold of the Catholic church. I find it frightening how little power the citizen really enjoys in Ireland. And never less so than now in the second decade of the 21st century. As you said so aptly, the dysfunctionalities have really risen to the surface.

Ironic for me that you choose Belgium as a good country to move to. I moved from there to here many years ago thinking to make a better life here. Belgium back then was a cesspit, with its two communities failing to get on and a very stagnant political landscape. I've no doubt they've moved on and do things better nowadays. I've lived all over Europe and settled here mainly due to family and roots. But at this point I've had enough. I'm close to retirement and weighing up my options for my nether years outside this country. I really have no faith that Ireland will ever properly get its act together. I was very confident during the noughties that we'd come of age. Granted the conspicuous consumerism was vulgar, but understandable. But the 2008 crash and the subsequent handling of it coupled with the handling of this pandemic and god knows the hangover to follow has me down and out. There are undoubtedly better places to hang one's hat.

Klonker

The new government has been a disaster, I don't think many would disagree with that. But I think NPHET and particularly Tony Holohan have to take a fair share of the blame.

If you think back to last March, what was the strategy and motto? "Flatten the curve" so hospitals and ICU wouldn't become overrun. Come October last year and numbers were slowly rising. Hospitals weren't under pressure but there was a little worry so NPHET wanted to put the handbrake on and move to level 3 (indoor restaurants closed but retail open) This seemed to be working and we saw a slight decrease in numbers but then Tony returned wanting level 5. Government held off for 2 weeks but eventually caved and we locked down for 6 weeks.

This was from late October to early December. This is when a lot of people do some early Xmas shopping. People could of been encouraged to do their shopping early to avoid a December rush. People could have still been meeting in small groups (I actually forgot how many households could visit as it seems so long ago now). What actually happened was we locked down to suppress the virus but we also suppressed peoples social contacts. But we only suppressed these things, we didn't make them go away. So naturally, as people are social animals, we tried make up for lost time in this window over Christmas. It was a window as we were already told we'd be locking down again in January. And some people went social crazy in this window, it was almost like the purge. And of course we know what that lead to, huge exponential growth.

This was the opposite of flattening the curve. People wonder how our numbers increased so much over Christmas when others didn't. Some will say because we relaxed our restrictions more in this period and that is true. But I think the even bigger factor was we locked down in October when nobody else did (even though our rates were amoung the best in Europe at that time), allowing this pent up social demand to bubble under the surface waiting to be released.

But no, the media will tell you its because we opened restaurants for about 2 weeks and a few people flew home from England.

Plumbthedepths

Klonker wrote: »

The new government has been a disaster, I don't think many would disagree with that. But I think NPHET and particularly Tony Holohan have to take a fair share of the blame.

If you think back to last March, what was the strategy and motto? "Flatten the curve" so hospitals and ICU wouldn't become overrun. Come October last year and numbers were slowly rising. Hospitals weren't under pressure but there was a little worry so NPHET wanted to put the handbrake on and move to level 3 (indoor restaurants closed but retail open) This seemed to be working and we saw a slight decrease in numbers but then Tony returned wanting level 5. Government held off for 2 weeks but eventually caved and we locked down for 6 weeks.

This was from late October to early December. This is when a lot of people do some early Xmas shopping. People could of been encouraged to do their shopping early to avoid a December rush. People could have still been meeting in small groups (I actually forgot how many households could visit as it seems so long ago now). What actually happened was we locked down to suppress the virus but we also suppressed peoples social contacts. But we only suppressed these things, we didn't make them go away. So naturally, as people are social animals, we tried make up for lost time in this window over Christmas. It was a window as we were already told we'd be locking down again in January. And some people went social crazy in this window, it was almost like the purge. And of course we know what that lead to, huge exponential growth.

This was the opposite of flattening the curve. People wonder how our numbers increased so much over Christmas when others didn't. Some will say because we relaxed our restrictions more in this period and that is true. But I think the even bigger factor was we locked down in October when nobody else did (even though our rates were amoung the best in Europe at that time), allowing this pent up social demand to bubble under the service waiting to be released.

But no, the media will tell you its because we opened restaurants for about 2 weeks and a few people flew home from England.

Excellent post, I have said it several times the closure of non essential retail prior to Christmas was beyond f**king stupid. I even said it before Christmas. What would I know though, I'm not on a permanent pensionable public sector job. They're the experts.

Bit cynical

Klonker wrote: »

This was from late October to early December. This is when a lot of people do some early Xmas shopping. People could of been encouraged to do their shopping early to avoid a December rush. People could have still been meeting in small groups (I actually forgot how many households could visit as it seems so long ago now). What actually happened was we locked down to suppress the virus but we also suppressed peoples social contacts. But we only suppressed these things, we didn't make them go away. So naturally, as people are social animals, we tried make up for lost time in this window over Christmas. It was a window as we were already told we'd be locking down again in January. And some people went social crazy in this window, it was almost like the purge. And of course we know what that lead to, huge exponential growth.

This was the opposite of flattening the curve. People wonder how our numbers increased so much over Christmas when others didn't. Some will say because we relaxed our restrictions more in this period and that is true. But I think the even bigger factor was we locked down in October when nobody else did (even though our rates were amoung the best in Europe at that time), allowing this pent up social demand to bubble under the surface waiting to be released.

But no, the media will tell you its because we opened restaurants for about 2 weeks and a few people flew home from England.

Very true. The problems were due to lack of balance in dealing with the virus, relying almost entirely on lockdowns and restrictions. If we look at the chart below, we can see that the red line for Ireland is, if not at the top, consistently very close to the top of the EU for stringency. Only for short period do we dip into middling territory and then, of course, as you point out, people are going to compensate for being cooped up; it is only human nature.

We're kind of stuck now. Although we are among the most restrictive in the EU, if we let up even slightly were going to see rising cases and politically this is a no no. So we are stuck until the warmer weather or when the population become vaccinated.

bucketybuck

Klonker wrote: »

But we only suppressed these things, we didn't make them go away.

Said it before, the lack of understanding of human nature has been astounding from the government and their NPHET masters. Sociology 101 could have told you the mistakes and inevitable consequences in their approach and yet a so called advisory group didn't take any of that into account whatsoever.

And they still aren't, they still haven't a ****ing clue the damage that their communication is doing to their underlying message.

The most worrying part is that this is strong evidence of blinkered groupthink, of a group not seeing the wood for the trees, and that groupthink is very likely to be affecting all their decisions, not just the public ones we hear about. And that should be very concerning to all.

acequion

bucketybuck wrote: »

Said it before, the lack of understanding of human nature has been astounding from the government and their NPHET masters. Sociology 101 could have told you the mistakes and inevitable consequences in their approach and yet a so called advisory group didn't take any of that into account whatsoever.

And they still aren't, they still haven't a ****ing clue the damage that their communication is doing to their underlying message.

The most worrying part is that this is strong evidence of blinkered groupthink, of a group not seeing the wood for the trees, and that groupthink is very likely to be affecting all their decisions, not just the public ones we hear about. And that should be very concerning to all.

It's not even a lack of understanding, it's a complete indifference. They are so utterly obsessed with driving down numbers that they literally don't see the wood for the trees. There is now zero regard to how their dictates are being received by the public, it's basically shut up and do what you're told or else!

I was no big fan of the last administration but their communication to the public was much better and not just what they communicated but how. There was some awareness of how to bring the public along, how to get greater compliance, a sense of talking to us, asking us, apologising to us. It wasn't fantastic dialogue but it was there. But that's all gone now. All gone, all tunnel vision now and that's what really worries me.

Bit cynical

Thought it might be interesting to add all the days in above graph for each country. So a country that stayed at the top of the chart for a long period would have a high score.

Ireland is pretty high on this list, just below Italy which of course was the early epicentre of the outbreak in Europe.

Country | Stringency
Italy | 26550
Ireland | 25527
Spain | 24847
Cyprus | 23648
France | 23638
Netherlands | 22982
Romania | 22704
Belgium | 22244
Hungary | 22076
Austria | 21596
Sweden | 21491
Poland | 21473
Slovenia | 21031
Slovakia | 20833
Czechia | 20669
Denmark | 20457
Luxembourg | 19564
Lithuania | 19465
Latvia | 19010
Croatia | 18409
Bulgaria | 17937
Finland | 16802
Estonia | 14659

El_Duderino 09

How would we measure government performance on covid?

What would good look like?

quokula

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

How would we measure government performance on covid?

What would good look like?

If you were to take it in numbers.

We have one of the lowest death rates in western Europe, despite having an extremely open land border with the country with one of the highest death rates by far in the world.
We have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world so far, only really behind a couple of extreme outliers like Israel and the UK, basically maxing out our delivery of all available vaccine supplies.
We're forecast to be the only economy in Europe that grew in 2020 - in fact our economic outlook even looks better than the likes of New Zealand.

But for a lot of people, it seems that not being able to go and have a pint in the pub for a while trumps all of that.

Plumbthedepths

quokula wrote: »

If you were to take it in numbers.

We have one of the lowest death rates in western Europe, despite having an extremely open land border with the country with one of the highest death rates by far in the world.
We have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world so far, only really behind a couple of extreme outliers like Israel and the UK, basically maxing out our delivery of all available vaccine supplies.
We're forecast to be the only economy in Europe that grew in 2020 - in fact our economic outlook even looks better than the likes of New Zealand.

But for a lot of people, it seems that not being able to go and have a pint in the pub for a while trumps all of that.

I'd say 500,000 people are more concerned with the fact they are not allowed to work than the availability of a pint

Bit cynical

quokula wrote: »

We're forecast to be the only economy in Europe that grew in 2020 - in fact our economic outlook even looks better than the likes of New Zealand.

I think however we need to be a little cautious of things like GDP growth given the presence of multinationals running their profits through the country along with the amount of borrowing we're doing. These two things can prop up GDP numbers masking problems with the underlying economy.

It was not long ago, we will recall, that our banking system was on the verge of collapse and we were pressured to accept a bailout from the EU. Prior to the crash we had very high GDP growth and the majority of people thought that it would continue into the future.

themacattack.

quokula wrote: »

If you were to take it in numbers.

We have one of the lowest death rates in western Europe, despite having an extremely open land border with the country with one of the highest death rates by far in the world.
We have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world so far, only really behind a couple of extreme outliers like Israel and the UK, basically maxing out our delivery of all available vaccine supplies.
We're forecast to be the only economy in Europe that grew in 2020 - in fact our economic outlook even looks better than the likes of New Zealand.

But for a lot of people, it seems that not being able to go and have a pint in the pub for a while trumps all of that.

cmon now our gdp grew not exactly an accurate measure for joe soap...the domestic economy shrunk by 5 per cent i think i read....lots of viable business down the swanny unnessarily because of government/nphet restrictions

Rodin

Bit cynical wrote: »

Thought it might be interesting to add all the days in above graph for each country. So a country that stayed at the top of the chart for a long period would have a high score.

Ireland is pretty high on this list, just below Italy which of course was the early epicentre of the outbreak in Europe.

Country | Stringency
Italy | 26550
Ireland | 25527
Spain | 24847
Cyprus | 23648
France | 23638
Netherlands | 22982
Romania | 22704
Belgium | 22244
Hungary | 22076
Austria | 21596
Sweden | 21491
Poland | 21473
Slovenia | 21031
Slovakia | 20833
Czechia | 20669
Denmark | 20457
Luxembourg | 19564
Lithuania | 19465
Latvia | 19010
Croatia | 18409
Bulgaria | 17937
Finland | 16802
Estonia | 14659

Is there a graph for enforcement?
A law/regulation is only as good as itsenforcement.
I am yet to see a Covid checkpoint.

Bit cynical

Rodin wrote: »

Is there a graph for enforcement?

I think there's been quite good enforcement of businesses in Ireland.

Plumbthedepths

Rodin wrote: »

Is there a graph for enforcement?
A law/regulation is only as good as itsenforcement.
I am yet to see a Covid checkpoint.

I live close to a large Midlands town, there are Garda checkpoints every single day .
If you haven't encountered any checkpoints since all this began you either never leave the house or don't reside in Ireland.

Ash.J.Williams

HansKroenke wrote: »

Hysterical over reaction which requires hyperbolic phrases to justify the heavy handed restrictions they have imposed. Three of these incredibly destructive, authoritarian lockdowns in a year is utterly indefensible by any metric.

Simon "There were 18 covid before covid 19" Harris or Stephen "Trampolines are inherently dangerous" Donnelly, both inept and acting ministers for health during the year

Your points on the two dufus’s are irrelevant, we don’t look to an economist and an ex journalism student for scientific advice

Ash.J.Williams

Not many mentions of all hell breaking loose once the pubs open or spikes following gaa teams seems to be someone else’s fault we spike when we relax things.

Having said that Xmas was a disaster

Rodin

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

I live close to a large Midlands town, there are Garda checkpoints every single day .
If you haven't encountered any checkpoints since all this began you either never leave the house or don't reside in Ireland.

In and out of work every day.
Have been since the start.
In Ireland.
Don't really care if you believe me or not. It's true.

Red Silurian

Rodin wrote: »

In and out of work every day.
Have been since the start.
In Ireland.
Don't really care if you believe me or not. It's true.

I travel 50km from home every day for work, cups regularly at a checkpoint, usually just waved on even asked where I'm going

Responder XY

I think there is a large discrepancy in Garda activity across the country. I live in Dublin. I don't have much call to leave the house, but when I do (shopping or exercise on my bike), I usually see multiple garda checkpoints. LAst time I went to Tesco (1.5kms away), I was stopped twice and asked where I lived and what the purpose of my trip was.

My parents and sister live in the midlands and have yet to be stopped throughout the pandemic. That despite the fact that there are two essential workers who have continued to work in their place of work all year and commute 15km each way daily by car from a rural location to the nearest large town. They also would need to make that journey for shopping etc...

They tell me they see no garda presence and anyone they talk to bar me tells them the same. Anyone I talk to in Dublin has been stopped multiple times every time they leave the house and drive anywhere during level 5.