How would you rate the governments performance tackling Covid so far

cuculainn

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

Masks don't work
Social distancing does not work

Lockdowns don't work

For the sake of a virus with a 0.03% death rate.

Can you expand on these three points please as i am always hearing this and i genuinely dont know what to believe,

as far as i can see, social distancing and masks do work as do lockdowns, otherwise there wouldnt be a reduction in case numbers when they occur.
I do agree that they are not the long term solution
the death rate, taken at face value in Ireland is about 2%

Overall though the government has been shambolic as they neither kept the death rate to a minimum like New Zealand by a complete elimination and closed borders policy or kept the economy and society somewhat open by living with it.......we basically got stuck with the worst of both worlds; high deaths and multiple lockdowns

I think the change of government was a disaster, since that happened (after they spend about 3 months negotiating terms instead of planning ahead) they have rolled from one sh*te show to the next in terms of communication and decision making......

titan18

We elect a government to lead, make decisions for the good of the country and to communicate those decisions so people are on board with them.

This government have shown zero ability to lead, NPHET make the decisions and the communication policy could be a case study in how not to communicate.

Whether anyone is for or against the restrictions, I think everyone is in agreement with how badly this government is communicating and getting people on board with them.

malinheader

When you have a minister on rte repeatedly saying it will be sooner rather than later when being asked repeatedly when the mandatory hotel isolating will be in place .
Great at bolting the door after the horse has bolted.

cuculainn

quokula wrote: »

I believe travel is a wildly overstated issue as numbers of travellers are tiny and it is pretty insignificant compared to community transition. But if we leave that argument aside for a minute and just look at how it's been handled.

If you look around the world, with the exception of some isolated countries in the Pacific and some totalitarian regimes, there really are very few examples of countries who's governments have done any better than ours.

It's easy to criticise in hindsight, and to underestimate the challenge in doing something like this while many EU citizens live or work or come from different sides of the border and while trade and vital supplies still need to flow back and forth to keep society functioning.

Could they have done better? Sure. But again, these are entirely unprecedented circumstances and nobody knew how it was going to pan out early in the pandemic, or when variants might emerge, and there really aren't very many governments in the world who've done any better than Ireland on this.

Have to take you up on this.

majority of positive cases last summer were from a spanish variant that arrived, i'm guessing through travel, in June.

today 80+% of all cases are from the UK variant that again i am guessing arrived here through travel.

If you look to Denmark with population of 5 million they have had just over half the number of deaths
Norway has had about 700 deaths with population of 5 million,
finland again similar with deaths in hundreds

interestingly they all have borders/linked to sweden who have had about 12,00 deaths and didnt really impose as strict restrictions. So to say we did similar to most of the rest of the countries in the world is not true, we just need to stop measuring ourselves against the worst countries.

Leftwaffe

First time we have need real, powerful leadership since the formation of the state and we have Michael Martin at the helm.

Their response has been rubbish. FF and FG ministers leaking like a sieve just to try and undercut one another, who can get the news out first. Kite flying consistently.

See someone said they could be a 7. I hope that’s out of 100.

paw patrol

I've been quite vocal on my belief that the lockdowns were unnecessary as they were a compete hysterical overreaction not to mention the haphazard way they were applied.
They have no plan with targets to exit this and that is morally criminal at this stage.

That has all been said many times so no need to rehash.

communication is a huge concern. We have different people from NPHET and the government addressing the media with no control over the message often saying different things which is confusing everybody. Nobody knows what is going on and gives the impression (or copperfastens it) that the government don't know either.

My main bugbear is the leaking to the media of plans in advance so the media drip feed the population. This is done to prepare people for bad news but it has the opposite effect as it makes people anxious and angry at not knowing what is going on waiting then to know their fate.

malinheader

cuculainn wrote: »

Have to take you up on this.

majority of positive cases last summer were from a spanish variant that arrived, i'm guessing through travel, in June.

today 80+% of all cases are from the UK variant that again i am guessing arrived here through travel.

If you look to Denmark with population of 5 million they have had just over half the number of deaths
Norway has had about 700 deaths with population of 5 million,
finland again similar with deaths in hundreds

interestingly they all have borders/linked to sweden who have had about 12,00 deaths and didnt really impose as strict restrictions. So to say we did similar to most of the rest of the countries in the world is not true, we just need to stop measuring ourselves against the worst countries.

For a small island surrounded by water this was handled abysmaly. Our government were to scared to make the right decisions. Should of locked down ports and airports tighter. Always takes 3 or 4 weeks to implement and make a decision.

Cameron326

I voted "Disastrous" ... BUT I would put at least half the countries in Western Europe in that same category. We all failed abysmally compared to many Asian nations. Partly due to our failure to learn from their experiences with SARS etc (they certainly did), partly due to their more collectivist attitudes and greater willingness to make personal sacrifice in the early days, partly due to better government preparedness and implementation of technology (go back to point 1).

My biggest criticism of us would be never at any point restricting foreign travel - or at least applying strong and enforceable quarantine measures - eg enforced "hotel" quarantine. That was unforgivable - particularly for an island nation (and that goes for the UK obviously).

On top of that a minority of people just didn't take it seriously for far too long - its not all on the government. The fact that people here and in the UK were still happily walking around in shops and busy supermarkets maskless in June/July still amazes me. People in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore etc thought we were all off our nuts.

PintOfView

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

Masks don't work
Social distancing does not work
Lockdowns don't work
We have destroyed the economy plunged ourselves in tens of billions of debt and created a social disaster for years to come.
For the sake of a virus with a 0.03% death rate.
The vaccine is now available for the very sick and very old who should be cocooning
Only a handful of victims of working age died from this virus.
Locking hundreds of thousands out of work - work which in many cases will not be there when restrictions are lifted - will plunge these people into poverty and homelessness.
This was evident at the very start of this when everyone said lockdowns were a medecine worse than the disease.
This entire fiasco hws been the greatest overreaction and own goal since the world went to war in 1914.

Just as a matter of interest, how do you calculate 0.03% death rate?
With 4,000 people dead from covid that means that 13 million of us already had the virus!!
You need to redo your calculations!!!

As regards masks and lockdowns not working, how do you figure that?
Are you saying that the numbers of people infected with covid would have come down regardless?

Cameron326

""Masks don't work
Social distancing does not work
Lockdowns don't work
We have destroyed the economy plunged ourselves in tens of billions of debt and created a social disaster for years to come.
For the sake of a virus with a 0.03% death rate.
The vaccine is now available for the very sick and very old who should be cocooning
Only a handful of victims of working age died from this virus.
Locking hundreds of thousands out of work - work which in many cases will not be there when restrictions are lifted - will plunge these people into poverty and homelessness.""

What a load of tosh. I'll just bother with your first point: studies have shown that masks bring the rate of infection down by up to 5%. If they'd been adopted earlier in the West they would have saved literally thousands of lives and prevented hundreds of thousands of infections.

drunkmonkey

Cameron326 wrote: »

What a load of tosh. I'll just bother with your first point: studies have shown that masks bring the rate of infection down by up to 5%.

Where has that been proven outside a lab? Up to starts at 0%.

Leinster90

PintOfView wrote: »

Just as a matter of interest, how do you calculate 0.03% death rate?
With 4,000 people dead from covid that means that 13 million of us already had the virus!!
You need to redo your calculations!!!

As regards masks and lockdowns not working, how do you figure that?
Are you saying that the numbers of people infected with covid would have come down regardless?

He didn’t calculate anything because the brainpower clearly isn't there to understand these issues. The inability to use commas is a dead giveaway.

These types of opinions are best just ignored. Masks and lockdowns have saved thousands of lives in this country, but the unfortunate reality is that some consider their precious pints to be more important.

I personally believe that given our population’s problem with drink, it will have done many people some good to dry out for a year. I say that as someone who enjoys the pub but can live easily without it.

First Up

I'd rate the government's performance higher than that of the people whose behaviour is still spreading the virus.

bucketybuck

Cameron326 wrote: »

I'll just bother with your first point: studies have shown that masks bring the rate of infection down by up to 5%.

Cite?

I have asked many times for numbers on mask efficacy and never received them, I'd be interested in reading your source on this?

ixoy

titan18 wrote: »

Whether anyone is for or against the restrictions, I think everyone is in agreement with how badly this government is communicating and getting people on board with them.

Exactly this - their communication is atrocious, even more so once MM took the reigns. No clear picture of an exit strategy (and I don't hold much faith in today's document), shifting goalposts, no targets that we're aware of. It should be quite simple to sit down and impart a clear plan of action.

Pretty poor on the travel front too and, once they make a decision, taking too long to implement it. Why isn't draft legislation prepped in advance for mandatory quarantining?

Can't really fault them on the vaccination program. We're vaccinating as fast as we can and the supply limitation is an EU issue. Within the EU itself we're actually doing fairly well - the EU's issues are just unfortunately highlighted by the fact that the UK's riskier bet seems to be paying off.

Sanjuro

Absolutely inadequate. No plan. No leadership. No encouragement. Just lockdown and hope things sort themselves out. How did we end up in one of the biggest crises in the history of the state with one of the worst governments we've ever had? It'd be funny if it wasnt so infuriating.

pjohnson

If people still think masks/social distancing doesnt work then the opinion they give is pretty irrelevant tbh.

Rodin

HansKroenke wrote: »

2.8m of the population are under the age of 45. The death rate based on recorded cases is three times lower than the suicide rate in this age category.

Over reaction to covid is a massive understatement.

Ive never seen almost every ICU bed in the country full of attempted suicides.

People still don't get it.. it's about morbidity not mortality.

agoodpunt

muppet mehole 5 april now that was yesterday can he even tie his laces?

PintOfView

bucketybuck wrote: »

Cite?

I have asked many times for numbers on mask efficacy and never received them, I'd be interested in reading your source on this?

See following for one example ...
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

paw patrol

bucketybuck wrote: »

Cite?

I have asked many times for numbers on mask efficacy and never received them, I'd be interested in reading your source on this?

I have read one study on them a Uk one. which said that if used correctly they offered some protection but if used incorrectly even once that protection dropped to zero. this was in households where somebody had an infection and only household member there.

masks may work in a lab or a study. the only studies thrown at me on boards as a counter related to surgical masks in theatre which isn't the same environment as your local supermarket.

in real life when they are cloth rags that are worn incorrectly and reused without cleaning - as is what is happening.
they offer nothing.

not to mention the whole freedom issue that many of boards seem happy to throw away in the hope of some made up protection from the worst killer virus ever .

PintOfView

paw patrol wrote: »

I have read one study on them a Uk one. which said that if used correctly they offered some protection but if used incorrectly even once that protection dropped to zero. this was in households where somebody had an infection and only household member there.

masks may work in a lab or a study. the only studies thrown at me on boards as a counter related to surgical masks in theatre which isn't the same environment as your local supermarket.

in real life when they are cloth rags that are worn incorrectly and reused without cleaning - as is what is happening.
they offer nothing.

not to mention the whole freedom issue that many of boards seem happy to throw away in the hope of some made up protection from the worst killer virus ever .

Read this and then come back and tell us what it says, and if you disagree?
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

SheepsClothing

cuculainn wrote: »

Can you expand on these three points please as i am always hearing this and i genuinely dont know what to believe,

as far as i can see, social distancing and masks do work as do lockdowns, otherwise there wouldnt be a reduction in case numbers when they occur.
I do agree that they are not the long term solution
the death rate, taken at face value in Ireland is about 2%

They're just spouting ****e they copied off a youtube comment.

beauf

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

The UK are the equivalent of the gold winning athlete who lapped you twice already while Ireland are the equivalent of the mad priest who runs onto the track with a kilt.

Sure the UK have made mistakes at every turn but the fact is they are going to be out of lockdown and back to normal way before us and we will be languishing in lockdown while they will be enjoying pints in the pubs and cocktails on tropical beaches.

They'll be back to their next disaster Brexit. Some Gold athlete.

paw patrol

PintOfView wrote: »

See following for one example ...
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

firstly thanks for sharing.

It's not a great study per se from the direct evidence.

Only one observational study has directly analyzed the impact of mask use in the community on COVID-19 transmission. The study looked at the reduction of secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Beijing households by face mask use (10).

[In trumps accent] CHINA.
I would take a lot of what they say as being untrue but it's the only one.

there is a lot of may and maybes in that.

Overall, evidence from RCTs and observational studies is informative, but not compelling on its own

Thats the direct evidence conclusion.

the other respiratory illness conclusion was

Overall, direct evidence of the efficacy of mask use is supportive, but inconclusive. Since there are no RCTs, only one observational trial, and unclear evidence from other respiratory illnesses, we will need to look at a wider body of evidence.

I've a call now . I'll read the rest later.

I'm not convinced to sell my soul on that tbh

But thanks for sharing , many get so uptight about this - they just sneer instead of trying to agree a middle ground or debate properly.
Not picking on anybody....but a few posts up is a prime example.

robbiezero

First Up wrote: »

I'd rate the government's performance higher than that of the people whose behaviour is still spreading the virus.

Who are they and how many cases per day are they causing?

micks_address

The biggest problem I have with the government now is the lack of dates being provided for an exit from Level 5. It would have been pretty straightforward to set a few key date outs like say... april 21st you can have one person in your back garden for a coffee or a beer, may 14th hairdressers open, may 24th non essential shops... june 5th outside hospitality etc... give people a target and say its all dependent on how numbers go... instead we all know that's a pretty realistic timeline but they will say today schools open in march... we'll come back april 5th with more details... bye.... that absolutely sucks...

this is absolute crap - people are likely to 'stick' with you if they see light at the end..

https://www.independent.ie/news/level-5-restrictions-until-at-least-april-5-under-governments-new-living-with-covid-19-plan-40121193.html

But sources in Government Buildings insisted the Irish plan will not contain dates as research shows compliance with restrictions drops when dates are given.

beauf

quokula wrote: »

I believe travel is a wildly overstated issue as numbers of travellers are tiny and it is pretty insignificant compared to community transition. But if we leave that argument aside for a minute and just look at how it's been handled.
...

Everytime they were slow to lockdown travel web had a spike of covid. At the very start of all this is was rugby matches, Cheltenham and skiing. Then Xmas travel the whole world and his brother came back. Every new variant web imported.

Maybe it was unavoidable. But they were very slow to close the borders.

beauf

robbiezero wrote: »

Who are they and how many cases per day are they causing?

Would you like a list of pps numbers? What exactly are you looking for. Since it's effectively an invisible spreader.

robbiezero

beauf wrote: »

Would you like a list of pps numbers?

Just percentage of cases per day will be fine.