Covid 19 Part XXXIV-249,437 ROI(4,906 deaths) 120,195 NI (2,145 deaths)(01/05)Read OP

blade1

NIMAN wrote: »

Funny how the head of the HSE is being positive, while NPHET continue to be as miserable and negative as f**k.

Look on the bright side.
Between the two of them that's a 50% positivity rate.

cefh17

blade1 wrote: »

Look on the bright side.
Between the two of them that's a 50% positivity rate.

And in true NPHET fashion, they're trying to bring down the positivity :pac:

lawred2

AdamD wrote: »

Its difficult to have any faith in the competency of the people making the decisions on mandatory quarantine when the issue of somebody being already vaccinated but eligible for quarantine appears to have not been considered at all.

Sure can't be trusting dem forineers to do their jobs right or to actually even vaccinate to begin with..

blade1

cefh17 wrote: »

And in true NPHET fashion, they're trying to bring down the positivity :pac:

We're not gonna take it!!!:D

igCorcaigh

https://twitter.com/xruiztru/status/1380833660107100163?s=19

podgeandrodge

With all the positivity, if they are saying that by 4th May we can possibly have full open of construction, click and collect, outdoor retail, hair salons, museums etc, why on earth can't we have outdoor dining/drinks?

Surely at this point coming into the better weather you may as well have a bite to eat and a drink supporting businesses, than holed up in the house.

gozunda

hmmm wrote: »

Israel never had a problem with VoC's and was added to the list.

Other countries appear to be being considered because they have a higher rate of Covid than we have (e.g. most of the EU countries). Why that is relevant is beyond me, people are required to get a test beforehand so the risk is low.

No-one seems to have a clue what the criteria is, yet someone is producing lists of countries.

When did a stealth zero Covid become government policy, and why now?

Not so.

The South African variant in February was found to make up 1% of all cases in Israel (equivalent to 8-10,000 cases) and is believed to have come via the United Arab Emirates, as well as from South Africa, Tanzania, Turkey, Tajikistan and France.

There's concern over the South African variant as its the only one so far to have been linked to a lower effectiveness to vaccinations. And it has also caused reinfection among those recovering from COVID-19.

Approx 60% of Israel’s population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine
- that still leaves a sizable number who haven't .

Its also important to note that current official data shows unvaccinated make up majority of Israel's COVID deaths

What MHQ here does do is discourage those who choose to come here and stop the further spread of such variants.

It also catches those who do arrive from these countries and go on to develop covid even if that is a small number

The few known cases we already have do not need to be added to. And therefore, precaution must still be taken.

https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/warning-that-south-african-coronavirus-variant-is-out-of-control-in-israel-1.512502

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pfizer-vaccine-less-effective-against-south-african-variant-israeli-study-finds/

That said I see Ireland has now removed Israel from the MHQ list. I can only presume that there is current data on the risk of SA variant has decreased due to vaccinations there etc.

Though looks like Isreal could have other problems.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pfizer-said-to-warn-israel-pay-up-or-go-to-back-of-vaccine-line/

.

Tyrone212

Some good news

A Stranorlar GP said he feels the ‘tide is turning’ in relation to the battle against Covid-19.

Dr Ciarán Ó Fearraigh practices at the Millbrae Surgery, based in the Stranorlar Health Centre.

Proudly posting on Twitter last night, the Gaoth Dobhair native said, finally, some good news is coming out of east Donegal.

“Stranorlar and Donegal have become synonymous with Covid-19,” he wrote.

“For the first time in seven months in my practice, we recorded no positive cases of Covid this week – 0 (zero) cases. In the same week, we gave 459 vaccines. It really feels like the tide is turning.”

hmmm

gozunda wrote: »

What MHQ here does do is discourage those who choose to come here and stop the further spread of such variants.

It also catches those who do arrive from these countries and go on to develop covid even if that is a small number
.

We know this, the question is whether the benefit of the small decrease in risk is worth the costs. Zero-Covid was not put forward as a platform by any of the Government parties when they ran for election and has not been properly debated.

Obviously Israel did something amazing in the 4 days between when they were put on the list and when they were taken off. We won't know what happened because we're not being told what the criteria is for going on the list. Albania was removed also because..... ? We've been variously told it was because of current variants, future super-Covid, or countries which have a lot of infection.

There's huge decisions being taken, including enforced detention of people, with little public scrutiny.

Eod100

hmmm wrote: »

We know this, the question is whether the benefit of the small decrease in risk is worth the costs. Zero-Covid was not put forward as a platform by any of the Government parties when they ran for election and has not been properly debated.
.

No covid policy was either though. The first officially confirmed case wasnt until 3 weeks after the election.

RGS

MHQ appears to be , as usual, with this government to be brought in without any proper planning or consideration.

Read in todays press there is no MHQ in cork or limerick which results in travellers been ferried to Dublin.
Also talk of using a hotel in rosslare for ferry passengers from France.

The case taken by the lady who arrived from Israel may cause further issues.
She's coming here as a HCW full vaccinated and with negative PCR tests yet must quarantine.
It's a shambles and maybe the FG ministers are happy to let it fail and have Donnelly and FF shoulder the blame. It does appear Donnelly is making the running on it.

hmmm

Eod100 wrote: »

No covid policy was either though. The first officially confirmed case wasnt until 3 weeks after the election.

True, let's say the Programme for Government didn't mention it. And I understand that strategies have to change depending on circumstances, but we seem to swinging from action to action with no clear direction.

The US strategy has been very clear since Biden became President - vaccinations and rapid-testing, along with keeping as many businesses safely open as possible. The UK strategy is currently very similar.

Our strategy in the last few weeks has suddenly veered towards a half-arsed Zero-Covid, with little consideration to the economic or personal impact.

DebDynamite

Maybe lockdown has sent me a bit mental, and while I can’t see sense with adding the likes of Israel and the US to the quarantine list, I’m glad we finally brought in MHQ (albeit a year too late).

People were crying out for something like this at the start. Hearing the likes of Simon Coveney say things like we couldn’t stop the Italian fans from flying in as we wouldn’t like it if they did it it us, at a times when other countries in Europe were closing their borders to each other, it always felt like we wanted to be seen as the good boys in the EU. Then when Europe stopped flights coming from the US, we still allowed it as we didn’t want to be upsetting our favourite cousins, the USA.

So following this, I’m just glad the government have finally taken a decision to look after the well-being of it’s citizens and it’s not all about politics for once. I hope by September it’s scrapped tbh, and it probably won’t even last that long as it seems to be full of holes, but at least we finally tried it.

I hope there will never be an event like this again in my lifetime, but if there is, at least there’s the precedence there for us to take one of the obvious steps from the beginning and quarantine incoming travellers all the while locking down the rest of the country. Or at least try it.

hmmm

DebDynamite wrote: »

I hope there will never be an event like this again in my lifetime, but if there is, at least there’s the precedence there for us to take one of the obvious steps from the beginning and quarantine incoming travellers all the while locking down the rest of the country. Or at least try it.

If we locked everyone in our houses for 6 months we would also reduce Covid. We could also have closed all the supermarkets and delivered a weekly sack of turnips to everyone.

We shouldn't be doing things solely because they will reduce the spread of Covid, everything has a cost which has to be taken into account. I've personally supported most measures because there was an obvious cost/benefit, but MHQ looks to be like providing very little real benefit for a very significant cost, and has been introduced primarily for political point-scoring.

gozunda

hmmm wrote: »

We know this, the question is whether the benefit of the small decrease in risk is worth the costs. Zero-Covid was not put forward as a platform by any of the Government parties when they ran for election and has not been properly debated.

Obviously Israel did something amazing in the 4 days between when they were put on the list and when they were taken off. We won't know what happened because we're not being told what the criteria is for going on the list. Albania was removed also because..... ? We've been variously told it was because of current variants, future super-Covid, or countries which have a lot of infection.

There's huge decisions being taken, including enforced detention of people, with little public scrutiny.

I was replying to your claim that "Israel never had a problem with VOC's and was added to the list."

It has.

Zero covid is not being pushed. Travel has not effectively shut down like Australia or New Zealand. Its allowed for essential purposes but otherwise is being discouraged.

But yeah that's the big problem with Covid. Cases can go from Zero to 10 in the blink of any eye.

As far as I'm aware VOCs are the main criteria for the MHQ. But I can see how countries where rates of infection are out of control and / or variants are suspected (but unknown) could also be added to a list.

hmmm

hmmm wrote: »

If we locked everyone in our houses for 6 months we would also reduce Covid. We could also have closed all the supermarkets and delivered a weekly sack of turnips to everyone.

We shouldn't be doing things solely because they will reduce the spread of Covid, everything has a cost which has to be taken into account. I've personally supported most measures because there was an obvious cost/benefit, but MHQ looks to be like providing very little real benefit for a very significant cost, and has been introduced primarily for political point-scoring.

I think the point was if something like this happens again, Europe should know better and the Chinese/Vietnamese/New Zealand /Australia style approach is the quickest route back to normality and border closures and mandatory quarantine would be a useful tool and should be adopted early if we face another pandemic like this.

Doctor Jimbob

gozunda wrote: »

I was replying to your claim that "Israel never had a problem with VOC's and was added to the list."

It has.

Zero covid is not being pushed. Travel has not effectively shut down like Australia or New Zealand. Its allowed for essential purposes but otherwise is being discouraged.

But yeah that's the big problem with Covid. Cases can go from Zero to 10 in the blink of any eye.

As far as I'm aware VOCs are the main criteria for the MHQ. But I can see how countries where rates of infection are out of control and / or variants are suspected (but unknown) could also be added to a list.

Travel is allowed for essential purposes like TDs running off to Brussels for a meeting that could have taken place on zoom. It's not allowed for non-essential purposes like attending the funeral of a family member.

Evidently this is a well thought out and rational plan. I have no idea why anyone is taking issue with it.

Our government has been fond of telling us the virus doesn't care about x and y. Someone should remind government that this fact also applies to them.

hmmm

gozunda wrote: »

I was replying to your claim that "Israel never had a problem with VoC's and was added to the list."

It has.

1% of cases is a problem? And why was it a problem 4 days ago and not now?

I'm looking at a news report which says that Germany has 0.8% prevalence of B.1.351 - why are they not on the list?

As far as I'm aware VOCs are the main criteria for the MHQ. But I can see how countries where rates of infection are out of control and / or variants are suspected (but unknown) could also be added to a list.

It's not good enough that we have not been clearly told what the criteria is. Germany, Poland and India could as easily be on the list as they have expanding epidemics, and might end up on it next week - potentially impacting on hundreds of thousands of people who live and work here.

If the new strategy is zero-Covid let's say that and have the public debate. At the moment the plan is full of holes and contradictions.

DebDynamite

hmmm wrote: »

If we locked everyone in our houses for 6 months we would also reduce Covid. We could also have closed all the supermarkets and delivered a weekly sack of turnips to everyone.

We shouldn't be doing things solely because they will reduce the spread of Covid, everything has a cost which has to be taken into account. I've personally supported most measures because there was an obvious cost/benefit, but MHQ looks to be like providing very little real benefit for a very significant cost, and has been introduced primarily for political point-scoring.

Since October, I’ve not been able to see my parents in the next county (bar the 3 week break at Christmas). We still don’t have a date for out of county travel - I’ve heard July being mentioned. So from October to possibly June/July, we can’t travel outside our own county. This is the kind of stuff that affects the majority of people. Never mind that, since January we’ve not been able to travel further than 5km unless for a very small list of essential reasons.

I’ll be honest and say I don’t know one person who has travelled abroad in the past year or intends to for the rest of this year. MHQ affects the general population the least. It was definitely worth a try.

Multipass

DebDynamite wrote: »

Since October, I’ve not been able to see my parents in the next county (bar the 3 week break at Christmas). We still don’t have a date for out of county travel - I’ve heard July being mentioned. So from October to possibly June/July, we can’t travel outside our own county. This is the kind of stuff that affects the majority of people. Never mind that, since January we’ve not been able to travel further than 5km unless for a very small list of essential reasons.

I’ll be honest and say I don’t know one person who has travelled abroad in the past year or intends to for the rest of this year. MHQ affects the general population the least. It was definitely worth a try.

No-one with family abroad counts as long as I’m all right Jack.

stephenjmcd

476 positive swabs, 3.02% positivity on 15,787 tests.
7 day test positivity is 2.7%

MerlinSouthDub

stephenjmcd wrote: »

476 positive swabs, 3.02% positivity on 15,787 tests.
7 day test positivity is 2.7%

Happy with that. No sign of an Easter bump.

prunudo

DebDynamite wrote: »

Since October, I’ve not been able to see my parents in the next county (bar the 3 week break at Christmas). We still don’t have a date for out of county travel - I’ve heard July being mentioned. So from October to possibly June/July, we can’t travel outside our own county. This is the kind of stuff that affects the majority of people. Never mind that, since January we’ve not been able to travel further than 5km unless for a very small list of essential reasons.

I’ll be honest and say I don’t know one person who has travelled abroad in the past year or intends to for the rest of this year. MHQ affects the general population the least. It was definitely worth a try.

Whatever about the arguements about mhq, I would advise anyone who has not seen their parents to please change that quickly. Life is too short not to see them for months on end. Obviously do so in a safe manner, outside in the garden or whatever you deem correct. No checkpoint or government regulation is going to stop me checking up on them to make sure they are okay. Zoom, vidoes call may have cut it last March but not anymore after months of level 5 and no sign of intra county travel being lifted.

DebDynamite

Multipass wrote: »

No-one with family abroad counts as long as I’m all right Jack.

How many compared to people living here who can’t see their families? I also have siblings abroad btw.

ninebeanrows

DebDynamite wrote: »

How many compared to people living here who can’t see their families? I also have siblings abroad btw.

Everybody can see there family if they need to. Maybe not as often as possible but I don’t know anybody who hasn’t visited their family in other counties at some point since the lockdown in Jan

ninebeanrows

Sure a Covid positive person can go shopping or meet friends if they want too, yet people arriving in from abroad who test negative are put into a room without their own key for 12 days

Vicxas

ninebeanrows wrote: »

Sure a Covid positive person can go shopping or meet friends if they want too, yet people arriving in from abroad who test negative are put into a room without their own key for 12 days

Because people travelling from another country could have a variant from Brazil or SA that would make the COVID situation here much worse.

Multipass

DebDynamite wrote: »

How many compared to people living here who can’t see their families? I also have siblings abroad btw.

How many is irrelevant. You want to cut other people off from their families for what reason? To stop variants that are already here, or to stop imagined variants that don’t even exist yet. From a pretty random list of countries with no justification. This is an exercise in appeasing social media hysteria, nothing else.

DebDynamite

ninebeanrows wrote: »

Sure a Covid positive person can go shopping or meet friends if they want too, yet people arriving in from abroad who test negative are put into a room without their own key for 12 days

Well I also think there should be penalties for Covid positive people being out and about, but that’s for another day!

gozunda

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

Travel is allowed for essential purposes like TDs running off to Brussels for a meeting that could have taken place on zoom. It's not allowed for non-essential purposes like attending the funeral of a family member.

Evidently this is a well thought out and rational plan. I have no idea why anyone is taking issue with it. Our government has been fond of telling us the virus doesn't care about x and y. Someone should remind government that this fact also applies to them.

You're incorrect there.

Current regulations are:

You should only travel to Ireland if you have an essential reason for doing so.

Essential family travel does not include social visits, but may include:

Caring for children
Caring for older or vulnerable people, particularly if they live alone
Exercising your legal right of access to a child
Going to a court hearing
Going to a funeral

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel_and_recreation/travel_to_ireland/travel_to_ireland_during_covid.html#l87fcf

Up to this week

You can travel to / from Belgium for work
You can travel to / from Belgium for a funeral

With the new MHQ rules thst those travelling from red list countries require two weeks quarantine which obviously rules out a lot of funeral attendances

Those arriving from red list countries are unlikely to be provided with an automatic exemption regardless of how awful that is for those concerned.

As for work related travel from Red list countries (which now includes Belgium btw) - any politicians who do so - will end up in MHQ as well.