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

political analyst

By the end of Thursday 25 March this year ....


https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0326/1206400-garda-virus-fines/

....there have been 554 fines of €500 for organising a house party, totaling €277,000.

A further 58 fines of €500 were for organising an event that was not classified as a house party, worth a total of €29,000.

A total of €323,850 could be made from the 2,159 fines of €150 issued for attending house parties.

Isn't that the reason for the numbers of cases still not being low enough to let businesses re-open?

If shop workers have been ensuring that customers respect the face-covering rule then the idea that shopping contributed to the rise in the numbers of cases doesn't hold water.

So what evidence could NPHET have had to justify recommending both the closure of non-essential shops and the ban on click-and-collect?

Why hasn't more contact-tracing being done? If it was being done, it would prove that click-and-collect and non-essential shops did not cause the Christmas case-number increase.

zebastein

Tomorrow we can expect our 14days incidence rate to go down nicely. Hopefully the case numbers will be in the 300/400 range and that should replace the day of the 1st April which has 761 cases reported.

Jim_Hodge

TheDoctor wrote: »

Crazy that January is still the highest part of the daily reported deaths most of the last week.

Coming to the end of the three month period to register, coupled with delays due to covid restrictions.

Batattackrat

political analyst wrote: »

By the end of Thursday 25 March this year ....


https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0326/1206400-garda-virus-fines/



Isn't that the reason for the numbers of cases still not being low enough to let businesses re-open?

If shop workers have been ensuring that customers respect the face-covering rule then the idea that shopping contributed to the rise in the numbers of cases doesn't hold water.

So what evidence could NPHET have had to justify recommending both the closure of non-essential shops and the ban on click-and-collect?

Why hasn't more contact-tracing being done? If it was being done, it would prove that click-and-collect and non-essential shops did not cause the Christmas case-number increase.

Yea its a pity they couldn't have a few pints in a regulated environment like a pub.

muddypuppy

TheDoctor wrote: »

Crazy that January is still the highest part of the daily reported deaths most of the last week.

Well, in January we had >6 times the cases of March, probably missed a good few cases there due to testing/contact tracing being overwhelmed, and barely any vaccine.
It seems like a lot of deaths are reported late, but in fact it's a small percentage, it's just that very few people are dying of covid right now, so the few reported late looks bad.

harr

https://twitter.com/riochtconor2/status/1382085587625259008?s=21

Lowest hospital numbers since early October...

saabsaab

Batattackrat wrote: »

Yea its a pity they couldn't have a few pints in a regulated environment like a pub.

Better than letting the UK variants home at Christmas.

boardise

Deleted User wrote: »

As this thread has shown, clearly not everyone.

Whether it matters is another question altogether. And I would largely agree with the rest of your tangential points.

And for what it's worth, I am not an anti-lockdownist nor do I believe that NPHET have tailored together some grand conspiracy.

Nomenclature matters, and it's use should be as accurate as possible when communicating with the public.

The same question goes for "a new virus" when referring to B117 variant. Again, this kind of miscommunication matters (in my view).

Micheal Martin was slated for saying last winter that the B 1 1 7 was almost like a new virus. A few weeks back I heard a medical expert on Euronews saying exactly the same thing Just remarking.

Sobit1964

boardise wrote: »

Micheal Martin was slated for saying last winter that the B 1 1 7 was almost like a new virus. A few weeks back I heard a medical expert on Euronews saying exactly the same thing Just remarking.

Didnt Merkel say it was like a whole new pandemic?

Faugheen

boardise wrote: »

Micheal Martin was slated for saying last winter that the B 1 1 7 was almost like a new virus. A few weeks back I heard a medical expert on Euronews saying exactly the same thing Just remarking.

Because contrarians here don't want any hysteria even though they cause most of it themselves.

Anyone with any understanding of B117 knows what MM said wasn't so outrageous.

normanoffside

DOCARCH wrote: »

431 new cases/12 additional deaths.

3 Deaths were also denotified

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1382383128287842309

KrustyUCC

https://twitter.com/RiochtConor2/status/1370802500111101954

Shows decent progress being made

political analyst

This article was published last month.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/explainer-what-is-going-on-with-click-and-collect-services-1.4518019

During the second lockdown in October and November, non-essential retailers were allowed to sell online as well as offer a so-called click-and-collect service, which is where customers can order products online before later collecting them from the store.

It allowed many smaller retailers who did not have the capacity for full online delivery services to continue to trade through November.

However, with Covid-19 case numbers surging at the end of December, non-essential retail was forced to close for the third time in less than a year on January 6th, and the Government decided not to allow the click-and-collect model so as to reduce movement and travel as much as possible.

It was felt that by taking that option off the table it would stop people driving to retail and town centres to pick up ordered goods and would reduce the movement of people in the community.

landofthetree

https://twitter.com/RiochtConor2/status/1382381436590813186

saabsaab

We expect the vaccines roll out to control this (unless there is a new variant) this Summer.

PTH2009

saabsaab wrote: »

We expect the vaccines roll out to control this (unless there is a new variant) this Summer.

That bloody word

funnydoggy

First indication of things going well for months and it's marred by talks of things that may never happen. Variants are in their thousands at this stage. Let us have a bit of room to breathe.

Not saying it's you either saabsaab, not singling you out. Just that I've heard that variant point made a few times already today.

saabsaab

funnydoggy wrote: »

First indication of things going well for months and it's marred by talks of things that may never happen. Variants are in their thousands at this stage. Let us have a bit of room to breathe.

Not saying it's you either saabsaab, not singling you out. Just that I've heard that variant point made a few times already today.

Doesn't mean it isn't a factor either. I hope it never happens but beast wait till the end of the roll out before relaxing too much remember Christmas.

adam240610

Can we ban the words; variant, lockdown, and concerning when we're out of this, please?

funnydoggy

saabsaab wrote: »

Doesn't mean it isn't a factor either. I hope it never happens but beast wait till the end of the roll out before relaxing too much remember Christmas.

I do remember Christmas. We're nowhere near that type of scenario

redmgar

External Association wrote: »

All now eagerly awaiting the swab numbers. Who'll get in first with the eagerly anticipated stats.

And could someone 'pull off' the double? Stats and cases in one day.. Hasn't been done in over 3 mts.

Life goals, could you imagine being that legend.

adam240610

adam240610 wrote: »

Can we ban the words; variant, lockdown, and concerning when we're out of this, please?

Add phraseology like 'new normal', 'exercise caution' and 'second quarter' to the manure pile.

We need a reality check.

Variants are variations of an existing virus.

And as such, there is a limited number of variations - but effectively an unlimited number of ways our existing vaccines can be modified to account for said variations.

At this stage, we are ahead of the virus - no matter how hard it mutates.

It can never mutate into anything other than a version of itself; that's the one weakness that vaccines, and modifications thereof, can capitalize on.

It's the virus in retreat, not us.

People talk about variations as if they can somehow bring us back to March 1, 2020. At that stage, I think all logical perspective has been lost.

The vaccine cavalry is on the horizon this Autumn. Until then, existing vaccines are more than sufficient to do the job required.

Again, we need less doom and gloom and far more optimism.

TheDoctor

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Add phraseology like 'new normal', 'exercise caution' and 'second quarter' to the manure pile.

Wet pubs needs to go too

namloc1980

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Add phraseology like 'new normal', 'exercise caution' and 'second quarter' to the manure pile.

Hold firm, wet pubs and abundance of caution can get fooked as well.

saabsaab

funnydoggy wrote: »

I do remember Christmas. We're nowhere near that type of scenario

Few thought that we were then either!

robbiezero

political analyst wrote: »

This article was published last month.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/explainer-what-is-going-on-with-click-and-collect-services-1.4518019

Beggars belief that this restriction is still in operation.

Lumen

Around Christmas we went from 400 to 6,000 cases a day in about three weeks, and it took three months to get the numbers down again.

There's nothing particularly in our current situation that would prevent that reoccuring, if we rolled back the restrictions to what they were in December. Sure the weather's a bit nicer, but it's hardly a solid 15C and sunny.

Hungary has three times our vaccination rate and yet is just coming out of an incredibly bad wave, with a solid 250 deaths a day for the last couple of weeks (their population is only double ours).

I'm not advocating for any particular course of action, I just think that people demanding a complete relaxation of restrictions (the open the pubs/let it rip crowd) should consider that the likely result would be a couple of weeks of relative normality followed by several months more lockdown, whereas if we ease more gradually we should avoid the kind of spike that will put us back to square one.

Bags o cans until June.

funnydoggy

robbiezero wrote: »

Beggars belief that this restriction is still in operation.

It's a really stupid one. The most dangerous thing about click and collect would probably be fomites, which we know is not a typical driver of transmission for COVID. This and a 5k limit, seriously stupid restrictions

minitrue

funnydoggy wrote: »

I do remember Christmas. We're nowhere near that type of scenario

December 1st:
7-day cases average: 266
Cases in hospital: 224
Cases in ICU: 31
7-day average deaths*: 6

Yesterday (I'm too lazy to work out the 7-day averages for today):
7-day cases average: 397
Cases in hospital: 206
Cases in ICU: 48
7-day average deaths*: 11

To say we are "nowhere near" is flat out wrong. The vaccination situation certainly means the same case number now wouldn't be as bad but is it enough to mean about 50% higher now is "nowhere near"? I think not. Maybe 397 now is better than 266 was then but it's not a slam dunk.

The cases in hospital are "close enough" and something that the vaccination situation argument does not help mitigate at all.

The ICU figure is probably the real headline and again it's roughly 50% higher.

The deaths are nearly double, see the * at the end before you start arguing but no matter how you spin it they aren't "nowhere near" now where we were then.

Now we move onto the trends. The cases were trending down on 1st December at a comparable enough rate to how they are now. The hospital numbers similarly were trending down at a reasonably comparable rate. The ICU numbers now are falling faster than they were at the start of December (from a much higher peak and still at a 50% higher level). The deaths average on both dates is relatively static.

All in all the picture is perhaps similar enough. Pick your figure to suit your argument and you can claim it's better or worse but to say "nowhere near" is hyperbole and wishful thinking.

If we pulled a December manoeuvrer now and opened up similarly we might not get to the same levels as quickly thanks to the impact of the vaccinated but we would crash the health service again fast enough.

* The 7-day average death (and cases) figures are from worldometers and no doubt skewed by the reporting dates but that was also the case back at the start of December (October/November deaths coming in). The figures now may be more heavily skewed but with the difference in levels it's certainly not enough to justify "nowhere near".