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

JTMan

Remember Boris saying a week or two ago that UK government scientists believe "firmly" that there will be another "wave".

Well, UK government scientists have apparently changed their mind. No summer wave and a small winter wave is now the expectation ...

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1385712183905067010

brickster69

Under 40's start up North

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40274531.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Turtwig

is_that_so wrote: »

My only concern is the vaccination programme comment and unfortunately it is one I could see him saying in some form.

I could see it said with conditions attached and quoted out of context. I cannot really see it actually being said verbatim to question the effectiveness of the programme. They have the data from long term residential care and healthcare workers showing the impact of vaccination. They know that the vaccination programme is ramping up. Even with pessimistic supplier scenarios the outlooks for vaccination administration are still positive.

Heck, the remark would even contradict his outlook statement last thursday.

Stheno

Turtwig wrote: »

I could see it said with conditions attached and quoted out of context. I cannot really see it actually being said verbatim to question the effectiveness of the programme. They have the data from long term residential care and healthcare workers showing the impact of vaccination. They know that the vaccination programme is ramping up. Even with pessimistic supplier scenarios the outlooks for vaccination administration are still positive.

Heck, the remark would even contradict his outlook statement last thursday.

My issue here really are the constant leaks, mixed messaging and complete lack of a united effort from NPHET and the govt

That article epitomises all of the above

iamwhoiam

Sanjuro wrote: »

I hate these few days before an official announcement
Leaks, rumours, newspapers running with every shred of bull**** they can. I can already feel my anxiety growing.

Me too . It makes me anxious and upset . Its the mind games that get to me . This playing with peoples minds is dangerous

Turtwig

Stheno wrote: »

My issue here really are the constant leaks, mixed messaging and complete lack of a united effort from NPHET and the govt

That article epitomises all of the above

Oh I agree. I particularly dislike how some media interviews are handled by nphet, gov and opposition politicians alike. It's a sh1t show. I do have some sympathy though. If someone from NPHET does not go on the radio or TV. Those productions will find another voice to fill the air time. It's a bit of a horrible catch 22 as media loves polarising opinions so the options for guests are not very good ones. My biggest sympathy however here is for NIAC and Karina Butler.

The cabinet leaks are super annoying. They should just livestream the cabinet meetings.

Jim_Hodge

Stheno wrote: »

My issue here really are the constant leaks, mixed messaging and complete lack of a united effort from NPHET and the govt

That article epitomises all of the above

I don't get anxious but I get riled by all the supposition by the media and on here. The outrage and indignation based on rumour is draining at times.

Sweet.Science

Tony Holohan is gas . He's a parody of himself at this stage .

There is literally no chance the government will follow that advice .

This is MM only power play left . Coming out of lockdown .

Stheno

Turtwig wrote: »

The cabinet leaks are super annoying. They should just lovestream the cabinet meetings.

Good idea. Livestream the NPHET presentations to Cabinet and the following meeting to make decisions

I couldn't tell you the last time I tuned in to one of MMs addresses all leaked completely in advance

iamwhoiam

I don’t know how NPHET works but if its a committee then surely things go to a vote or does only Tony have a say ?

GeorgeBailey

The way people keep saying "look at what happened at Christmas" as a warning of what will happen, surely we should be saying "look at what happened at summer", i.e. last summer. When people knew less. When there were no vaccines. When numbers didn't rocket in spite of people being able to dine indoors. A time when even when you're indoors there are open windows and doors keeping places better ventilated.

I remember in December sitting in my cold house and thinking to myself "if I had visitors over now would I open a window to improve ventilation?" The answer was a big fat no. Today on the other hand, I don't have visitors over but the double doors to the garden have been open all day because it just makes the place more comfortable.

The upcoming winter could potentially be a misery-fest (hopefully not because of vaccines) which would mean the more summer months we give up the more good months we're giving up because you just know that there'll be an abundance of caution being thrown at us again come November.

caveat emptor

Good news for those who like the game.

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1386384834860359683?s=20

caveat emptor

Also Ryanair looking at doing the right thing regarding travelling during a pandemic.
I know they haven't been the best corporate citizens through out this but fair play to them with this.

Ryanair has said it is considering cancelling a number of Irish routes as a result of the mandatory hotel quarantine system.

JTMan

JTMan wrote: »

Remember Boris saying a week or two ago that UK government scientists believe "firmly" that there will be another "wave".

Well, UK government scientists have apparently changed their mind. No summer wave and a small winter wave is now the expectation ...

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1385712183905067010

Surely that is just common sense. We will all be in pubs with very limited restrictions, and even though everyone will have been offered a vaccine, some will have not taken it, and it only has a 90% effectiveness against illness

So with no restrictions you’d be looking at a wave of a small percentage of what we saw earlier this year, but noticeable nonetheless

But, importantly, within what the NHS can handle

The question is whether we in Ireland are going to put on our big boy pants and be able to accept a rise in case numbers without panicking and shutting down again

hmmm

GeorgeBailey wrote: »

The way people keep saying "look at what happened at Christmas" as a warning of what will happen, surely we should be saying "look at what happened at summer", i.e. last summer. When people knew less. When there were no vaccines. When numbers didn't rocket in spite of people being able to dine indoors. A time when even when you're indoors there are open windows and doors keeping places better ventilated.

That was before the new variant however which is keeping cases stubbornly high. If we reopen indoor dining while most people are unvaccinated, it's probably going to lead to a rapid spike. We didn't have quite the same risk last year.

I can understand where NPHET are coming from, and I've been hoping for months that restaurants etc. would get on with trying to plan for people dining outdoors - anyone who has been relying on indoor dining opening has taken a risk.

I'm guessing it will take perhaps 70% vaccinated (late July/August?) before NPHET feel confident that indoor dining is safe to reopen, and a pretty rapid reopening in the weeks after that. The news posted earlier that the UK is not expecting a Winter surge is really great news, that has been a fear for a while (despite vaccinations).

Jinglejangle69

hmmm wrote: »

That was before the new variant however which is keeping cases stubbornly high. If we reopen indoor dining while most people are unvaccinated, it's probably going to lead to a rapid spike. We didn't have quite the same risk last year.

I can understand where NPHET are coming from, and I've been hoping for months that restaurants etc. would get on with trying to plan for people dining outdoors - anyone who has been relying on indoor dining opening has taken a risk.

I'm guessing it will take perhaps 70% vaccinated (late July/August?) before NPHET feel confident that indoor dining is safe to reopen, and a pretty rapid reopening in the weeks after that. The news posted earlier that the UK is not expecting a Winter surge is really great news, that has been a fear for a while (despite vaccinations).

That's the summer gone.

No hospitality.

Farce.

It will be winter and dark nights and they might open hotels.

Summer 2022 it is so.

Pandiculation

Basing it on today's speed, we're rolling at about 1.2 million doses a month.
So we've a million or so done, which is roughly 25% of the target population (4 million)

So that's 2 and half months left, which means we're done by mid-July.

To get to 80% is just the end of June.

If we speed up the delivery and have more doses available, we're going to get there faster.

The fact that the vaccines are really ramping up at the moment is the only significant positive I can see at present.

Assuming the vaccines are working well, which seems very likely to be the case and I don't think you're going to see any more monumental cockups in terms of deliveries, as Pfizer is now doing the heavy lifting, not AstraZeneca, it doesn't look like we should have any excuses for lockdowns beyond May. I could see some need for a bit of caution, but this notion that we should be locked down into the autumn is beyond pessimistic.

bucketybuck

Jinglejangle69 wrote: »

It will be winter and dark nights and they might open hotels.

And when winter and dark nights arrive it will be "remember last christmas, its nearly flu season, we will need to stay closed just in case!!!"

Jinglejangle69

Pandiculation wrote: »

Basing it on today's speed, we're rolling at about 1.2 million doses a month.
So we've a million or so done, which is roughly 25% of the target population (4 million)

So that's 2 and half months left, which means we're done by mid-July.

To get to 80% is just the end of June.

If we speed up the delivery and have more doses available, we're going to get there faster.

The fact that the vaccines are really ramping up at the moment is the only significant positive I can see at present.

It's alright NIAC took the weekend off from discussing the j and j vaccine.

Will resume again tomorrow.

Sure what's a few days waiting while there is unused vaccines sitting there.

Not as if we're in the middle of a pandemic.

MerlinSouthDub

hmmm wrote: »

That was before the new variant however which is keeping cases stubbornly high. If we reopen indoor dining while most people are unvaccinated, it's probably going to lead to a rapid spike. We didn't have quite the same risk last year.

I can understand where NPHET are coming from, and I've been hoping for months that restaurants etc. would get on with trying to plan for people dining outdoors - anyone who has been relying on indoor dining opening has taken a risk.

I'm guessing it will take perhaps 70% vaccinated (late July/August?) before NPHET feel confident that indoor dining is safe to reopen, and a pretty rapid reopening in the weeks after that. The news posted earlier that the UK is not expecting a Winter surge is really great news, that has been a fear for a while (despite vaccinations).

But we don't need 70% fully vaccinated. 70% with one dose should be enough to suppress the virus, and all of the at risk and vulnerable are protected. If that is Nphet's advice, then it is extremely cautious and seems to take no account of the impact of vaccines on reducing transmission.

Not allowing indoor dining will result in people travelling north and to the UK for summer holidays.

Are hotels really supposed to open with no indoor dining?

Pandiculation

I'm assuming there's no rush because they can't actually deliver beyond about 50,000 a day anyway at present, which they seem to have doses for, without J&J on stream.

J&J looks to me like it will go to pharmacy delivery as it's extremely easy.

If you keep up this speed with the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca say approaching 50,000 doses a day and then add J&J via the pharmacy networks, we're probably going to be done sooner than anyone imagined.

Lumen

hmmm wrote: »

I'm guessing it will take perhaps 70% vaccinated (late July/August?) before NPHET feel confident that indoor dining is safe to reopen, and a pretty rapid reopening in the weeks after that. The news posted earlier that the UK is not expecting a Winter surge is really great news, that has been a fear for a while (despite vaccinations).

We should be at 70% population vaccinated (90% eligible vaccinated) with one dose by the end of June.

Israel unlocked with 55%-ish of the population vaccinated with at least one dose.

I remain optimistic that NPHET will ease off or simply get ignored by the politicians well before then.

The fact is that right now most of the population is not vaccinated, and so a big rise in cases is still possible, as we've seen elsewhere in Europe. That's not going to be the case even at the end of May.

Pandiculation

I think we need to be cautious that we're not ludicrously pessimistic, but we also need to bear in mind that we're not in the UK's position either, but at this speed, we're realistically not that far behind them if we can keep up the pace.

We are going to need to be more careful than they are for about another month or so, but they need to stop with the leaks about holding up the entire thing until September. That's sort of worst case scenario land stuff.

We were always aware that the volume of vaccines by May was going to be pretty high and the fiasco, particularly with AstraZeneca's over promised supplies, would end.

There's been enormous effort and resources put in, notably though the BioNTech/Pfizer production system by adding 13 companies to it including Sanofi and Novartis. That's where your massive EU volumes are coming from now.

I think the Government needs to urgently start presenting an optimistic path out of this and there is one. Otherwise, you're going to 'lose the room' or cause half the country to sink into 'only in Ireland' depression mode and probably some combination of both.

Caution is important, but we could do with getting over the political trauma of Christmas, which was a different set of circumstances, mostly involving massive amounts of UK>Ireland travel while there was a huge peak there and before vaccines had rolled out significantly at all in either jurisdiction.

hotmail.com

PatrickDoherty wrote: »

The crowds out that have turned the canals and Stephens Green into Electric Picnic this week have very short memories, 14 months into a pandemic and still dont get it, going on like everyone over 30 has had a vaccine.

Maybe it's the far right?

ShineOn7

Gael23 wrote: »

We would be seeing any spike from schools by now wouldn’t we?

We did


Static Jac on Reddit Ireland

So that's 3,135 cases this week. An increase of 534 cases compared to last week. This week last year we were close to the height of the 1st Wave at 4,033 reported cases.

A list of previous weeks (Mon-Sun) for anyone interested:

A graph of weekly cases.

All information gathered on gov.ie from the Department of Health.

• Week 53 - 15,759 (National Level 5: 30/12)
• Week 01 (2021) - 45,770
• Week 02 - 25,212
• Week 03 - 14,877
• Week 04 - 9,016
• Week 05 - 7,170
• Week 06 - 6,044
• Week 07 - 5,564
• Week 08 - 4,574
• Week 09 - 3,660
• Week 10 - 3,544
• Week 11 - 3,864
• Week 12 - 3,992
• Week 13 - 3,638
• Week 14 - 2,817
• Week 15 - 2,601 (list of restrictions lifted 12th April)
• Week 16 - 3,135 (This Week)

*Awaits usual mental gymnastics from the School defenders*

On a more positive note, the vaccinations seem to be ramping up very nicely

Which is just as well given that Primary schools are open till July 1st according to this https://avoid-crowds.com/2021-ireland-school-vacations-public-holidays/

Vaccination Numbers - Up to Friday 23rd April

• Total doses: 1,359,921 (+42,756)
• First dose: 966,611 (+31,622)
• Second: 393,310 (+11,155)

Vaccine Type Breakdowns

• Pfizer/BioNTech: 1,012,333 (+27,381) (64% of vaccines)
• Moderna: 62,815 (+4,299) (10% of vaccines)
• AstraZeneca: 294,773 (+20,716) (48% of vaccines)

Hospital stats as of 8 am today

• Hospitalised: 174 (+12)
• ICU: 45 (-1)
• New admissions past 24 hours: 13

But it's the weekend, so no discharges. I really think/hope we'll get below 140 in hospital this week

And finally

Previous Sundays

• 18/04: 269
• 11/04: 303

5 day average - 468

7 day average - 448 (Last wk: 372)

gozunda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Pure bull. 45 in ICU and well under 200 in hospital across Ireland. Most of the elderly and vulnerable demographics have been vaccinated, nursing homes virtually free of Covid. You could have 1,000 cases daily identified in 20/30 somethings, how many of them will present in hospital? Almost none. The terminal threat has sharply receded, this walking on eggshells business is now redundant. Those who are afraid? Hide at home behind the couch, sit in the garden, do the knitting etc. Leave the rest of us well alone, life is not a rehearsal and should be enjoyed to the fullest.

That the thing. They haven't. Still a substantial number of 16-69 group 4 to be vaccinated. There's also over 70+s yet to be vaccinated.

To the present approx 50% of those in hospital with covid have been under 65.

The risk of rising rates of infection has not receded - we remain still sitting on it. And until we get to a min 50% of adult population then that's going nowhere. Unless you really believe you've better knowledge than countries which are using current best practice of waiting to roll back restrictions once that target has been met.

And its not those observing restrictions who are the minority. Thankfully that seems to be the covid deniers and sceptics. And no we're not obliged to do what they want and ignore everything else.

Attempting to describe the absolute majority of people as curtain twitchers, or behind the couch hiders, or knitters or any of the other stupid language we find in this forum- is little more than puerile. Like most imho.

hmmm

Lumen wrote: »

We should be at 70% population vaccinated (90% eligible vaccinated) with one dose by the end of June.

Israel unlocked with 55%-ish of the population vaccinated with at least one dose.

I'm basing the 70% on us having less community spread than Israel had - it's just a guess, but I generally agree with your figures. I think end of June is probably too early - some people will have only just received their vaccine & it takes some time to take effect - and the government are going to be cautious. If I was to pick a date I'd say end of July at the earliest for indoor dining.

Either way people need to plan for doing stuff outdoors. Put on a jumper and be thankful that science looks like it is going to get us out of this.

Remember, the vaccines don’t stop you from catching Covid, they just reduce the chance of serious illness.

So there will likely still be cases. And as long as there are cases, NPHET will be pushing for caution/restrictions.

I was called crazy just a few weeks ago for suggesting that hospitality won’t reopen this summer. I doubt anyone would bet their house on it after this weekends leaks and sound bites.

Turtwig

Lumen wrote: »

We should be at 70% population vaccinated (90% eligible vaccinated) with one dose by the end of June.

Israel unlocked with 55%-ish of the population vaccinated with at least one dose.

I remain optimistic that NPHET will ease off or simply get ignored by the politicians well before then.

The fact is that right now most of the population is not vaccinated, and so a big rise in cases is still possible, as we've seen elsewhere in Europe. That's not going to be the case even at the end of May.

Israel unlocked at 50%. They operated a strict vaccine certification system for indoor venues.
We don't appear to have the appetite for such a system here.

We also have very little data of first dose efficacy re transmission. Most of the studies done so far are on HCWs in a healthcare setting which would have strict infection control processes in place. Gen pop locations were in the midst of a lockdown.
Preliminary indicators are really positive. The UK in the next 4 to 6 weeks will tell us a lot.

Pandiculation

PatrickDoherty wrote: »

The crowds out that have turned the canals and Stephens Green into Electric Picnic this week have very short memories, 14 months into a pandemic and still dont get it, going on like everyone over 30 has had a vaccine.

To a degree, I think that's partly down to over pessimistic messaging. If you keep telling people that this is never going to end, which is the impression many people are beginning to have, then you will get people just going into fatalism and throwing caution to the wind anyway.

The government isn't presenting a very optimistic path out of this, and that's despite what is now starting to be a vaccine programme that looks like it will be extremely successful and has been ramping up bandwidth enormously as supplies came on stream.

We're also in comparison with UK mode and I think we've absorbed a hell of a lot of Brexiteer messaging that was seeking any boot to kick the EU with and the vaccine programme bumps were certainly a rather large one.

I find the communication of all of this abysmal tbh. The Government is letting the rumours fly up because it's providing extremely weak messaging and poor leadership.

The Taoiseach constantly seems unsure of himself. The Tainiste seems to be more concerned about jostling for position and future elections than anything else. You've a health minister who's spinning way too much and the rest of the cabinet seem to engage in public disagreement with each other all the time and leaking everything left right and centre.

Then you've NPHET being given way too much prominence by the media, which is largely due to the government hiding. I mean, to be fair to the NPHET team they're just giving their technical advice and they're making themselves very accountable and available to the media and the public, which is far more than can be said to for the politicians who are actually in power.