Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

seamus

@Wibbs wrote:

Or god forbid and cray cray idea I know put resources into building better capacity in our healthcare services 

Thanks Cap'n hindsight.

Pointing out the flaws that might have landed a country in the position of struggling to cope is in no way helpful. There's a wildfire headed for someone's house and you're standing there pointing out that they should have have spent the last decade creating some natural firebreaks around their land rather than expect the state to take extreme measures to help them.

In any case, we're not even talking about Ireland. We're talking about countries in general - wealthy EU countries with strong health systems - that are struggling to cope due to open economies and low vaccine uptake.

Since there's a lack of alternatives, I'm guessing your preferred approach is, "Let the infection burn through the population, overwhelm the hospital system, thousands of people will die preventable deaths because they can't access healthcare, but then they can pick up the pieces after.". Because that's better than mandatory vaccination.

Funsterdelux

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256965#Comment_118256965

Dr Lyons could do with cutting his nails

BanditLuke

Vaccines will be mandatory here by next spring imo. Other nations will show us the way.

purplefields

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256892#Comment_118256892

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256892#Comment_118256892

To be clear, I am saying that I do not know the answers to this stuff. I have not made my mind up about anything one way or another. This is because I can't. The evidence simply is not there yet.

It will take time to see what the effects of the vaccination program is, especially for 5-11 age group.

So I do not know.

The Big Easy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118253705#Comment_118253705

The thing is it's not as simple as that. Many on the right (traditional, not far right) foresaw a lot of what is happening now, regarding leftwing liberalism and identity politics and the view that such positions would eventually erode personal freedom, the very thing they purported to be supporting the first place.

Being truly rightwing traditionally means being in favour of small government and minimal interference in the private lives of individuals. And rightwing libertarianism means Personal freedom above and before anything else including public health.

Leftwing generally is far more collective in nature and more likely to prioritise collective needs such as public health like we now see. This was always the fear that leftwing liberalism could tip into totalitarianism and the true right was always fearful of this.

I never thought they were correct in this fear, but turns out they were!

The far right and authoritarianism was always a red herring when it comes to the traditional right left cleavage.

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257072#Comment_118257072

Conspiracy theory thread is that way >>>>>🤣

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257051#Comment_118257051

And here's a perfect example of revving up the hyperbole and not actually reading what has been written.

I did say:

Now if this were smallpox because of the monumetally serious threat to society I'd be in favour of chucking out hard won personal rights in favour mandatory vaccines, but it isn't. It isn't within an asses bloody roar of something like that. It is in actual demonstrable fact the single least deadly pandemic in world history. In Ireland forty percent of all deaths from covid were in people who were 85 or older. Five years older than the mean age of death for Irish people. That demographic are in the vast majority of cases vaccinated and boosted. As are the vast majority of the immune and health compromised, as are the majority of people over 18 in general. If any of those choose not to be, then tough I say.

Every stat above is an actual hard fact. Not hyperbole about thousands dying. Fact. Those preventable deaths were in the majority of cases in the unvaccinated before the vaccines came along and in the over 65's and even in that demographic 99.3% of the over 65's didn't die from covid. The vast majority of the vulnerable have been vaccinated now, by choice. And it doesn't matter that it's Ireland. Even if we had mandatory vaccination in the morning in the EU(something I would resist with extreme prejudice), we would still have European non EU nations who won't, never mind the rest of the world unless you also want to do a New Zealand two years too late. We'd still have virus reservoirs all around us and given the vaccines are all leaky and only reduce transmission and only do so for a short period of time so we'd be boosting to beat the band every six or less months, while throwing in half arsed and contradictory "circuit breaks" every few months, it's hardly a great solution at all, or good reason to instigate laws which directly affect personal liberty. It has long amazed but not surprised me how quick even the intelligent can be to jump to authoritarianism out of panic.

At no point have I ever come close to suggesting letting the "infection burn through the population", a hyperbolic statement in itself. My position is this as I stated earlier when the seasonal flu vaccine was brought up:

Flu vaccines and the reasons for them are quite different and even there they're primarily aimed at the elderly, immuncompromised and otherwise vulnerable, or those around them like medical staff and carers. They're required in those groups because the virus mutates more and variants are more likely to partially or entirely bypass previous immunity, so tweaked vaccines need to be delivered.

So far the existing vaccines cope with the various covid variants, including it seems omricon. The annual tweaked flu vaccines do little to stamp out the flu seasons every year. People still catch flu on the regular. Plus for the vast majority of people the flu is mild, that is doesn't require hospitalisation and we should be increasing overflow capacity anyway like I suggested for covid, which would help with the flu, pneumonia and similar in the winter months.

As it stands we already live with the influenza virus as IMHO we should with covid, so long as the already vaccinated exhibit asymptomatic or mild symptoms and a massively reduced incidence of serious illness and deaths that impacts our overloaded and under capacity health services. Again it is my opinion and I'd bet the farm virologists would agree with me that we've almost zero chance of making covid 19 extinct by any of the current means at our disposal. It's far more likely to mutate itself into extinction. What we can do and are doing is reducing it to a disease we can live with, by protecting those that need protection and the current vaccines do that, boosters for the vulnerable and long term immune memory responses for the rest of us that reduce the risks of serious illness and death. Hell given the actual real world risks of serious illness and death before vaccines for the under 40's was daftly tiny, if all we did in the future was vaccinate the over 40's and the health compromised we'd have a fair chance of living with this pox. Just like we currently do with influenza.

For me that's a far far better aim than trying and failing - and we will fail IMHO - to wipe it out, or even get close to that. We've wiped out smallpox and we're nearly there with polio, but comparing either of them to covid 19 is for lots of reasons futile.

This is a better plan iMHO than what is being attempted and wouldn't require any hindsight change to our healthcare services at first, nor would it require mandating mass vaccinations. Even if you brought in such a daft law you would still have pockets of resistance to it and the unvaccinated. In Ireland that number would be low enough as we tend to be a servile culture when it comes to authority by our "betters"(Vaccines will be mandatory here by next spring imo. Other nations will show us the way)., but try that in France, or Italy, or Spain. The Latins tend to get uppity about such things, never mind places like Poland or Latvia. IIRC a large chunk of the unvaccinated in Irish hospitals are from EU eastern European nations.

robfowler78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256971#Comment_118256971

your right it will be a slow turn to try and change peoples mindset after 2yrs of been basically told this is the worst thing to hit mankind. Don’t get me wrong in the beginning when we didn’t know much we needed the caution and the slow pace but now we know a lot more about this virus mainly it’s going nowhere.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256766#Comment_118256766

the incoming chancellor has stated there will be an open vote on the topic. Democracy

A Parliamentary vote.

First you are ridiculing people who say we will soon have mandatory vaccination here. Then you're saying, well if it's democratic it's ok.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257072#Comment_118257072

The conspiracy theory forum is thataway ----------->

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256612#Comment_118256612

This is all only a conspiracy theory according to the geniuses on here so it's all good. 👍

Timmy O Toole

What does mandatory vaccine actually mean. No body is going to be held down and jabbed against their will surely? Anyone who hadn't taken it at this stage likely isn't going to take it under any circumstances?

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257390#Comment_118257390

Well in Greece it's a €100 per month fine if the over 60s don't get one. Austria talking about very hefty fines of €7,200. Not many people can afford that to hold out. Add to that universal requirement for the Covid cert and that's how it will be effectively mandatory.

iamwhoiam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257390#Comment_118257390

I wondered that myself . Will they strap them down on trolleys in City West !!

i would imagine though it will be mandatory for entry into places or access to certain benefits maybe ?

namloc1980

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-impose-restrictions-unvaccinated-break-covid-surge-2021-12-02/?taid=61a8d4ed0e1978000147a06f&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

Lockdowns on the unvaccinated and mandatory vaccinations coming to Germany but not to worry though, it's only a conspiracy theory.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256034#Comment_118256034

Only the death of Fungie shared headline space in the first twelve months.

Damn I miss that dolphin.

Polar101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257407#Comment_118257407

They'd probably introduce something like mandatory covid passes for workplaces, so that you'd need it pretty much everywhere.

(Don't see the need for mandatory vaccines in Ireland myself, the vaccine uptake rate is very high already, nor do I think it's going to happen in the near future)

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257463#Comment_118257463

Where have you just popped up from ? It was a joke, you see the smiley. I have been one of the most vocal people on this place pointing out all of those things for the last year, and took more criticism for it than most.

growleaves

The President of Austria Alexander Van Der Bellen has said the mandvax has created "deep divisions".

Hey why not decimate social stability and have deep divisions all over Europe? Anything to halt this killer plague which is wiping out Europeans, soon there'll be no one left.

yerwanthere123

We'd a band of four 'protestors' arrive at our school today fighting their cause. Stood outside the school gates, waving signs and chanting about letting children breathe. Would be grand if it was done peacefully but the school gates are quite near to the windows, meaning that they disturbed every single class in progress. Even shouted to "take off your masks" at a group of 5th class pupils walking by. Two of the four also have children in the school. Really difficult to imagine the thinking behind these stunts, and what they might hope to achieve.

seamus

@Wibbs wrote

And here's a perfect example of revving up the hyperbole and not actually reading what has been written.

This is fun, because you think I was making a different point than the one you read.

What we can do and are doing is reducing it to a disease we can live with, by protecting those that need protection and the current vaccines do that, boosters for the vulnerable and long term immune memory responses for the rest of us that reduce the risks of serious illness and death.

Exactly. Now, what happens when the "rest of us" are refusing to be vaccinated? Actual hard facts; a healthy unvaccinated person is 15 to 20 times more likely to land in ICU than a vaccinated one.

According to you:

If any of those choose not to be, then tough I say.

So you're saying that hospitals should refuse to treat the unvaccinated. Maybe you wouldn't advocate a "die on the streets" approach, but presumably you mean "they can't have an ICU bed". In which case you'll send them home or maybe hire out the RDS to act as a place to hold unvaccinated people who are circling the drain.

The actual hard fact is that while you have a significant proportion of the population unvaccinated, there is no "living with covid", because your hospital system will struggle to cope. This is not smallpox or 'flu. And it's also not the 1920s or the 1950s. If this was the 1920s, we would have field hospitals where people go to die because there's fvck all else we can do for them. If this was the 1920s, that 1% of people who currently go to the ICU, would have to settle for crossing their fingers and hoping their body doesn't give up.

Thankfully there is something we can do to help people now, but it comes with a capacity limit. Once you hit that capacity limit, it's 1920 again.

What you state is a "far better plan", is no different to just letting the infection do what it does and picking up the pieces after.

Again, the issue here is not discussing the failings of the past or planning new ICU beds for delivery in 2023. It is addressing the very real issue right in front of countries, right now. A large cohort of people who are unvaccinated, rapidly increasing incidence of the infection, and a hospital system that cannot cope with the combination of the two. What can they do in the next 3-6 months?

It seems like your preference is either:

• Refuse medical treatment for the unvaccinated to protect the hospitals
• Lockdown again until sufficient hospital capacity has been built, or
• **** it, lets just see what happens

For the avoidance of doubt - I'm not saying mandatory vaccinations are the way to go, I'm merely teasing out Von der Leyen's comment that it is important that the matter is discussed. Thinking that if we don't discuss mandatory vaccinations then it won't happen, is like the puritanical approach to sex education.

If we want to avoid it as much as possible, it is important that it is put on the table and discussed.

hollypink

When are we likely to hear the NPHET recommendations, some time tomorrow? Gavan Reilly's tweet has me worried about what restrictions are coming.

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1466429275641421827?s=20

corkie

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/1st-midwest-case-of-covid-omicron-variant-confirmed-in-minnesota/2698415/

The person with the variant, according to Minnesota's health department, is an adult male resident of Hennepin County who had been vaccinated. His symptoms "have resolved."

According to health officials, the person developed mild symptoms on Nov. 22 and was tested for COVID on Nov. 24. He reported traveling to New York City and attended the Anime NYC 2021 convention from Nov. 19-21 at the Javits Center.

2nd case for USA, no travel history to Africa so community infection in NYC.

CONFIRMED Global CASES 385 (which may include 2 in USA).

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/11/omicron-tracker/

3 In Iceland

While first suspected to be the case yesterday, it has now been confirmed, Vísir reports, that the Omicron variant has been detected in a patient at Landspítali hospital. The individual in question has not even been abroad, so it is still uncertain where and how exactly they contracted the virus.

Edit: - Sorry this was posted to the wrong thread.

namloc1980

It's very concerning where our liberal European democracies are going - mandatory vaccinations, social segregation, tearing down freedom of movement and economic turmoil.

For Germany of all countries with their history to embark on the social exclusion of a particular group of people and to propose mandatory medical interventions, is scary to say the least.

FlubberJones

Can anyone advise which shops are selling the Antigen testing kits, I am booking some flights for the weekend and prior to that I'd rather ensure I'm clear of any infection.

ziggyman17

who is this hotel quarantine for ? If myself and my wife travel abroad for christmas, wil we have to go to a hotel to quarantine ? or is only for people who have no fixed address here in Ireland ?

CruelSummer

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1466392778477297668?s=21

What gives Varadkar the authority to suddenly declare the vaccines are three course and not discretionary. Social contract broken once again. Will people who suffered severe side effects to dose 2 be exempt or will they be forced to kill themselves for the ‘greater good’.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257685#Comment_118257685

I added the point to the end of my post. We are part of a social and economic union. We may be well placed to move forward and cope with this virus, but other countries in the union are not. Demonising mandatory vaccines and sitting on our high horse is well and good coming from a position of privilege that we have. The matter has to be discussed, and it has to have its place, otherwise it will come about precisely because of that panicky reactive governance you talk about.

Timmy O Toole

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257638#Comment_118257638

It's literally called "booster" on the vaccine cert.

floorpie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118257674#Comment_118257674

This PR approach is quite bizarre as the manufacturers are calling it/trialling it as a booster, i.e. they're testing specific dosages for the "third dose"