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

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118485850#Comment_118485850

Quite sad really

My view of it is use the 'abundance of caution' to have an 'abundance of contingencies' in place for the next few months and be ready to roll those out if there's a problem, but otherwise try to open as much as we can and quite quickly, but just don't over hype it or raise expectations with Boris Johnson style nonsense, just on the off chance that it throws some weird curveball. We need to roll things back in a sane way - and that doesn't mean over cautious either.

If the coast is clear by summer, then I think maybe look at moving everything to putting broader, more system enhancing contingencies in place to ensure we are resourced for any future pandemics, particularly looking at making the primary care and hospital system more robust. We can't just keep fecking around with that. It's vital infrastructure and becomes basically national security infrastructure in the sense of ensuring the country can physically function in an event like we've just experienced.

We've no excuses for having this endless healthcare system omnishambles scenario. It's gong on for as long as I've been alive, and for a long time before that too - through enormous economic booms, busts, and everything else ... it's the one constant.

Sweet.Science

So after all the optimism of the last fee days NPHET may allow hospitality to open past 8pm and LV said we might have a good summer

Cork2021

Don’t mind what will people on boards complain about once this is over! Imagine how hard it’ll be for ISAG and independent sage! They’ll have serious issues!! Deepti is probably the worst of the lot! Just can’t let go! Long covid is her game! As far as I’m aware, pre pandemic people suffered with symptoms of viruses for a while after they happened…..

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1482410862300348426?s=21

cuttingtimber22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118485889#Comment_118485889

Or maybe just get normal life going again. And that does mean investing in the health service.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486106#Comment_118486106

Why do you continue to give whack jobs on twitter even more air space?

celt262

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486253#Comment_118486253

Exactly enough of them here already without importing more dribble.

JRant

Leo's comments are, well, classic Leo comments. Make out that lifting of restrictions is months away and when it goes soon, which it will, he can tell us what a great lad he is.

I wouldn't pay any heed to what he is saying right now.

vegandinner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486110#Comment_118486110

The irony is that We can’t afford to invest in the health service as we spent all the money closing the pubs for the benefit of public health.

So Varadkar confirming restrictions are not ending at the end of the month and will probably drag on until summer which based on previous government definition summer seems to be July.

Sounds like another scandalous excuse to kick the can down the road. What's the bets there'll be another variant as we get towards the end and we'll sh*t the bed for winter.

FintanMcluskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118485889#Comment_118485889

but just don't over hype it or raise expectations with Boris Johnson style nonsense

What Boris Johnson style nonsense??

Boris opened up last July as he planned, because they aren't afraid of their own shadows over there.

The nonsense is here in Ireland.

NPHET and government talking bollix last Summer about waiting until October 22nd to reopen so as not to have to roll back.

ACitizenErased

972 in hospital as of 8pm, up just 25 from last night. 88 in ICU, down 1 from last night.

I reckon hospital numbers could plummet this week.

MerlinSouthDub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486705#Comment_118486705

Yes, they'll certainly fall anyway. But they'll probably go slightly above 1000 in the morning, giving one last chance for the media to give us a headline - "Covid hospital numbers rise above 1000".

fm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486687#Comment_118486687

What does he mean?he is a sly old fucker with his statements/hints about what will happen,I presume pubs,clubs and matches to reopen fully very soon What's left then?masks and certs?they will probably be dragged out for as long as possible,I can't think off anymore.

agoodpunt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486705#Comment_118486705

This is always a busy time for hospitals which is why we are restricted not just about covid here, 99% vaxed I dont know anyone near to me sick 1 or 2 with sniffles

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486687#Comment_118486687

The virology of pandemics says they usually last about 5 years before becoming endemic.

With our modern technology we can probably get that down to 3 or 4. So we're most of way there, but yes there'll be other variants and there is feck all that can be done about them before they happen. But they do tend to get less serious as natural immunity to the base virus increases.

What I'm wondering is, what makes you think the Government *wants* to kick the can down the road?

Does it not occur to you, that as politicians facing into local elections in 2 years and a general election in 3, that no party in the Dáil would keep restrictions in place for one single second longer than they are advised by multiple people in the sector is absolutely necessary?!

Ah_well.

Why on February 1st can we not drop all restrictions in this country ? Why the hell are we yet again going with this staggered reopening bullshit? We have lost enough time with that nonsense.

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486878#Comment_118486878

"Nobody wants restrictions" says the country that hangs on to them tighter than a toddler to its favourite teddy.

I actually don't know how you can say "one single second longer than necessary" with a straight face. Even the guys in charge acknowledge that they were too cautious in the past with clinging onto restrictions.

brickster69

UK planning on scrapping all emergency covid laws in the spring. It also will apply to the devolved nations once repealed. Sounds like just a pass for travel if other countries require it and that's it done.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/health/1885742-uks-johnson-plans-to-scrap-covid-19-self-isolation-law---the-telegraph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486698#Comment_118486698

He set up a PR stunt “Freedom Day” during the Delta wave and then had to roll back on tons of his promises because he’s a tabloid journalist by nature.

You don’t make promises to end things that you can’t possibly know the outcome of.

Omicron would appear to be an entirely different scenario and it makes sense that we are likely to ditch whatever remaining restrictions we have.

If we can’t get hospitality, food and entertainment venues back we should be doing it as soon as is practical, but don’t go down the road of calling it some PR b/s tabloid hype nonsense.

If omicron is genuinely heading towards a positive outcome, and it looks very promising at this stage, we also need to start seeing some of that positivity and I think we are doing.

You’ll always get people who are glass half empty vs glass half full and in a scenario like this you’ll also get people who will be struggling to take any risks at all. That’s also just the reality of human behaviour. The challenge is to ensure we find some kind of pragmatic middle path that isn’t stupidly reckless but that also isn’t leaving us in some kind of fearful paralysis that we end up being far too slow.

I don’t think you can really compare now with last summer as we were dealing with a far more deadly issue back then and also vaccines were still rolling out. That’s not the case anymore.

The key thing is we need to actually learn from what just happened and treat the reform of healthcare as a very serious priority, and drive it though, even if it ruffles some feathers and upsets some status quo messes.

We got through this by the skin of our teeth and we were a lot more precariously exposed that we should have been given the resources we have and that has probably cost us billions. That’s the reality of it.

We need to also get a very much clearer picture of what we are actually spending on health, whether some aspects have hugely inflated costs, whether they’re totally inefficient and and also whether it is actually health spending at all. I mean there was a study a while back showing Ireland classified a huge amount of non healthcare depending, mostly social care and related spend into the health budget, which means we are possibly not even comparing like with like when we look at what we are spending vs other countries.

All I’m saying is if we haven’t learnt a hard lesson from this, we are doomed.

I also think that by and large, the vast, vast majority of the Irish population have been phenomenally good at dealing with a crisis. There has been a cool, calm, community spirited, good humoured, facts based, very logical pragmatism that isn’t something that’s been seen in a lot of other countries and it says something for our cohesiveness and we need to recognise it and it’s been across the spectrum of political persuasions and everything else too.

We need to hear some of the positives in this and I think sometimes aspects of the media have been way too depressing. There’s been amazing stuff going on throughout the pandemic.

is_that_so

1,006 in hospital today, 98 admission and 30 discharges.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118488019#Comment_118488019

Lowest # of admissions since the day after Stephen's Day.

We should expect a decent drop this week, likely well under 900 by the end of the week, if not closer to 800.

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118488028#Comment_118488028

I reckon we might get to 700/750 by the end of the week Seamus. If the weekend has only seen such a modest increase all indicators point to a big drop in numbers this week.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118488062#Comment_118488062

I wouldn't bet the house on it, but I wouldn't say that's unlikely either.

AdamD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118487488#Comment_118487488

I'd rather Boris' 'PR stunt' and no restrictions for the last 6 months, than our 'sensibility' and restrictions for the last 6 months with virtually the same covid outcome.

Some people can't see past Boris being a ****. He's still a ****, but he was right.

FintanMcluskey

NPHET has chosen "not to do their job properly", in areas such as data gathering and mitigation measures that aren't restrictions

Anthony Staines calling out NPHET, although he is a loon himself

He observed: “I don’t think NPHET has handled this very effectively from the start. At the beginning, everyone was very much at sea - but many other countries worked out what was going on a lot faster than our country.

As has been said countless times in this thread for a long long time.

NPHETs primary control measure was ghastly expensive, months long lockdowns that will cripple us financially and socially, for decades

https://www.newstalk.com/news/nphet-hasnt-done-their-job-properly-around-key-covid-measures-staines-1300173

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118484777#Comment_118484777

The 25k cases a day in April 2020 to achieve a natural fall off in cases really would have worked out well wouldnt it

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118488450#Comment_118488450

It's more transmissible now. We wouldn't have had 25K cases back then. And nobody had a problem with lockdown in April 2020 anyways.

Interesting that you've gone back almost 2 years to make a point though.

The reality is, we had completely unnecessary heavy restrictions in place for all of 2021 when it simply wasn't necessary. It achieved nothing but cost a lot. And now we're talking about summer again...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118488500#Comment_118488500

25k cases per day would have worked out will in spring 21 eh?

corkie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118486795#Comment_118486795

Has any media, given you that headline today?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118488019#Comment_118488019

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0117/1274105-coronavirus-ireland/