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

Klonker

hmmm wrote: »

I've had a good read of it now, and it's well written.

More than anything else it seems to be the lack of a second vaccine for at-risk groups which is causing the problem. Anyone who says that the "vulnerable are vaccinated" doesn't have the full picture. So you see lots of infections in the young who are at relatively low-risk, but the older and vulnerable populations with only a single dose are then at significant risk.

It's hard to argue with the figures as presented. Things should look much better in late July as the over 50s and the group 7 get their second doses.

Sorry but it's not well written. Taken what that ECDC said that countries in Europe should be wary of further easing and applying it to us with indoor dining still closed. The ECDC probably don't even know we don't have indoor dining yet. They're talking about countries taking the next step like the UK and getting rid of masks and social distancing. NPHET know this but the still use ECDC advise to support their narrative.

Put it back to 19th July and open fully then so. Everyone over 45 and cohorts 4 & 7 will be fully vaccinated then. And it's not like the day restaurants open people will be catching covid left right and centre. They've basically said nobody under 40 is going to die so who's dieing?

And in the vaccine pass for dining, name one country apart from Israel (who were first in world so were more experimenting than anything) who wont accept an antigen test for indoor dining. You're making it out like we're moving in line with others when in fact we are moving further away.

Can't believe you're still pretending to yourself this stuff makes sense.

Klonker

Can Michael Martin not pick up the phone to one of the leaders in Europe and ask them what their planning or do with Delta "what are yer modellers projecting? I think ours have gone a bit insane!“.

Prisoner6409

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

Sobit1964

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

Was there an upturn in cases?

That spam post missed a trick by not having an covid passport option.

Father Hernandez

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

Australia has a 7 day average of 28 covid cases, they're doing well.

hmmm

hmmm wrote: »

Page 9 of the letter is the key one I think.

They are estimating a "conservative" transmission advantage of 1.55 time Alpha. That's too high I think, the UK seems to be looking at 1.4 . The figures are changing all the time however.

Their higher estimate is 1.6.

Based on their models, I would say the most likely outcome is somewhere around their "Central 1" scenario (450 in ICU), and increasing vaccinations will bring that figure down over time.

But I can understand they want to be cautious in the face of a lot of uncertainty. A few weeks delay will buy the at-risk groups a lot of extra protection, and also give us much better information on Delta.

That is not what was announced at all today though. We announced that a few weeks from now we'll hopefully have a plan that will allow only fully vaccinated people to dine indoors. There is no date mentioned for non vaccinated.

I very much doubt non vaccinated will be dining indoors in just a few weeks. At least not if NPHET have their way.

Prisoner6409

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

If they now have 14+ months of restrictions comparable to what we've had then maybe the comparison would be worth talking about.

Klonker

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

What upturn in cases?

Oz have been going for zero covid from the start, we never had. How come the rest of Europe with dining open aren't looking or lock back down like us? How come their bodies aren't piling up like NPHETs projections?

Klonker

Yeah it's not just the delay. It's the delay and then only for vaccinated until herd immunity it sounds like.

Plus Tony threw on a bit again about not recommending travel for unvaccinated. Wait til it gets closer to the date and they give projections for that. Unvaccinated will be locked in this country with no where to go and nothing to do.

Stheno

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

They have vaccinated à miniscule amount of people

muddypuppy

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Has anyone seen what is happening in Australia, only months ago they were being lauded as having done the right thing and were out of the woods, now many places have gone back into total Lockdown. It's a bit rich of these business people castigating the Government and NPHET for changing the dates for a return to normal, this is a fluid situation and it is the Virus that is dictating what happens, if we ignore the upturn in cases we could very well end up in another total Lockdown with more deaths.

They went for the zero covid approach, and get all the benefits and the issues from it. On one side, sharp localized lockdowns, barely and foreign travel (which is not only about holidays), on the other months of basically back to normality.
They'll be in lockdown a couple of weeks and then back to normal.

Here instead we have the government saying that we're not going for a zero covid strategy, while implementing some measures that only make sense in that regard like MHQ, but without implementing the others like sharp localized lockdowns, antigen testing and proper contact tracing.
Thanks to this "we're not really living with covid but we're not really doing zero covid either" strategy we're enjoying the longest lockdown in the world.

But no worries, just a couple more weeks. Hold tight.

Doctors room ghost

Klonker wrote: »

Can Michael Martin not pick up the phone to one of the leaders in Europe and ask them what their planning or do with Delta "what are yer modellers projecting? I think ours have gone a bit insane!“.

He’d probably have to ask the leak could he use the phone first

hmmm

Deleted User wrote: »

That is not what was announced at all today though. We announced that a few weeks from now we'll hopefully have a plan that will allow only fully vaccinated people to dine indoors. There is no date mentioned for non vaccinated.

I very much doubt non vaccinated will be dining indoors in just a few weeks. At least not if NPHET have their way.

We could have done what other countries have done and opened indoors locations to vaccinated people today, but we chose not to plan for that. Many of the same people giving out now were also the same people saying it would be "unfair" to have vaccine passports. So we are where we are because of the choices we have made, and because we didn't plan for the unexpected.

Delta has put a spanner in the works absolutely, and the modelling from ECDC and others would suggest that you need very high levels of vaccinations (which we will get to) to suppress it. It's not at all clear to me what the future holds, other than to say that I think people who have been fully vaccinated should have very little worry about this or future variants.

There are industry representatives in the media today saying that they oppose a plan to allow vaccinated-only indoors, as if that is somehow going to force the government to ignore the medical advice. When will they ever learn?

is_that_so

hmmm wrote: »

Page 9 of the letter is the key one I think.

They are estimating a "conservative" transmission advantage of 1.55 time Alpha. That's too high I think, the UK seems to be looking at 1.4 . The figures are changing all the time however.

Their higher estimate is 1.6.

Based on their models, I would say the most likely outcome is somewhere around their "Central 1" scenario (450 in ICU), and increasing vaccinations will bring that figure down over time.

But I can understand they want to be cautious in the face of a lot of uncertainty. A few weeks delay will buy the at-risk groups a lot of extra protection, and also give us much better information on Delta.

450 in ICU from a current level of about 15?! Again unmitigated guesses are of no use to anyone, a very common problem with this type of modelling. It looks far more like a what if than any real world resemblance but I doubt there'll be any apology for how spectacularly wrong it's likely to be.

is_that_so

Father Hernandez wrote: »

Australia has a 7 day average of 28 covid cases, they're doing well.

4% vaccinated.

Klonker

hmmm wrote: »

We could have done what other countries have done and opened indoors locations to vaccinated people today, but we chose not to plan for that. Many of the same people giving out now were also the same people saying it would be "unfair" to have vaccine passports. So we are where we are because of the choices we have made, and because we didn't plan for the unexpected.

Delta has put a spanner in the works absolutely, and the modelling from ECDC and others would suggest that you need very high levels of vaccinations (which we will get to) to suppress it. It's not at all clear to me what the future holds, other than to say that people who have been fully vaccinated should have very little worry about this or future variants.

These industry representatives in the media today saying that they oppose a plan to allow vaccinated only indoors, as if that is somehow going to force the government to ignore the medical advice. When will they ever learn?

You keep ignoring in your posts the fact these other countries you allude to also accept antigen testing for dining. Its not gone unnoticed. It shows you have an agenda to make what NPHET are saying more reasonable. Why lay out the facts as they are if you think it's a fair stance and let the facts speak for themselves.

Also those countries have indoor dining open for MONTHS now. I think most would very happily swap with any country in Europe to be honest.

corcaigh07

Klonker wrote: »

Yeah it's not just the delay. It's the delay and then only for vaccinated until herd immunity it sounds like.

Plus Tony threw on a bit again about not recommending travel for unvaccinated. Wait til it gets closer to the date and they give projections for that. Unvaccinated will be locked in this country with no where to go and nothing to do.

MM basically said in the briefing that it's only because we are Europeans that Irish can apply for a Digital Green Cert on the basis of negative tests.

If the EU left it to us, only the fully vaccinated would be leaving from ROI.

stephenjmcd

hmmm wrote: »

We could have done what other countries have done and opened indoors locations to vaccinated people today, but we chose not to plan for that. Many of the same people giving out now were also the same people saying it would be "unfair" to have vaccine passports. So we are where we are because of the choices we have made, and because we didn't plan for the unexpected.

Delta has put a spanner in the works absolutely, and the modelling from ECDC and others would suggest that you need very high levels of vaccinations (which we will get to) to suppress it. It's not at all clear to me what the future holds, other than to say that I think people who have been fully vaccinated should have very little worry about this or future variants.

There are industry representatives in the media today saying that they oppose a plan to allow vaccinated-only indoors, as if that is somehow going to force the government to ignore the medical advice. When will they ever learn?

Hmmm I mean this in the most respectful way as you've had some very balanced opinions throughout but that's a load of rubbish. The modelling is all over the place and contains highly unrealistic scenarios built on unrealistic inputs and why is it unrealistic because of vaccines, there's not a hope in hell that hospitals come anywhere near these projections. You can frame it whatever way you want but the last 24hrs if not longer than this have been a complete shambles.

The country needs to have a serious conversation regarding acceptance of risk, and there is always going to be risk, but not a conversation built around guess work which I've no doubt will be miles off

hmmm

Klonker wrote: »

You keep ignoring in your posts the fact these other countries you allude to also accept antigen testing for dining. Its not gone unnoticed. It shows you have an agenda to make what NPHET are saying more reasonable. Why lay out the facts as they are if you think it's a fair stance and let the facts speak for themselves.

I've said before that I don't understand the opposition to antigen testing.

But it's just another tool which is not particularly accurate, and it's not going to do much if Delta becomes widespread in the community - you only need to miss one infected person to put people who are sharing the same indoor location with them at risk.

There's no magic answer here.

CIARAN_BOYLE

All the modeling on delta seems to assume that a new lockdown is impossible. I wonder why that is.

Personally I prefer a steady state scenario where we never lockdown again to one where numbers go out of control and in six weeks we talk about a new lockdown.

Klonker

hmmm wrote: »

I've said before that I don't understand the opposition to antigen testing.

But it's just another tool which is not particularly accurate, and it's not going to do much if Delta becomes widespread in the community - you only need to miss one infected person to put people who are sharing the same indoor location with them at risk.

There's no magic answer here.

Well stop making comparisons to those countries with our situation. Are only country in EU with indoor dining closed and when we do open it up, when the most vulnerable 55% of the adult population are vaccinated we'll be only country in EU only letting recovered or fully vaccinated to dine. There is no comparison or us, not even close.

timmyntc

hmmm wrote: »

I've said before that I don't understand the opposition to antigen testing.

But it's just another tool which is not particularly accurate, and it's not going to do much if Delta becomes widespread in the community - you only need to miss one infected person to put people who are sharing the same indoor location with them at risk.

There's no magic answer here.

Antigen testing allows for 50% of cases to be caught.
Currently we have 0% of cases being caught, because we dont employ rapid antigen testing.

The only time you get a test in this country is pre-flight or for contact tracing.
Antigen testing should be in addition to this - its an incredibly effective tool we should also be deploying, but Tony Holohan feels differently so for that reason we are an EU outlier.

Klonker

timmyntc wrote: »

Antigen testing allows for 50% of cases to be caught.
Currently we have 0% of cases being caught, because we dont employ rapid antigen testing.

The only time you get a test in this country is pre-flight or for contact tracing.
Antigen testing should be in addition to this - its an incredibly effective tool we should also be deploying, but Tony Holohan feels differently so for that reason we are an EU outlier.

It's 80% of infectious cases actually and that's self administered tests. From NPHETs own report

hmmm

Golf Crazy Guy wrote: »

If only we had a proper and functioning health service then the country would be in a far better place and reopening society and unlocking the economy would have carried on. From recent health ministers from MM, to Mary Harney, to James Reilly, to Leo V, to Simon Harris and now Stephen Donnelly, to their dysfunctional departments, they may talk the good game, but in actual performance and implementation of the necessary reforms key to a functioning and effective public health service, they have failed miserably. That is where people's angst should be directed at.

Quote from the letter below. We have basically no spare capacity in our health system.

"The number of available inpatient acute beds has declined significantly in recent weeks, with just 171 vacant beds across the system this morning at 8am, and 176 people on trolleys awaiting admission........and overall today there are 258 critical care beds occupied from a total of 300 available."

is_that_so

timmyntc wrote: »

Antigen testing allows for 50% of cases to be caught.
Currently we have 0% of cases being caught, because we dont employ rapid antigen testing.

The only time you get a test in this country is pre-flight or for contact tracing.
Antigen testing should be in addition to this - its an incredibly effective tool we should also be deploying, but Tony Holohan feels differently so for that reason we are an EU outlier.

De Gascun actually and there are probably a few others too in NPHET. Henry doesn't seem terribly keen on them either.

bucketybuck

hmmm wrote: »

Many of the same people giving out now were also the same people saying it would be "unfair" to have vaccine passports.

Why do you keep saying this?

There is no contradiction whatsoever in believing that the current restrictions are unwarranted and also that vaccine passports would be unfair and unnecessary.

Silentcorner

I think it is fair to say that there is something broken in this country.

We've been impacted more or less the same as most other countries despite our young population advantage by this virus.

The people have had to suffer the deepest, most restrictive policies in the developed world, we have put more people out of work than anywhere else, we will have destroyed more businesses, we have borrowed the most per head to pay for it, we have never seen a cost benefit analysis.

We have been witnessing since last January crowds in stadiums and events in the likes of the US and Britain, now all over Europe and we are still led to believe our response is anywhere near normal.

No Antigen tests, debacle at our care homes, constant fear mongering that comes in waves every week by probably the best paid Health Bureaucrats in Europe who's only gear, after 16 months of this, is impose as much restrictions on the population as possible.

It is the most demented health policy any of us will ever see.

Doctor Jimbob

hmmm wrote: »

Quote from the letter below. We have basically no spare capacity in our health system.

"The number of available inpatient acute beds has declined significantly in recent weeks, with just 171 vacant beds across the system this morning at 8am, and 176 people on trolleys awaiting admission........and overall today there are 258 critical care beds occupied from a total of 300 available."

We have issues with hospital capacity every year, COVID or not. It will be under pressure again in the near future, COVID or not. What's the solution here? We keep a significant number of businesses closed or severely limited until our recurring healthcare system issues are resolved?

seamus

hmmm wrote: »

More than anything else it seems to be the lack of a second vaccine for at-risk groups which is causing the problem. Anyone who says that the "vulnerable are vaccinated" doesn't have the full picture. So you see lots of infections in the young who are at relatively low-risk, but the older and vulnerable populations with only a single dose are then at significant risk.

It's hard to argue with the figures as presented. Things should look much better in late July as the over 50s and the group 7 get their second doses.

Yeah, the numbers at the outset are fine, as is the rationale, it's just the models that go off on one (as well the enforcement recommendations)

As you say, the "Central 1" model seems about the most realistic - if we were to pause vaccinations. As it stands, 90% of the over-40s will be fully vaccinated by the end of the July. The cases could ramp up, but the projected hospital and death numbers to the end of September just don't add up unless you discount the vaccination programme completely.