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

Professor Moriarty

bikeman1 wrote: »

No, once a week on a Friday afternoon, around 2-3pm.

Thankfully they have disappeared to almost irrelevance. They should never have been given that platform. My Dad was in a big panic last week after Holohan's comments about "dark clouds" re: Indian variant etc. Said it will all be bad here again and that the vaccines don't work etc.

At this stage they (NPHET) should just send official letters to the Dept. of Health and let the government make their own (probably useless) decisions.

As a matter of interest, if you believe that NPHET and the government have been useless, what would you have suggested as an alternative?

bikeman1

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

As a matter of interest, if you believe that NPHET and the government have been useless, what would you have suggested as an alternative?

I don't have time to go through it properly but some highlights for me would be:

Nursing Homes.
Lack of adopting the mandatory wearing of masks (Asian countries did this on day 1) for months.
Continued fear and closure of the economy in June last year with a handful of cases.
Punitive travel restrictions that had no scientific basis (locking densely populated city areas to 5km).
A "meaningful Christmas"
Not having a proper test and trace system in place after 9 months by the end of December / January.
One of the longest lockdowns in the world despite the hospitals being empty.
MHQ locking away healthy people returning to Ireland for essential purposes and the whole handling of the thing.
Poor communication from the government nearly throughout. Kiteflying, non answers, non commitment etc.

They would be some of my "highlights" on my view why they - NPHET and the government have been useless.

Professor Moriarty

bikeman1 wrote: »

I don't have time to go through it properly but some highlights for me would be:

Nursing Homes.
Lack of adopting the mandatory wearing of masks (Asian countries did this on day 1) for months.
Continued fear and closure of the economy in June last year with a handful of cases.
Punitive travel restrictions that had no scientific basis (locking densely populated city areas to 5km).
A "meaningful Christmas"
Not having a proper test and trace system in place after 9 months by the end of December / January.
One of the longest lockdowns in the world despite the hospitals being empty.
MHQ locking away healthy people returning to Ireland for essential purposes and the whole handling of the thing.
Poor communication from the government nearly throughout. Kiteflying, non answers, non commitment etc.

They would be some of my "highlights" on my view why they - NPHET and the government have been useless.

Sure. But what would your alternative to the government and NPHET have been?

feelings

Any recent information regarding the number of vaccines delivered, vaccines administered etc?

Lucas Hood

feelings wrote: »

Any recent information regarding the number of vaccines delivered, vaccines administered etc?

Vaccine thread would be your best bet for that.

Will cross the 2.5m threshold for vaccines administered today.

faolteam

Why was the wearing of face masks at the very beginning not mandatory when evidence was there it should ?

Mike3549

faolteam wrote: »

Why was the wearing of face masks at the very beginning not mandatory when evidence was there it should ?

There was a shortage of masks, if public bought them, there woyld be none left for hcw

Pdoghue

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Sure. But what would your alternative to the government and NPHET have been?

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

Is it: was there an alternative authority (e.g. in the private sector) that could have handled the pandemic better? Or was it the way the government and NPHET handled it?

To answer my first question, I don't happen to believe so. The state including NPHET was clearly the most appropriate. No private sector body could have harnessed the citizens as well as the state.

To answer my second question, I think the government and NPHET made certain mistakes at certain stages, examples of which were provided by bikeman1, so yes they could have done things better. But those decisions were not easy.

Professor Moriarty

Pdoghue wrote: »

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

Is it: was there an alternative authority (e.g. in the private sector) that could have handled the pandemic better? Or was it the way the government and NPHET handled it?

To answer my first question, I don't happen to believe so. The state including NPHET was clearly the most appropriate. No private sector body could have harnessed the citizens as well as the state.

To answer my second question, I think the government and NPHET made certain mistakes at certain stages, examples of which were provided by bikeman1, so yes they could have done things better. But those decisions were not easy.

I would agree. Mistakes were made, but overall, I thought the government did as well as could be expected and NPHET was/is very necessary as an authoritative source during a pandemic.

bucketybuck

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I would agree. Mistakes were made, but overall, I thought the government did as well as could be expected and NPHET was/is very necessary as an authoritative source during a pandemic.

This is just patently untrue.

For example, I would be confident in saying that any halfway competent government last March would have listened to all the people pointing out that nursing homes were badly at risk and taken some steps to mitigate that risk.

Instead we had Holohan telling staff not to wear masks and insisting that visitors did not bring covid and so should be encouraged. In the end, completely unsurprisingly, the vast majority of deaths and illnesses came from nursing homes and other healthcare settings.

Our government totally failed with regards to nursing homes when it was such an obvious thing that needed attention, you cannot possibly say they did "as well as can be expected" when there are such obvious and basic failures right there to be seen.

Cork2021

Okay actually lost my shît listening to this prick! What in the name of god has he been reading!!! Our government are idiots and that includes all TDs!!! We’ll never ever get out of this of crap like this is being talked about in the Dail! And without facts!!!

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1397181624287105031?s=21

Timmy O Toole

Just booked a holiday for early September. Get in before they announce the return of international travel , got it fairly cheap.

Amazing that I went to Portugal last July not a bother, but a year later, with over 2 million vaccinated its harder to go on holidays.

is_that_so

Cork2021 wrote: »

Okay actually lost my shît listening to this prick! What in the name of god has he been reading!!! Our government are idiots and that includes all TDs!!! We’ll never ever get out of this of crap like this is being talked about in the Dail! And without facts!!!

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1397181624287105031?s=21

It's just Kelly and he's been at that since July last year. He's been advised time and again, on this very site, to get some new advisers!

Vicxas

Cork2021 wrote: »

Okay actually lost my shît listening to this prick! What in the name of god has he been reading!!! Our government are idiots and that includes all TDs!!! We’ll never ever get out of this of crap like this is being talked about in the Dail! And without facts!!!

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1397181624287105031?s=21

This is actually baffling, there has been 0 proof that AZ is less effective in stopping the Indian variant.

Pure and utter scaremongering.

is_that_so

https://twitter.com/davidmurphyRTE/status/1397133120525193219

muddypuppy

is_that_so wrote: »

https://twitter.com/davidmurphyRTE/status/1397133120525193219

I honestly have no idea who she is, but to be honest I also think, especially now that we might be in "endgame", that those powers should not be extended by 6 months in one go. Extend them for 4-6 weeks every time until it's not necessary anymore. If they because a necessity again, they can be granted again, but we should not extend them "just in case".

Professor Moriarty

bucketybuck wrote: »

This is just patently untrue.

For example, I would be confident in saying that any halfway competent government last March would have listened to all the people pointing out that nursing homes were badly at risk and taken some steps to mitigate that risk.

Instead we had Holohan telling staff not to wear masks and insisting that visitors did not bring covid and so should be encouraged. In the end, completely unsurprisingly, the vast majority of deaths and illnesses came from nursing homes and other healthcare settings.

Our government totally failed with regards to nursing homes when it was such an obvious thing that needed attention, you cannot possibly say they did "as well as can be expected" when there are such obvious and basic failures right there to be seen.

I did say that "mistakes were made". Perhaps you were reading too quickly. Regardless, having observed other governments' performance during the pandemic, I remain convinced that our government did relatively well overall.

bucketybuck

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I did say that "mistakes were made". Perhaps you were reading too quickly. Regardless, having observed other governments' performance during the pandemic, I remain convinced that our government did relatively well overall.

So apart from all the basic mistakes that cost lives they did well.

To be honest, whatever about doing well, I think you would be hard pressed to explain what they actually did at all. What did they do? Or more succinctly, what did they do that a cardboard cutout of Micheal Martin couldn't have done just as well?

Remember, lock everything down until somebody else finds a vaccine isnt a plan, it's what you do when you don't know what to do...

stephenjmcd

365 cases, obviously subject to change etc

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1397225668648263685?s=19

MerlinSouthDub

stephenjmcd wrote: »

365 cases, obviously subject to change etc

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1397225668648263685?s=19

Nice stable numbers. Vaccine effect has offset any increase from re-opening of intercounty travel. Decent chance that case numbers will fall a bit between now and the next phase of re-opening on 2nd/7th June, as vaccine effect gathers pace.

What Username Guidelines

stephenjmcd wrote: »

365 cases, obviously subject to change etc

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1397225668648263685?s=19

Decent drop (–24) in hospital number.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

muddypuppy wrote: »

I honestly have no idea who she is, but to be honest I also think, especially now that we might be in "endgame", that those powers should not be extended by 6 months in one go. Extend them for 4-6 weeks every time until it's not necessary anymore. If they because a necessity again, they can be granted again, but we should not extend them "just in case".

I’d agree with her. It’s disproportionate. They should be reviewed and renewed only if needed, monthly or every 6 weeks. It’s at best lazy.

Amirani

faolteam wrote: »

Why was the wearing of face masks at the very beginning not mandatory when evidence was there it should ?

There wasn't evidence to support the mandating of facemasks at the very beginning. There had been some study previously on the usefulness of facemasks in clinical settings versus influenza, but it was pretty equivocal on non-medical grade face coverings in non-clinical settings (particularly for a novel Coronavirus).

If droplets and fomites had been a much bigger deal, then inappropriately used facemasks may have created problems.

It's all easy to say in hindsight that they should have been promoted earlier, but there's an understandable hesitancy in medicine and public health to mandate people to do things without an evidence base.

Economics101

OK, so we have the DoH daily report of Covid cases: 365 (subject to revision)

I know that the HSE IT hacking crisis is preventing a lot of information being published. But the DoH, HSE, NPHET and all the other official actors continue to make policy recommendations and decisions. What information do they have? There is no new daily vaccination rollout data, even though we are told that the programme is proceeding normally. We have no regular information on the local (LEA) incidence of Covid, but there are media reports of higher than "normal" levels in Limerick.

If the powers that be have as little information as they publish, are they flying blind? My guess is they have much more than they publish, albeit the accuracy levels are not quite as high as before the hack. Why keep the public in the dark to such an extent?

The mushroom theory of public administration is alive and well: "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em s**t".

Boggerman12

Cork2021 wrote: »

Okay actually lost my shît listening to this prick! What in the name of god has he been reading!!! Our government are idiots and that includes all TDs!!! We’ll never ever get out of this of crap like this is being talked about in the Dail! And without facts!!!

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1397181624287105031?s=21

Kelly has been taken in by the zero COVID fanatics and that’s been clear for a long time.

AlmightyCushion

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

I’d agree with her. It’s disproportionate. They should be reviewed and renewed only if needed, monthly or every 6 weeks. It’s at best lazy.

Only 2 months she was calling for the government to go zero covid.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Only 2 months she was calling for the government to go zero covid.

That was mostly about border sanitary controls and short sharp get it out of the system lockdown, in few weeks and reopen to New Zealand like normality. It’s not something anyone was really willing to do though and it’s far far too late and too complicated with the open UK border.

They weren’t advocating months and months and months and months of restrictions in that. Rather the complete opposite.

We went for the slow and painful approach, along with the rest of Europe.

The zero COVID ship sailed early on in the outbreak really.

The choices are made and there’s no point in complaining about the endemic COVID. It’s here to stay and vaccines are now really the only show in town.

is_that_so

Economics101 wrote: »

OK, so we have the DoH daily report of Covid cases: 365 (subject to revision)

I know that the HSE IT hacking crisis is preventing a lot of information being published. But the DoH, HSE, NPHET and all the other official actors continue to make policy recommendations and decisions. What information do they have? There is no new daily vaccination rollout data, even though we are told that the programme is proceeding normally. We have no regular information on the local (LEA) incidence of Covid, but there are media reports of higher than "normal" levels in Limerick.

If the powers that be have as little information as they publish, are they flying blind? My guess is they have much more than they publish, albeit the accuracy levels are not quite as high as before the hack. Why keep the public in the dark to such an extent?

The mushroom theory of public administration is alive and well: "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em s**t".

That data is coming from swabs, which are reliable after a fashion, none of the rest of it can be processed fully until the HSE IT situation has been remedied. We also know the hospital numbers and roughly how many vaccines have been administered, all the rest is for data junkies. What exact decisions do you imagine they are making on the fly?

Lumen

stephenjmcd wrote: »

365 cases, obviously subject to change etc

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1397225668648263685?s=19

Piecing together stats from news reports over the last week, I get:

Tue 25 365
Mon 24 345
Sun 23 438
Sat 22 381
Fri 21 524
Thu 20 469
Wed 19 503
---
7 day avg: 432

That's with a couple of % of where we were before the hack, despite Limerick. Good news!

is_that_so

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

That was mostly about border sanitary controls and short sharp get it out of the system lockdown, in few weeks and reopen to New Zealand like normality. It’s not something anyone was really willing to do though.

They weren’t advocating months and months and months and months of restrictions in that. Rather the complete opposite.

We went for the slow and painful approach, along with the rest of Europe.

NPHET called that short sharp shock approach a false hope, especially given we are not an isolated rock in the Pacific.