Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

FlubberJones

Ballynally wrote: »

At the same time:

"Tánaiste Leo Varadkar later acknowledged that there could be “teething problems” with the digital Covid travel cert, but said he hoped it would be ready to be issued at the same time as all other European Union member states."

He 'hoped' it would be ready. There 'could' be teething problems.
Less than 2 weeks from july 19.
'Issued at the same time as all other EU member states".
He means way way after everyone has gone before us.
What a farce!

This is ****ing rediculous... How can they mismanage stuff like this... it's incredibly important to people... FFS

FileNotFound

Red Silurian wrote: »

Take with a pinch of salt, sleepy Eamon probably just woke up from a bad dream in the Dail Chamber. Not reopening on the 19th means people could travel abroad on the cert to dine indoors but people travelling here on the cert couldn't.

Fair enough most people who go on holidays abroad from Ireland this time of the year find themselves dining outdoors anyway, but inbound tourism would be completely decimated

I wouldn't take it so lightly to be honest, we either continue to drive forward safe as we can or stutter on for some time.

Just my opinion mind.

Still don't get why we can't fix % vaccinations to each step in opening... Prob the best approach.

Floppybits

FlubberJones wrote: »

This is ****ing rediculous... How can they mismanage stuff like this... it's incredibly important to people... FFS

Because they don't give a sh*t.

FileNotFound

Floppybits wrote: »

I am not suggesting the suppressing of information but moving the focus from the number of infected to the numbers of infected in hospital. Did we ever report on the number of people who had flu?

No and we never mass tested for it.

If we did one could expect astounding numbers of seasonal flu - seriously astounding.

We are getting to that point where having one of the most aggressive test regimes (i am pro mass testing but acknowledge the issue) is resulting in us finding a lot of case numbers, but these do not translate into hospital cases or death at the moment.

Uk is in the same boat - think they are testing more than anyone but stand to be corrected on this.

gozunda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Is Twitter representative of the population at large?

https://twitter.com/SherbetJibJab/status/1412090934804856833

Ah ok so you're suggesting everyone on social media is a bot with that link or or is only those who support Boris et al and his flip flop policies who post genuine stuff ?

bloopy

b0nk1e wrote: »

The headline on the Irish Independent website at this particular point in time is advice on how to distinguish the lethal deadly variant virus from hay fever.

Scary times indeed

Red Silurian

FileNotFound wrote: »

I wouldn't take it so lightly to be honest, we either continue to drive forward safe as we can or stutter on for some time.

Just my opinion mind.

Still don't get why we can't fix % vaccinations to each step in opening... Prob the best approach.

Now that is scaremongering, no better than the scientists and doctors that are trying to warn us

MrMusician18

facehugger99 wrote: »

The response to this 'pandemic' would have been wholly different 25 or even 20 years ago. There would have been nowhere near the level, extent or duration of restrictions and the measures would have been far more proportionate and balanced to the actual dangers of Covid, versus the downside of flushing your economy down the drain.

Social media has even changed the way the mainstream media report on issues. The sober reporting of facts has been jettisoned in favour of hysteria and hyperbole.

The Government meanwhile are kite-flying and dancing to the tune of all the nonsense being posted.

Pot, please meet kettle.

Floppybits

FileNotFound wrote: »

No and we never mass tested for it.

If we did one could expect astounding numbers of seasonal flu - seriously astounding.

We are getting to that point where having one of the most aggressive test regimes (i am pro mass testing but acknowledge the issue) is resulting in us finding a lot of case numbers, but these do not translate into hospital cases or death at the moment.

Uk is in the same boat - think they are testing more than anyone but stand to be corrected on this.

This is why I am saying that we need to switch the focus from the case numbers to the hospital numbers. All people are focusing on are the case numbers and the getting themselves in a tizzy about the numbers. How many times do you hear people saying "Oh jaysus the numbers have gone up again over 400, what will we do?" where as you never hear "well did you hear the numbers in the hospital increased by 1?". I suppose that sort of news doesn't sell.

Ballynally

Deleted User wrote: »

If you exclude those who previously got the more serious symptoms who are now vaccinated, are the delta symptoms actually that different.

All the symptoms recorded against the delta variant were recorded for previous variants, just at a lower level. When you dont have serious symptoms, the less serious ones seem to increase but were always there.


CDC Data pre delta variant
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html

Good points.
Thats why it is hard to compare. But a few hospital doctors i know have told me they dont see Covid19 patients w organising pneumonia anymore, the main factor resulting in death in the first few waves.
Now, you can say 1: most really vulnerable, older people have already died, 2:the treatments are better, more use of steroids,no more putting people on ventilators in an early pulmonary stage.
Both good reasons. Add restrictions and people's behaviour in the mix and you get a pretty messed up line of variables.
Take your pick and come to your conclusion.
The only thing i keep saying is the fact that we KNOW variants become less lethal over time. The question is: what time?
A virus goes through a time line.
First, virus appears, few people w few symptoms (some people had SarsCov2 in late august) not sequenced. Virus mutates. More people w the same symptoms. Nrs still low but increasing. Flagged. Then a spike somewhere. Virus mutates again causing more severe symptoms. More transmission. Outbreaks. Increasing all over the world. Pandemic. Panic.
Wave goes down, virus mutates and strikes again.vaccines.virus mutates. Less severe symptoms, less death, endemic.
On the other hand, SarsCov1, MERS etc died out without going pandemic.even without vaccines.
So, we know how things go, in hindsight.
This one? A while to go yet especially in non western countries.

gozunda

gozunda wrote: »

Ah ok so you're suggesting everyone on social media is a bot with that link or or is only those who support Boris et al and his flip flop policies who post genuine stuff ?

I'm saying that Twitter and social media are not representative of the population at large and that things such those bot accounts should be discussed and not be relegated to the Conspiracy Theory forum. Especially since Twitter, in spite of its insignificance in the grand scheme of things, increasingly determines public policy.

Butson

Butson wrote: »

I think we are an immature race of people that are almost happy with being dictated to. There's a comfort in it.

The Church ran this country for 75 years, and politicians were happy to let them do it.
They are happy to let NEPHET do it now. All cheered on by the media, especially RTE.
Nephet, HSE, RTE and all the pro lockdown voices in Ireland - all have secure jobs and pensions. Hilariously, many of these people have not got one, but two pay rises since this disaster happened.

Risable.

The main problem is the non-functioning Fourth Estate.

Pwindedd

I wonder if this “pass-for-a-glass” will take into account all the people who didn’t get vaxed here. If we don’t factor this in we’re effectively eliminating any hospitality from tourism after the 19th July. Also any non-native workers who may have been vaxxed in their home country

And if hospitality staff are supposed to police this they’d have to acquaint themselves with every Vaccine cert and digital pass going ? Seems highly unworkable and very VERY discriminatory.

Ballynally

Ballynally wrote: »

Good points.
Thats why it is hard to compare. But a few hospital doctors i know have told me they dont see Covid19 patients w organising pneumonia anymore, the main factor resulting in death in the first few waves.
Now, you can say 1: most really vulnerable, older people have already died, 2:the treatments are better, more use of steroids,no more putting people on ventilators in an early pulmonary stage.
Both good reasons. Add restrictions and people's behaviour in the mix and you get a pretty messed up line of variables.
Take your pick and come to your conclusion.
The only thing i keep saying is the fact that we KNOW variants become less lethal over time. The question is: what time?
A virus goes through a time line.
First, virus appears, few people w few symptoms (some people had SarsCov2 in late august) not sequenced. Virus mutates. More people w the same symptoms. Nrs still low but increasing. Flagged. Then a spike somewhere. Virus mutates again causing more severe symptoms. More transmission. Outbreaks. Increasing all over the world. Pandemic. Panic.
Wave goes down, virus mutates and strikes again.vaccines.virus mutates. Less severe symptoms, less death, endemic.
On the other hand, SarsCov1, MERS etc died out without going pandemic.even without vaccines.
So, we know how things go, in hindsight.
This one? A while to go yet especially in non western countries.

What we see with Delta however is countries with low initial numbers and low vaccination rates are having a surge in hospitalisations and deaths

https://www.wsj.com/articles/delta-variant-brings-calamity-to-countries-stuck-waiting-for-covid-19-vaccines-11625482191

gozunda

Floppybits wrote: »

I am not suggesting the suppressing of information but moving the focus from the number of infected to the numbers of infected in hospital. Did we ever report on the number of people who had flu?

You did actually

Floppybits wrote:

We need to stop counting the number of people with Covid and start counting the number of hospitalisations of people with Covid. All that publishing the number of positive covid cases is doing is causing panic, probably less so now with the vaccine.

As to your question "Did we ever report on the number of people who had flu?"

Yes we do. Flu is a notifiable disease. The Health Protection Surveillance Centre report and publish weekly Influenza surveillance reports online. The media also publish regular news stories on the rise of influenza cases etc.

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/influenza/seasonalinfluenza/surveillance/influenzasurveillancereports/20202021season/

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/flu-season-on-track-to-be-worse-than-last-year-1.3754024

As detailed we currently count both new covid cases and hospital numbers plus a whole host of other metrics. If we don't have this information we're in the dark.

is_that_so

FileNotFound wrote: »

We will see a a spike in case numbers when schools return, or at least we are likely to especially if we delay our opening as the 2 will coincide.

That will act as their justification I suppose.

Literally what the Chris Whitty in the UK says they are trying to avoid - level the load.

What is the info on the AZ immunity duration anyone know, I've seen all sorts of figures. We may see the line - we need time to boost the front line workers.

But all in the context of over 80% of adults vaccinated and yeah we will be looking at some boosters. We've never run into that school problem of the UK. I think economics will take precedence by then because it will have to.

is_that_so

Johns nephew wrote: »

By then it will be a vaccine resistant variant or the vaccines don't work as well as was hoped

NPHET can't decide on either of those things without evidence and there is no sign of it.

Red Silurian

Floppybits wrote: »

This is why I am saying that we need to switch the focus from the case numbers to the hospital numbers. All people are focusing on are the case numbers and the getting themselves in a tizzy about the numbers. How many times do you hear people saying "Oh jaysus the numbers have gone up again over 400, what will we do?" where as you never hear "well did you hear the numbers in the hospital increased by 1?". I suppose that sort of news doesn't sell.

It's all relative though, new cases lead to hospital numbers, people don't need to be admitted to the hospital COVID ward unless they tested positive for COVID-19 first... Showing the 400-500 cases a day that we have had for the last few weeks and the nearly cosistent drop in hospital numbers over that time should reassure people that vaccines work

If you announced yesterdays figures as hospital cases up 8 and ICU cases up 2 you might be worried before you realise we've had nearly 10,000 new cases in the last 28 days and these are the ones most likely to show up to hospital

sporina

seems to me that the only reason the gov are being so strict is cos they are worried hospitals will become swamped (and it doesn't take much)..

if thats the case, why don't they invest more in our healthcare? once and for all???

(i'm no expert though - open to correction {from those with more insight})

Floppybits

sporina wrote: »

seems to me that the only reason the gov are being so strict is cos they are worried hospitals will become swamped (and it doesn't take much)..

if thats the case, why don't they invest more in our healthcare? once and for all???

(i'm no expert though - open to correction {from those with more insight})

Paul Reid admitted the other day that hospitals are at full capacity now and Varadkar admitted the same again today. In fairness a lot of money is invested in the Health Service the only problem is that by the time the money gets where it needs to go so many chunks has been taken out of it by vested interest that there is barely enough to fund the services provided.

is_that_so

Furze99 wrote: »

Bookmark the post, wait a week or so and we'll see. I predict this nonsense will evaporate when the government can claim that majority of citizens over 45 are double dosed. Since the 45+s and 50s are all done by now, their problem is the 60s cohort. You only have to listen to any radio programme to hear reference to the number of txts and complaints coming in wrt the latter.

Think I can remember what I said a week ago! I have no faith in the NPHET projections at all and accept more vaccinations is the only way out of this. 60s are being done, a handful of texts, does not prove it is a problem. The end of July will be far better place for us.

Knex*

sporina wrote: »

seems to me that the only reason the gov are being so strict is cos they are worried hospitals will become swamped (and it doesn't take much)..

if thats the case, why don't they invest more in our healthcare? once and for all???

(i'm no expert though - open to correction {from those with more insight})

HSE is proportionally one of the best funded healthcare programmes in the world. The budget for 2021 is over 20 billion.

Funding isn't our issue. Complete mismanagement of funding is, and that is a problem that is absolutely endemic in Irish Public Services.

basill

sporina wrote: »

seems to me that the only reason the gov are being so strict is cos they are worried hospitals will become swamped (and it doesn't take much)..

if thats the case, why don't they invest more in our healthcare? once and for all???

(i'm no expert though - open to correction {from those with more insight})

Will you please stop applying common sense and logic:)

You mean like go and ask the Brits if you can copy and paste their plans and buy some land off the M50 and bring in emergency legislation to rush through planning. Jeez the emergency and ICU departments could have been built first and been up and running by now. GBP545million Birmingham cost back in 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_Hospital_Birmingham

No its much better to blame some nasty nuns for not giving you their land for free or blaming anyone with a pulse for all the failings in relation to the childrens hospital.

Floppybits

gozunda wrote: »

You did actually



As to your question "Did we ever report on the number of people who had flu?"

Yes we do. Flu is a notifiable disease. The Health Protection Surveillance Centre report and publish weekly Influenza surveillance reports online. The media also publish regular news stories on the rise of influenza cases etc.

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/influenza/seasonalinfluenza/surveillance/influenzasurveillancereports/20202021season/

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/flu-season-on-track-to-be-worse-than-last-year-1.3754024

As detailed we currently count both new covid cases and hospital numbers plus a whole host of other metrics. If we don't have this information we're in the dark.

I never said suppress the numbers that is what you said, I was saying that the focus should be on the hospitalisation numbers from Covid. We can have a 1million cases of people infected with Covid but if only 10 people are hospitalised it would indicate that the vaccines are working and people are developing immunity are therefore no need for restrictions but if as we do at the moment put all the focus on the number of cases then that is just driving fear in the community.

MOH

sporina wrote: »

seems to me that the only reason the gov are being so strict is cos they are worried hospitals will become swamped (and it doesn't take much)..

if thats the case, why don't they invest more in our healthcare? once and for all???

(i'm no expert though - open to correction {from those with more insight})

Ah now, it's not like either the Taoiseach or Tanaiste was ever in a position to do that. Such as being the minister for health. Or even being the minister for health during the Celtic Tiger.

gozunda

FileNotFound wrote: »

No and we never mass tested for it. If we did one could expect astounding numbers of seasonal flu - seriously astounding. We are getting to that point where having one of the most aggressive test regimes (i am pro mass testing but acknowledge the issue) is resulting in us finding a lot of case numbers, but these do not translate into hospital cases or death at the moment.
Uk is in the same boat - think they are testing more than anyone but stand to be corrected on this.

Two things. As detailed above influenza cases are routinely monitored and published. Not saying its the exact same as to how the current pandemic is tracked. But surveillance is routinely carried out and numbers published weekly as queried by the previous poster.

The other thing is that more testing does not necessarily equate with more cases

it has been shown that the relationship between more testing and new cases isn’t always straightforward. In Finland, health workers doubled the number of tests carried out in the space of a month, and found that positive cases ticked downward. Likewise in the U.K. and Portugal...

For some European countries too, such as Belgium and Spain, rising test rates do coincide with more cases. However, in both countries, the rate of rising infections outstripped the increase in tests — suggesting that there is a real resurgence of the virus going on and not that officials are just getting better at detecting it...

Experts warn the data must be treated with caution. Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the relationship between the volume of testing and number of positives is complex.

“It does depend how the testing is targeted (who is being offered tests), and which individuals are agreeing to be tested, or coming forward requesting tests,” 

https://www.politico.eu/article/does-more-coronavirus-testing-mean-more-cases/

I've seen recent graphs comparing number of tests done compared with infections here and the two metrics were not aligned. I'll see if I can find the link

gozunda

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'm saying that Twitter and social media are not representative of the population at large and that things such those bot accounts should be discussed and not be relegated to the Conspiracy Theory forum. Especially since Twitter, in spite of its insignificance in the grand scheme of things, increasingly determines public policy.

Never said they were. The previous implications was that the move was garnering popular support. And that was posted to show that was not necessarily the case. But no I wasn't talking about Bots. I'm aware they exist.

sporina

Knex* wrote: »

HSE is proportionally one of the best funded healthcare programmes in the world. The budget for 2021 is over 20 billion.

Funding isn't our issue. Complete mismanagement of funding is, and that is a problem that is absolutely endemic in Irish Public Services.

ok - so why don't they manage it correctly?? like, when will they learn????!!!! :mad:

basill wrote: »

Will you please stop applying common sense and logic:)

You mean like go and ask the Brits if you can copy and paste their plans and buy some land off the M50 and bring in emergency legislation to rush through planning. Jeez the emergency and ICU departments could have been built first and been up and running by now. GBP545million Birmingham cost back in 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_Hospital_Birmingham

No its much better to blame some nasty nuns for not giving you their land for free or blaming anyone with a pulse for all the failings in relation to the childrens hospital.

the mind boggles.. I wish they could be more proactive instead of always just winging it.. gets us nowhere

TefalBrain

Floppybits wrote: »

Paul Reid admitted the other day that hospitals are at full capacity now and Varadkar admitted the same again today. In fairness a lot of money is invested in the Health Service the only problem is that by the time the money gets where it needs to go so many chunks has been taken out of it by vested interest that there is barely enough to fund the services provided.

Imagine that, hospitals at full capacity in the middle of the summer with no flu season, tiny covid numbers on wards and per capita one of the best funded health services in the world. God help us if we ever had a natural disaster or massive terrorist attack etc..

And some see Holohan as a saint of some sort. :pac:

This nation is world class at patting itself on the back and not much good at anything else.

Economics101

Floppybits wrote: »

Paul Reid admitted the other day that hospitals are at full capacity now and Varadkar admitted the same again today.

But the hospitals have been a full capacity for years, as evidenced by long waiting times even before Covid. Do we want to use a chronically underperforming (thought not underfunded) HSE as an excuse for more continuing disruptions to everyday life?