When will life go back to normal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118220161#Comment_118220161

The UK isn't back to normal, but England is (or 95% back to normal) London is a bit different because of masks on public transport, but the mask thing isn't enforced there. Or at least it wasn't the times I was there (3 times in the past couple of months).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223382#Comment_118223382

What hysteria?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118220119#Comment_118220119

Do you really think we're living through history? I wouldn't even know there was a pandemic going on if it wasn't for the media.

And the survival rate for healthy people under the age of 60 is close to 100%.

We are only at the beginning of the Botswana variant. Any resemblance of normality will be kicked down the road even further. Out of sight perhaps.

rovers_runner

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223985#Comment_118223985

Will you stop, there are lads on here who will have the stomachs pulled off themselves tonight at the thought of it.

kravmaga

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118209431#Comment_118209431

https://www.hpsc.ie/a-z/respiratory/coronavirus/novelcoronavirus/surveillance/vaccinationstatusweeklyreports/Vaccination%20Status%20of%20ICU%20admissions.pdf

Quantum Erasure

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118224035#Comment_118224035

Between April 1st and November 20th 2021: • 626 persons (aged 15 + years) were admitted to ICU with confirmed COVID-19 infection. 

Of the cases in fully vaccinated individuals (n=181): 174 cases (96%) were reported to have an underlying medical condition 

says nothing of unvaccinated cases tough

c.p.w.g.w

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118210442#Comment_118210442

Being obese isn't listed as an underlying condition in Ireland, but morbidly obese is...

I wonder if they included obese, what number would that me...also undiagnosed illness as well, like people with diabetes but not yet diagnosed

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118209941#Comment_118209941

It's the biggest event globally since WW2 and it's impact will be playing out for years to come, long past the time COVID is just another sniffle or a tale oldies tell kids.

Economically and politically it's impact will really be felt

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118210442#Comment_118210442

If you take out people with underlying conditions, you will have the majority over 30.

Asthma, blood pressure, diabetes, overweight etc etc, the list is endless

You'll have a lot who run marathons sub 4 who have underlying conditions.

Richard Hillman

At least another year of this is guaranteed. We won't be in much difference into where we are this time next year, except "emergency powers" will be even more emergency. A ton of civil disorder around Europe.

If that doesn't get you, there is the hyperinflation on the way. Russia turning off the gas pipes because Big Vlad in the Kremlin, senses opportunity. And that Euro ain't worth as much as it used to.

The best days are behind us folks.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118218971#Comment_118218971

That's all True but Britain will not be the worst in Europe by a longshot when this is over.

The economic impact can't be underestimated, 25% increase in global debt, the Brits borrowed more than they did for WW2.

It may well lead to a more austere world for a generation, it may not.

I think what was done had to be, people would have stayed home either way.

Either way, the world will be divided into WW2 to 2019 and then after.

Big story next year globally will be food prices and supply. Fertilizer is about 2.5 times dearer here, more elsewhere

The Arab Spring followed on from nitrogen (urea) Fertilizer hitting 800 dollars a tonne for a few months. 1100 now is common and rising quickly and expected to last at highs well in to next year and that's only part of the news.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223399#Comment_118223399

Stuff like masks is part of the new normal which on the whole does not bother me. What really matters is getting on with life, which for me includes things like rebuilding social circles and finding a new partner. From here in London it looks like Ireland wants to criminalise socialising again.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118221194#Comment_118221194

Atlantic Dawn

I'd welcome the return of Trump to get life back to normal, he was pretty much the only world leader with a touch of optimism about getting over the virus at some stage. Yes deaths were huge in the US but their obesity problem is too.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118224554#Comment_118224554

You understand that his “optimism” was based on his lack of understanding and being an idiot. This is the guy who asked could we drink bleach and shine UV light inside the body to kill the virus. You can’t fix stupid.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118224448#Comment_118224448

What are you on about? You do understand that people are not housebound here, that you can go to the pub and that you can meet people.

Looking at the news this morning, if this newly identified strain is as infectious/deadly as suspected, Britain will be going into lockdown as well if it makes their shores.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118224729#Comment_118224729

Britain is the world leader in testing for this, they'll find it there but it's going to be only a short matter of time. It's already outside of South West Africa.

Sobit1964

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118224722#Comment_118224722

And yet more people died of 'covid' since Biden inherited many fully working vaccines, than died at the peak of Trump when all the other stuff you just said is a copypasta of some made up stuff.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229097#Comment_118229097

Eh, he said it on live TV.

Sobit1964

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229123#Comment_118229123

Thanks for confirming my post.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229154#Comment_118229154

Your post was shot down just Googling “Trump bleach”, it’s probably one of the most infamous press conferences of his Presidency. How could something be “made up” when you can literally watch a playback of him saying it?

techman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118224400#Comment_118224400

but would the WW2 generation have imposed such restrictions on themselves after what they experienced, No they wouldn't because they would have been too busy trying to live their lives and forget about the genuine horrors of the war. Covid would be nothing to them , the covid casualties don't count in comparison to WW2.

WW2 will still be the biggest catastrophe until the next one happens, most likely some madman gets his hands on nuclear weapons

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118222184#Comment_118222184

Let's follow the "sensible" Brits,they have been a shining light in how to handle Covid haven't they?

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118222392#Comment_118222392

I don't like thanking that post as its a bit depressing but unfortunately also accurate.

Graces7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229442#Comment_118229442

As WW2 person I assure you that you are wrong. It made us aware on the value of life amd the absolute need fo care and yes, restrictions, None ever forgot and remember how long rationing went on. Lives were limited in many ways and we simply accpeted that as we do now with this. covid is not nothing to any war surviror. And many families have lost loved ones o covid; we certainly have. How big a catastrophe covid is depends on each of us complying and taking care of all of us via the restrictions. Not by scorning sense and ignoring realistic safety rules. TJAT is sheerly irresponsible ,

Luxembourgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118223985#Comment_118223985

Yeah this might be the more infectious variant with really mild symptoms which means this all stops and we get on with life.

Here's hoping

francogarbanzo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230731#Comment_118230731

Are you still banging on about how they were initially like 3 weeks later than everyone else to lock down their whole country nearly two years ago?

McGarnigle2020

You know what's the worst thing about the Botswana variant?

The public and media, have bit the bait.

If we learned anything in recent times, NPHET and/ or the media will float scare nonsense, and it either sticks or doesn't stick depending on the public and media engagement with it.

Last year into this year NPHET were claiming children were at serious risk of developing some long term syndrome post Covid (it wasn't Kawasaki Disease but it sounded something like that). The public didn't bite and the rubbish wasn't mentioned again.

The Brazil, South African, Indian Delta II sub variant, Nepalese variant, the Colombian variant that had "already been found in 47 out of 50 US states", as late as last week the UK Delta sub variant- all of the above were meant to be the big one. The public ignored them, and the fearmongers at the top gave up promoting it.

Remember "Covid toes"? I barely do, because the public didn't bite.

I haven't heard NPHET mention Long Covid in months, but in the summer they used the apparent threat of it to young people to keep the pubs closed when we were hitting high vaccine numbers.

End of times scares have been a part of life in Ireland and Britain since at least the 60's, starting with the Cuban Missile Crisis, the effects of the hysteria on a small Irish community brilliantly explored as the main sub plot in the dark comedy The Butcher Boy.

Chernobyl would lead to Europe wide birth defects and an explosion in sterility.

There wouldn't be a family in Ireland untouched by AIDS.

BSE/ CJD would likely kill up to 500,000 British cizitens.

There is a 1991, yes, 1991, episode of Only Fools and Horses where Rodney goes through a green phase and is boring everyone to death with rants about the melting polar ice caps and imminent waterworld. 30 years ago. India, China, Africa have burned more fuel than can be counted since then yet we are still being told it's only around the corner.

Post 9/11 it was only a matter of time before the next big one. Al Quaeda had dirty bombs, nuclear warheads, germ and bio warfare capabilities. 300 US supplied stinger shoulder launchers were missing from Afghanistan and ready to be fired at the next UK airport flight bound for Benidorm. Anyone recall when tanks and missile intercept were deployed at Heathrow Airport around 2004?

20 years ago Saddam had a germ or nuke tipped rocket that could be fired and reach London at 40 minutes notice.

The SARS virus.

The Swine flu.

The shrunken headed babies of Zika, where did they go?

40,000 dead from the first winter of Covid.

I've just listed nine end of days scenarios from the last 40 years. Six of them date from the last 20 years (seven if you count how ridiciiously overkill climate change has went in the last 3 years)

You're being had. None of these things happened, and were ever going to happen.

HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118230972#Comment_118230972

Haha! No,I'd forgotten about that,that was almost quaint in the litany of monumental,mostly self inflicted fùck ups.

If you want to see how not to do Covid look to our feckless friends across the water.

McGarnigle2020

Also worth remembering- when Tony Holohan was saying in September that we were on track, that he could see no reason that pubs and clubs wouldn't open on October 22nd without vax passes, he knew full well he was setting us all up for a big practical joke.

He knew the Israeli and UK data. He knew that late October was the sweet spot, the approximate point at which the first mass vaccine recipients from March and April, their vax coverage would start to fall off a cliff.

He knew all of this, but he still cast the bait telling us our lives would be back to relative normality, knowing full well the cases would increase and he would get an excuse to enforce vaxports and have pubs and clubs operating on a skeleton model.

Does anybody really believe that we had a few weeks of 900 to 1100 daily cases, then overnight one week before Oct 22nd we jumped to 2000 and stayed locked around that figure for another few weeks?

Do people actually believe no books were cooked?

For comparison, the UK has stayed locked around the 35 to 50k number for months now. The thought of them jumping from 40 to 80,000 overnight is unthinkable, yet we, a country similar culturally did? Gerrup the yard.

There is no way he didn't know. The vax protection seems to fall away almost overnight. The J and J jab seems to be the biggest medical fraud ever sold- takes two weeks to kick in and fades completely after 12 weeks!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231018#Comment_118231018

I would have thought the worse thing about it is it’s infectiousness and the fact that it has double the number of mutations is it’s spike protein.

AIDS, though still a concern, is nowhere near as prevalent or deadly as originally predicted due to? Changes in behaviour and medications, sound familiar?

None of what you listed were ever claimed to be “end of days” scenarios, neither is Covid. This stuff only exists in your head.

McGarnigle2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118229442#Comment_118229442

It seems mad to think now, I distinctly recall telling herself's nephew (would have been 14 at the time) "I guarantee you, if I live until I'm 80 there will never be another world wide, where were you event as big as 9/11 was". How wrong I was. I just never imagined an event that would impact the world bigger than 9/11 could ever happen again.

I distinctly recall, I had resolutely switched the channel and refused to read the articles when Covid would come up in Jan and Feb 2020, for the very reason of having lived through the hyped nonsense I referred to in the previous post.

The genuine first time I recall Covid was when I was down in Tullamore on a job, I pulled into a petrol station as Sam McConkey finished telling Matt Cooper we were looking at 40,000 dead.

"Man's off his rocker" I said.

And I was right. ICU deaths show that if Covid was allowed "let rip" we would have suffered at the very most circa 3000 to 4000 actual Covid deaths (as distinct to "died with Covid" deaths which are of people already weeks away from dying anyway).

Those 3000 to 4000 will be outran in the coming years by missed cancer treatments, lockdown suicides, strokes, cancers and heart attacks caused by the sheer malaise and stress of this life over the last 2 years)

whodafunk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231076#Comment_118231076

well said. I couldn’t agree with you more.

Its a pity by god that none of the experts ever got into positions of influence isnt it

One would wonder how and why that came to pass, almost

McGarnigle2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231058#Comment_118231058

Every family in Ireland copping an AIDS death, London being nuked by Iraq, 1% of the UK population of equal proportion of all ages of anyone who ate beef in the 80s, nuclear dirty bombs making city centres off limits for 500 years, none of that is an end of days prediction?

I forgot about the Milennium Bug fraud and all. Johnson and Johnson and their dud vaccine was only the 2nd biggest fraud ever done.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231090#Comment_118231090

I’m beginning to sense a tin hat tangent on this thread.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231076#Comment_118231076

Every time a challenge is successfully tackled there are people who look back and say the threat was exaggerated all along

Ireland have had about a thousand excess deaths since covid arrived because we took it seriously and are mostly vaccinated now. Lots of other countries have had much worse impacts

Italy for example lost 157k people

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker

The only reason people like you can say it was no big deal, is because most people took it seriously, followed public health advice and got vaccinated

McGarnigle2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231150#Comment_118231150

Problem is so many lies have been told I simply do not believe late in the day statistics that come out claiming X Y and Z.

I know nothing of Italy. What I do know is that only just over 500 people died in ICU units in Ireland. That all of the other 5000 "Covid deaths" would currently be dead regardless of whether Covid ever existed.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231090#Comment_118231090

They culled basically the entire British beef herd. 4 million cows.

Nuclear non proliferation treaty prevented the spread of nuclear weapons without it, there surely would have been more incidents since

Aids has rampage through Aftica but in the west we changed our behaviour to limit its spread and we now have anti viral medication that controls it

None of your examples were made up. They were all real and without action to tackle them, could have been a lot worse than they ended up being

Nuclear war is still an existential threat BTW. We just don't like to think about it

McGarnigle2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231180#Comment_118231180

The 1 million Brits prediction is from the mid 90s and referred to people who had long ago consumed the infected meat.

AIDS rampaged through Africa because it seeded there. It would simply never have spread at the firestorm rate it did there in a land it wasn't native to. Statistically your chance of contracting HIV through unprotected vaginal sex with an infected person is actually astoundingly low. Predictions of a family in Ireland untouched by it were simply hyperberbolic nonsense.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231226#Comment_118231226

I doubt the HIV virus knows what continent it is on. Again, behaviour and availability of medications reduced the rate outside of Africa, and unfortunately allowed it to spread in it.

McGarnigle2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231241#Comment_118231241

If only they'd wore masks and washed their hands. The magic solution.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231288#Comment_118231288

I think you need to do a bit of reading on transmission of HIV. For masks and hand washing, read advice on condoms and shared needles.

It's mad to think that even the most despotic regimes around the world are taking COVID seriously and yet Boards.ie is awash with people that are happy to sacrifice their fellow countrymen, all because they're mildly inconvenienced by having to wear a mask or present a cert to enter an establishment.

Unsurprisingly it's usually the same people that screech about this being the weakest generation in history and they lament we don't have the ruggedness and resilience of the War Time generation. They're the same people that'd be posting "Just let the Germans in, I'm fed up hearing those wailing sirens while trying to get a bit of kip" back in the 40s.

McGarnigle2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118231407#Comment_118231407

"The most despotic regimes are taking Covid seriously".

Are you actually suggesting that the likes of Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Vietnam etc using the virus to enhance restrictions on public gatherings, population movement, night curfews etc etc is something that proves seriousness, rather than a despotic regime using Covid to enhance already tight restrictions on freedom of assembly, broadcast of information etc.

Unbelievable.

What part, exactly, of ICU deaths vs reported Covid deaths (11%) do the true believers not understand?

I avoid wearing a mask not because it is inconvenient, but because it is anti scientific. I make my decisions based on science, statistics, reports and logic- not some lunatic like Orla Hegarty crying on Twitter peddling pseudoscientific woo. I read the stats and reports myself, rather than Tony and Ronan telling me they read it on my behalf and here is the condensed version a commoner like me needs to read.

freshpopcorn

I don't really know anymore.

I think the positives to look at are.

In general people are back visiting friends and families.

Teenagers, college students, etc aren't afraid to go to house parties and hook up.

Even people of all ages are meeting up.

People just pull a mask out of there pocket/car door and shove it on generally for as little time as possible.

They aren't many overly concerned about it in my experience at this stage.

So if restrictions were lifted I think most would stop wearing masks, etc. However they'll be some who be running around in hear for their lives.

I believe life will return to pre pandemic ways but not any time soon. The pandemic will 'end' when endemicity is reached. Covid will hit us like the flu and be treated as such. At least that's the hope. The less palatable alternative is a vaccine resistant variant emerging and what that may mean. Back to square one? In Ireland most likely. I am extremely optimistic that possibilty won't become reality.

Until Covid is endemic we will continue in this sort of state. Loosening and tightening, daily numbers, talk of variants, constant adapting.

The virus has destroyed us in many ways along with much of the messaging around it. I am more hopeful that it will lessen in severity and become controllable than I am that NPHET etc will 'allow' us to be 100% restriction free.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118222810#Comment_118222810

Looks like UK is going back to masks being mandatory, though not in hospitality, for the time being. The Health Minister will be giving more updates on the new Covid variants, and restrictions in the coming days. Covid is top news story on all UK sites.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-live-pm-to-hold-news-conference-as-omicron-reaches-uk-health-secretary-warns-pandemic-is-far-from-over-12469075

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-face-masks-back-shops-25561787.amp

shesty

The issue blocking normality, I suspect, will be less the virus and more NPHET.

I have a 5 year old.I feel it will impact most of the years of her childhood that she will be able to remember.She was just about to turn 4 when this started.