Reflection on the pandemic: questions about the authorities' response.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968461#Comment_119968461

That's not what effective has evolved to mean in late 2022. Or rather, that is not the full range of its meaning. Triggering an immune system is a fundamental, as the linked document proves.

The bivalent vaccines were assessed in clinical studies, and that is the basis on which they were assessed in the clinical studies.

That is an entirely different thing to stating that is now the only meaning of effectiveness being used by authorities, politicians etc.

EMA’s human medicines committee (CHMP) has recommended authorising two vaccines adapted to provide broader protection against COVID-19. 

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-adapted-covid-19-booster-vaccines-recommended-approval-eu

Boosters are an important part of protecting yourself from getting seriously ill or dying from COVID-19... COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States are effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized, and dying.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#:~:text=Boosters%20are%20an%20important%20part,Your%20age

hynesie08

Vaccines got us out of this, their ability to reduce severe illness and hospitalisations saved us years of fighting and a complete collapse of an already fragile health service and for that we should be eternally grateful and mock anti vax morons.

The initial message definitely definitely said the vaccine had 100% success against catching COVID though, we should also mock that, but more light heartily.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968505#Comment_119968505

Triggering an immune system is a fundamental, as the linked document proves.

Of course triggering an immune system response is fundamental. I am not disputing that.

I am stating as a fact that the expected immune system response in December 2020 was preventing infection.

Whereas in 2022 the immune response would be to reduce the severity of the infection.

You are claiming I am wrong about December 2020. Fine.

I have proved out with verbatim quotes from EMA documents that the approval was applied for on the basis of preventing infection, with data that supported the prevention of infection, and approval was granted on the basis of preventing infection.

If that still does convince you nothing will, so we should move on.

There is nothing to be gained clogging up a thread endlessly arguing that black is white, or indeed that contracting the disease is different to contracting the infection caused by the virus. That's just madness.

The only reason I got involved in this discussion was to point out PeararCo's misconception that when "the Pfizer vaccine was approved it was on the promise that it was 95% effective against death and serious illness for the strains at the time". I suspect he now realises that is not true, so no point flogging it to death.

Flinty997

This thread is a bit like expecting a fortune teller to give refunds if not 100% accurate.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968567#Comment_119968567

Again, quote the severity data from the trials that I got you to post previously that blew your arguments to smithereens and let others then decide, rather than hiding behind your usual tropes (you're getting worse than cheerful with that collapsing 9/11 picture :)).

FWIW, hometruths posted in excruciatingly irrefutable detail how effective the vaccines were against severe disease during the trials (across some of the largest trials ever in multiple countries) but has been hiding away from it ever since.

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119967914#Comment_119967914

Why lie? You've been called out numerous times on this thread for inaccurate statements.

If you stand back at its core the promise was the vaccination would remove the need for restrictions and get us back to normal. Remember the reason for restrictions was the danger of our hospital and ICU departments being overloaded. Again the promise was that with a successful vaccination compaign this would no longer be an issue and we could get back to normal.

The focus throughout the pandemic and especially after the vaccination programme started was hospital and ICU numbers. It's pure revisionism to suggest the Covid vaccines were brought in to stop infection. Once the risk of hospitals and ICUs being over run ended so did the restrictions.

On vaccines themselves there is near endless data on how dangerous Covid can still be to people are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated populations. Take China one of the issues it has moving away from a 0 Covid policy is the lack of a sustained vaccination programme and particularly a relatively low level of vaccinations for high risk groups.

normanoffside

If vaccines were never intended to stop you catching or spreading covid, then why did the government describe vaccine passports as 'proof of immunity'?

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/41f70-reopening-hospitality/

Flinty997

"....Indoor hospitality has reopened for people who are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 in the past 6 months..."

...Immunity isn't permanent... because the strains change, people's understanding changes, the rules change...

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968114#Comment_119968114

Long time no see. :)

I spent the pandemic about 50:50 in Ireland and the UK and one thing I really noticed was how in the UK many things were sorta kept ticking over, but in Ireland it was just complete shutdown. INIS was a particular bugbear of mine as their inaction cost people jobs. Issuing of vaccine passes was also very obviously a bodge job that had no proper planning.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969566#Comment_119969566

And yet the Irish economy and jobs faired better than the UK over the pandemic, we also ended up with a big budget surplus despite providing greater PUP supports than the UK did. It's all relative of course and some would give up the better economy for more personal freedom during the pandemic.

We were however completely idiotic with the construction shutdown and dragging the ar*e out of the reopening last Autumn.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969274#Comment_119969274

Immunity means resistance to the virus. Vaccines provide resistance.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119969566#Comment_119969566

...and the fact the uk economy has fallen by 20% since brexit, and then of course there was the wee event of a serious bond crisis not too long ago! yup, everything is just fine in the uk!

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970286#Comment_119970286

Think the UK's bounceback loans system for businesses was more generous than Ireland's equivalent. Pretty much no questions asked so it attracted a fair amount of fraud.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970388#Comment_119970388

All true, but that lot is mostly independent of the pandemic..

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970527#Comment_119970527

how so?

bucketybuck

I see the gaslighting continues, just as it did throughout the pandemic itself.

Just shows how completely wrong some of these posters always were that they have to try and distort the past just to pretend that they didn't defend the indefensible.

Rather symbolic of the wider approach in fairness, and why those in charge are desperately afraid of an independent public enquiry. They would rather continue gaslighting than learn anything from the mistakes.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970533#Comment_119970533

From memory the UK scheme had lower interest rate (2.5% vs. 4.5-5.5%) and a longer interest-free period. In Ireland the equivalent scheme also had much stricter qualifying criteria (something like having to show a specified drop in revenue).

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970635#Comment_119970635

Why would the leadership be "desperately afraid of a public enquiry"? Polls consistently showed a majority of the public supported their handling of the crisis (and still do). Ireland wasn't dramatically different from other countries.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970650#Comment_119970650

I got the feeling most of the UK schemes were to directly benefit tory party members and donors, that those who needed it also got some was beside the point.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970635#Comment_119970635

To be fair, you're gaslighting yourselves at this stage, 0 real world facts have changed yet you still feel hard done by with all the wrong predictions and posting you made over the pandemic.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119968190#Comment_119968190

Whilst at times other countries were more strict than Ireland, over a long period of time, Ireland tended to be towards the top of the strictness graph. We didn't so much have extreme measures for short periods but kept fairly strict measures in place for long period of time.

This is evidenced by the Covid Stringency Index as compiled by Oxford researchers. See link below.

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/covid-19-government-response-tracker

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970286#Comment_119970286

I think the existence of multinationals in Ireland tends to distort figures somewhat. Some of these did very well during the pandemic and this will have a positive effect on GDP figures. It is probably more accurate to say that Ireland's economy did quite well despite the limits on personal freedom rather than because of those limits as I think you may be saying.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970869#Comment_119970869

Yes but that's a far cry from what was originally claimed. Plus I expect that Index is going on what was 'on paper', and I would likewise expect what was actually enforced in terms of strictness was less than versus other jurisdictions.

Emblematic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971027#Comment_119971027

Yes, and I think there are also issues with giving a country a single overall score. What weight do you apply to each of the restrictions making up the score. Another aspect was that if a country had a restriction in a particular area (e.g. Northern Italy) then it was counted the same as if the entire country had the restriction. However I think most restrictions in Ireland were done at the national level so the index is going to be lower in Ireland compared to another country with regional restrictions. But overall I think it shows that Ireland, though not the most extreme, had fairly strict restrictions lasting a long time. This is why I think when they finally lifted the last of them at the start of 2022 there was very little public appetite for any sort of reintroduction.

PommieBast

@astrofool

I got the feeling most of the UK schemes were to directly benefit tory party members and donors, that those who needed it also got some was beside the point.

The real spaffing of cash was the PPE and Track&Trace contracts, which were seperate from the mainstream business support schemes.

Apothic_Red

Twindemic going well I see

Luke O'Neill on BOC this morning conceeding that the subsequent Lockdowns were probably excessive.

Remember when we couldn't play golf FFS

shesty

I tested positive there the other day (not that it means anything).

The mental difference in knowing that your life won't come to a complete halt for 14 days, and that's the shortest period assuming the kids don't get it, and that you won't be treated like a pariah by everyone is.....huge.Makes it much easier to cope with.

I think we did what we had to first time round, but we dragged it out for unreasonably long periods of time in the 18 months after that, with no questioning of the decision making.That was wrong.As @PommieBast says, it basically ruled everything here for 2 years whereas in other countries, things ticked over more normally for larger chunks of time.

jackboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119970890#Comment_119970890

A lot of people work in multinationals and we were essentially exempt from many of the lockdown measures. I know loads who were on site at work the whole way throughout the pandemic even though it was not essential for us to be there. We all had this letter from our employers to show a guard if stopped. All we had to say is we were on the way to work or home from work and the 2k or 5k limits did not apply to us. We could even have lunch with colleagues in work canteen without masks.

The thing that most urgently needs an inquiry is NPHETs anti science views on antigen tests that they maintained throughout the pandemic.

They even went as far as calling them snakeoil at one point.

They also somehow thought that people wouldnt be able to properly take a test...

We need to ensure if future pandemics occur that we are not going against science.

Using antigen tests to battle COVID would have been much more effective than almost all the daft measures we went with.

shesty

Longer term, over the 2 years, antigen would have been a far more useful tool than they were allowed to be.If that makes sense.

fun loving criminal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119982725#Comment_119982725

People can shove anything up their nose and twirl it around. But it's the results people don't seem to understand. In my workplace, there has been people coming in with what feels like a cold to them and saying everything is ok because they have a negative antigen test. No it's not ok. People are still meant to stay at home with symptoms even if you have a negative test. So yeah, they are snakeoil and gives people a false sense of security.

shesty

I think the understanding needs to be driven home that there is a window of time where antigen tests are useful but you must apply common sense too.

Bit irrelevant now at this stage though.