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

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305075#Comment_120305075

Your post was in this thread, thats the only context that matters. The context of this thread.

Someone earlier basically said wouldn't have these people have died anyway.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305095#Comment_120305095

Yes put the worlds media on trial. Good luck with that.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305095#Comment_120305095

What generation would that be?

I wasn’t terrified. We’re you?

In fact, I don’t know anyone who was terrified.

Is there a mysterious generation I don’t know about? Maybe you could clarify.

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304991#Comment_120304991

The limitation of modelling is that it does not dictate decisions it only informs decisions. Its a very important distinction. That goes for anything not just Covid.

What dictated the decisions was the response to what the models indicated. That response was dictated by the amount of deaths and complications from Covid a person could tolerate. That's a personal decision but at the same time you would expect people working in a hospital on a daily basis ie the people working in NEPHT to have a lower tolerance to people who are stuck within their 5km zone and are insulated from Covid (due to the restrictions to be fair).

The other limitation of the modelling was that it only and could only focus on Covid. It didn't take account of the in person days children lost to school, the impact of the housing crisis on people that the stop on construction of houses exacerbated. There are plenty more examples of things the modelling did not and could not account for.

One of the criticisms of NEPHT was that it only focused on Covid and did not take account of the damage restrictions caused. I've listed just two examples above. But at the same time had the restrictions been looser its probable that there would have been more deaths and complications from Covid. But that's one of the awkward and unanswerable question the review of the Covid strategy has to try and answer. Did the cost of the restrictions out weigh the benefits long term?

bucketybuck

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305110#Comment_120305110

Maybe you should ask the CMO, she seems to think it remains a significant issue. Her statement was just yesterday, I'm sure you can find it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305110#Comment_120305110

The elderly. Our CMO had to come out and urge them not to throw away more years by being afraid of Covid.

Then again, a senior member of NPHET did say earlier this week that they used fear and Tony mentioned before that they measured the level of fear.

Some of us flagged this before. Its easy to put that fear into people but much harder to take it away.

crossman47

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305140#Comment_120305140

The last paragraph here is the essential point. In his paper quoted recently, Cormican said there was an over emphasis on mortality data. I take that as meaning we should have tolerated more deaths in the wider interest. I do not agree.

On the wider issue of a review, we should of course try to learn what went well and what was done badly. This does not mean hauling people over the coals for decisions made in good faith in a fast moving environment. If we do that, then future decision makers will make sure they cover all the angles and end up being too slow to act. i believe our officials and politicians did well, apart from the dreadful error of the meaningful Christmas. That undoubtedly led to unnecessary deaths (and not just the elderly or people with underlying conditions - ask anyone from Belmullet).

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304991#Comment_120304991

Yes and I stand by that comment.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305178#Comment_120305178

Looking at the excess deaths around the world right now, it seems like cancelling treatments, screenings and scaring people away from hospitals had a catastrophic impact.

We'll have to keep a close eye on that and see how bad things get in the coming months and years.

Right now it looks like short term thinking has impacted us terribly across the board from lives saved to finances.

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305140#Comment_120305140

It's funny that the question of cost vs benefit is only contemplated years after the decisions were taken - it's a bit late at that stage.

If I was planning to add €100bn to our national debt, I'd want to be fairly certain I'm seeing a fairly compelling set or reasons to justify it.

But hey, this is Ireland, where taxpayers money can seemingly be pissed away to placate social-media hysteria.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305117#Comment_120305117

I included your post because its related.

I assume (wrongly it seems) people don't need to be spoon feed, requiring tedious multi quotes to follow the context of the thread.

I've already explained it was referring to the thread. It said "thread". Dunno how you can be so confused.

Isn't hindsight wonderful? Does anyone remember those images from Italy in 2020? We thought the world was going to end. Maybe people doing their best in a terrifying and new situation should be cut some slack.

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120304856#Comment_120304856

It does absolutely no such thing and I didn't say statistical modeling wasn't used outside of academia so we should probably set the field for what we are actually discussing here. I specifically said the modeling used to base restrictions on was never designed to be used outside of academia, huge difference.

Also, the models grossly underestimated the actual numbers for Christmas 2020 because a new more transmissible variant appeared.

Healthcare, financial, and military models are all well established fields with centuries of data to back up their forecasts and even then they can sometimes be spectacularly wrong.

I actually have a huge degree of sympathy for the modeling team as I think their work was misrepresented repeatedly and they were dealing with GIGO for the longest time with some of the assumptions they had to work with. In fact if Prof Nolan had more attention paid to what he was saying in government and the media it would have been far more beneficial as he clearly stated the limitations of the models repeatedly.

Saying I'm ignoring all the science is just buzzwords and has no basis in reality. Science is about always asking questions and we should never be afraid to question things that had such a huge impact on our lives. Do I understand the specific epidemiology used in the assumptions, of course not, no more than you. However, I do have a background in computer modeling and fully understand the limitations of such tools.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305234#Comment_120305234

Predictive statistical models are used all the time, outside academia. As someone stated earlier were mostly correct. They give a range a possible values. I think the problem was that people had a habit of fixating on extreme ends of that range as if it was set in stone. Especially in all forms of media, like this forum, rather than understanding its a range of values.

They didn't a model to know Irish people have trouble following rules, most can't queue for a red light. So then the pub rules seemed optimistic at best.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305307#Comment_120305307

It did seem even in the initial reporting from italy it was mainly affecting certain groups. In Italy you have a lot generations sharing the same house or apartment. Also we didn't now how it might mutate. Hindsight is 2020 vision.

normanoffside

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305307#Comment_120305307

Which images?

One of the most used images was of coffins in Bergamo in 2020 but it was actually a picture of coffins lined up after a shipwreck in Lampedusa 7 years previously.

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305333#Comment_120305333

Sure they are and it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Only a fool would claim statical models aren't used outside of academia. The particular model used by prof Nolan's group hadn't been used in the wild before.

The models weren't mostly correct. They had a huge variance in outcomes and large degrees of uncertainty around them all because the assumptions used in the model were very hard to predict. There were orders of magnitude in difference between the lower and upper boundaries of the studies.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305414#Comment_120305414

The genuine images and videos and reports were harrowing enough.

Are you disputing that the army was involved in moving coffins of coronavirus victims in Bergamo due to the overwhelming numbers? Because that seems to be the implication of your post.

An army spokesman confirmed on Thursday that 15 trucks and 50 soldiers had been deployed to move bodies to neighbouring provinces. Earlier local authorities in Bergamo had appealed for help with cremations after they had overwhelmed its crematorium.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-idINKBN2161FL

https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2020/mar/28/coronavirus-reporting-italy-death-toll

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-coffins/italy-small-town-priest-deals-with-death-on-industrial-scale-idUSKBN21F0M6

https://www.businessinsider.com/video-tour-coronavirus-icu-ward-bergamo-italy-worst-apocalyptic-2020-3?r=US&IR=T

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305443#Comment_120305443

Seemed to be what you said.

But all that is normal with modelling. You tweak the model with feedback and new data. Expecting v1.0 to be wholly accurate is bit unrealistic.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305307#Comment_120305307

Those of us who took the time to analyse the data and form our own opinions knew the facts from the start and knew the world wasn't ending.

Those who relied on the mainstream media and our health officials were subjected to constant fear. A member of NPHET now openly admits this.

Flinty997

Most people were more worried about socializing than the world ending. People heading off sking, and travelling to horse racing and rugby matches while COVID hit Italy.

That nphet dude wanted complusory mandatory vaccination and international travel locked down. Our lockdown was like a sieve internationally.

bucketybuck

A reminder, it isn't hindsight if you said it at the time. And a lot of people knew very quickly exactly who was most affected by covid and that the response was not science based.

It is only those who made fools of themselves defending the indefensible that now need to gaslight others and pretend that nobody could have known.

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305633#Comment_120305633

Of course our lockdown was like a sieve internationally. You can't blame NEPHT or the government or anyone else for that. One we have a completely unchecked border with the UK/Northern Ireland. For political reasons that was never an option. Two we are an island nation that tied into European supply chains. A key part of that is trucks travelling on ferries to and from the UK and the continent. You can't magic the infrastructure up to replace that overnight or even in months. We are not New Zealand a group islands way off in the Pacific isolated from everyone.

walus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120305307#Comment_120305307

The stats clearly show that countries such as France, Netherlands and Spain, have experienced much greater covid deaths than Italy in the same period. Yet, very few people (media including) paid any attention to that fact.

Bergamo was an outlier, and at that a perfect story to spin in out to be the headline for the propaganda that ensued. It was used very effectively to instill fear into the population. It seems that to this day it does an excellent job.

I said it before, if it wasn’t for media and social media we wouldn’t have had this pandemic.  

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120306267#Comment_120306267

We would have had a pandemic and it is simply false to state otherwise.

Pandemic: a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease over a whole country or the world at a particular time.

Covid clearly and indisputably meets that definition.

But kinda hard to know it's over a whole country or world without the media to tell us about what's happening outside our area.

It would still have been a pandemic in fact though.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120306238#Comment_120306238

Thats a cop out. It wasn't just supply changes.

We had free movement of people going all over the world on flights and ferries for holidays and work for most of 2020.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120306267#Comment_120306267

Italy and Bergamo was at the very start before it took hold in other places. So it makes sense it got the most global media attention at that time. Once it started rising everywhere. It would make sense after that point local concerns and lockdowns got more attention.

Instill fear. The grand conspiracy.

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120306308#Comment_120306308

It's not a cop out. To move from transporting stuff via trucks to fully on containers would take at the very least months if not years and cost hundreds of millions in upgrading and expanding our major ports. During the pandemic containers became very expensive due to there being a global shortage. They were in the region of 10 times more expensive compared to the current market rates.

Calling that a cop out shows a complete lack of understanding of logistics in Ireland.

Thats before we even talk about the border with the North. Brexit on its own should show you how contentious even putting customs posts on the border is never mind closing it. It was a complete non starter politically. That represents an even bigger hurdle than the very significant problem of ripping up our supply chains with the world. At least with that it's largely only time and money that are the problem. The border that been a political issue in some shape or form for 100 plus years at this stage

People need to realistic with what was possible to achieve otherwise you start holding the government/NEPHT to impossible standards.

Just to add once the border and ports were open stopping flights would be pointless.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120306358#Comment_120306358

No longer a conspiracy. A senior member of our experts admitted it.

normanoffside

edited