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

shesty

Yes @Goldengirl .I am standing back and trying to analyse (yes in hindsight, alway 20/20).No more than yourself, I do not think everything we did was wrong and being scientific myself, I understand how data can be looked at.I think I am trying to highlight things that we did but could have done better or differently.It's probably more a social/logistical thing from my viewpoint.

I understand why the media was used. I do think it went way overboard but that it went that way with the blessing of those in power.I have exposure to the civil service, I'd be fairly sure a decision was made or communicated to the media to keep a strong message being sent out but I think there was a big social cost to that that was intentionally ignored.

Initial lockdowns I agree with, but what followed from Aug 2020 onwards could have been more nuanced.Interesting you say sticking with tried and tested measures mind you, I have had the misfortune to be in children's A&E of late, and I find the logistics of A&Es to be very irritating.I understand medically how triage works, but I am viewing it with a different mindset and can see a lot of ways that flow of patients could be improved - it just wouldn't tie in with the medical way of triaging.But if you have people waiting 10+ hours to be seen, does it suggest that maybe the medical way needs to be examined and see could it be refined or altered to be improved?? With that in mind, maybe tried and tested methods weren't so great as time went by....and I think that is where my thoughts would be, should we have altered our approach somewhat as we went on?Just querying it all really. It does need to be questioned, we should learn from it.I just don't think we will.

Goldengirl

I agree with you about the 'tried and tested'.

It is a fallback, is what I meant, when in crisis, but once the data starts to come in, changes should be made. This would be my criticism too that cogwheels of power moved too slowly to change the message. Went from high alert to 'off a cliff/ no worries now ' , no explanation.

Obviously there was a time in between that they knew that everything was changing but the media did not get that message.

Can't comment about the A&E situation in relation to this.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120436607#Comment_120436607

Probably better for them in the long run.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479073#Comment_120479073

I think it was the one of the times politicians had to make decisions based on what will definitely happen but hasn't happened yet due to the lag from cases to hospitalisations. They hate doing that as they get all of the blame without pointing to what they were preventing (other than comparisons to other countries like Italy which local populations find a nebulous comparison, India also got caught the same way with Delta).

Calling in the IMF was similar.

A more recent example was the US telling everyone what russia was going to do in Ukraine but Europe only reacting after it happened, there are some very cringey posts from the days before the invasion (with a lot of those posters intersecting with the anti-restrictions crowd on here).

72sheep

I suppose reflections can include how the HSE leadership and Dept. of Health managed their exit strategy. Donnelly finally released the report and, you guessed it, there's "lessons to be learned".

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41118640.html

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480553#Comment_120480553

I don't know what you are referring to there. I think I understand well the' lag of cases to hospitalisations ' but that was not what I was talking about?

The rest of this...what relevance to my post?

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120490026#Comment_120490026

Another post with more

. irrelevance...

If you read the link you pisted, it discusses TH's failed appointment, nothing to do with HSE, DOH or Covid, whatsoever!

Think maybe people ate all reflected out, judging by some of these posts.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493518#Comment_120493518

It was a comment about this:

Went from high alert to 'off a cliff/ no worries now ' , no explanation.

Because of the lag time it meant it was fairly dramatic swings which was hard for the public to understand and hard for the government to message effectively.

72sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493527#Comment_120493527

Golden, don't fret about Tony's failed appointment at TCD, he's since fallen back into a job within the loving arms of one of Ireland's largest Covid PCR testing laboratories.

And regarding reflections - there's no hurry at all, we'll take it handy and in the words of The Carpenters we've only just begun.... LOL!

72sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120478975#Comment_120478975

"we should learn from it.I just don't think we will" - unfortunately I don't disagree. I'm holding on to a faint glimmer of hope that doctors will be more savvy next time round. They were completely steamrolled by the media, who in turn were facilitated by "public scientists" that got drunk on the public attention. I know many GP's who are still stunned by what transpired during Covid and are having to deal with the repercussions of lockdown in their surgeries on a daily basis.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493962#Comment_120493962

You know many GPs? Well grand, you can ask them how they would have handled the number of cases needing medical care, secondary infections, infection control in their clinics without lockdown and other measures in place in wider society.

And if you know anything about GPs you'd know they and their representative associations would have been the loudest voices calling for lockdown and restrictions to control spread of covid had we not done so.

From Northern Ireland, Chair of the BMA's GP committee

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2020/11/04/news/leading-doctor-calls-on-executive-to-sanction-full-lockdown-similar-to-republic-s-with-schools-remaining-open-2118902/

And from India:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/doctors-associations-call-for-a-lockdown/article34502725.ece

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480553#Comment_120480553

So why didn't the government disclose to the public the evidence on which these decisions were being made?

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120496592#Comment_120496592

They did, but be clear, what evidence are you asking for or talking about because there are masses amount of data to be picked through.

political analyst

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120496924#Comment_120496924

I guess that mathematical 'models' were used to make those decisions. If only people had accepted that Christmas in 2020 wasn't going to be as happy as it usually was .....

72sheep

What an incredibly garbled piece of reporting from a team of three journalists at the IT. Just look at all those scary quotes! 

Isn't it funny that so many healthcare workers, i.e. those people directly exposed to the "carnage" wrought by Covid, are still far less convinced about vaccines than the journos, politicians, media pundits, pharmacists, accountants, solicitors,... Perhaps Paul and the IT Health team could write an article explaining to us how the stupidity of these under-educated nurses and hospital porters must not be allowed to hold the country to ransom ;-) 

https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/04/20/new-hse-chief-warned-over-poor-vaccine-uptake-among-staff/

Spudman_20000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498705#Comment_120498705

Wow, the veritable stampede of healthcare workers getting their boosters that some on here assured us would happen doesn’t seem to have materialised. What a shocker.

walus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120498705#Comment_120498705

They simply did not receive the memo from the ‘nudge unit’ to turn off the fear factor. Old habits die hard.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120493938#Comment_120493938

Where was I " worried about" TH and his appointment?

Stop making stuff up in order to have something to post.

None of that is relevant to pandemic reflections, just people with a gripe about personalities.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120500653#Comment_120500653

Or they have been infected already... Repeatedly.

As I have said before.. And before that as well....

Goldengirl

Be great if one of you came up with something new and relevant to.. talk.. about instead of venting about public servants.. Very tiresome.

Edit .spelling .

72sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120500691#Comment_120500691

TH's moves post-Covid are 100% certainly worthy of our reflection:

• TH was somehow led to believe that he qualified for a "10 year secondment"(?!?!) to TCD.
• Our civil service (R. Watt) over-stepped multiple boundaries to allocate our public funds to cover the €20m required for TH's team in TCD.
• Now that it's all gone south, our Govmt and Watt are going at each other like rats about their various inconsistent recollections :)

The fact that TH has landed a job at a PCR Testing Lab, that profited millions during Covid, is simply a fact.

Now if you had said I had personality issues with "snake oil" Nolan, Paul Reid or Dr Pete Lunn, then I probably would have agreed with you!

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120501769#Comment_120501769

If he had landed that job during Covid , when PCR testing was up and running it would be worthy of discussion .

Now its derisory.

Beasty

This is a thread to discuss Coronavirus, not Tony Holohan. His decisions/actions during the pandemic are on topic, his activities outside those Covid responsibilities are not

Any questions PM me - do not respond to this warning in thread

TomSweeney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120420986#Comment_120420986

Funny he used to be revered here and you couldn't critisize him, but now he goes against your Covidian view you dismiss him - and seems you can't praise him.

Fact is, he's been pretty much spot on throughout this as and as the data comes in he is being proved right.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120507193#Comment_120507193

No he hasn't. You haven't even tried to make the case with any actual facts. Stating "fact is" without providing any actual facts is a clear sign your claim is without foundation.

He has been shown to be wrong or relaying misinformation on basic facts about covid for example Ivermectin in Japan.

He seems to be chasing an audience now, maybe got used to the limelight and the audience for someone explaining the scientific consensus is smaller than someone trying to find an angle.

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120507193#Comment_120507193

No facts in his posts , smoke, mirrors and misinformation.

Who" revered" him ? Not here or any of the main Covid threads.

You are mixing up this thread with some other that extols the extremely doubtful virtues of Ivermectin and Vit D .

72sheep

Nurses looking to have long Covid classified as an occupational injury. Playing the HSE/govmt right at their own game and you can't blame them.

Also great to see IT Health editor reporting on "a seminar" confirming that long Covid "symptoms are internationally recognised" - they fail to mention that said symptoms include the wonderfully vague catch-all of "feeling sick", LOL!

https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/04/20/two-thirds-of-patients-at-long-covid-neurology-clinic-yet-to-return-to-work-fully-seminar-told/

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120508532#Comment_120508532

Theres a lot more to long covid than your post would suggest.

Here is just one study which shows blood flow differences

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-32275-3

walus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120508532#Comment_120508532

This study looked at long covid but unlike many other studies it used a control group - cohort sick with ‘other upper respiratory illnesses’ that tested covid negative. According to them “differences in measures of well-being between baseline and follow-up were statistically and clinically better among those in the COVID-19–positive group vs the COVID-19–negative group” and “SARS-CoV-2 infection was not associated with worse physical, mental, and social well-being (as measured through PROMIS scores) at 3-month follow-up compared with no SARS-CoV-2 infection among adults with symptomatic illness.”

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2799116

If ‘long covid’ is a thing, so is long ‘any other upper respiratory illness’.

Blown out of proportion, as it suited the narrative. Still useful to those who desperately need to justify their choices.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120508692#Comment_120508692

All I see here is a desperate need to spin / downplay results. Whatever way you spin the results it shows large numbers of people experiencing long covid symptoms.

Covid is a highly infectious disease so even if its long term effect was 'only' comparable with other respiratory diseases that is still significant for public health:

"We found that 39.6% of individuals in the COVID-19–positive group reported moderate to severe impairments across any of the evaluated PROMIS well-being domains at follow-up."

This is a version of long covid too:

People infected with SARS-COV-2 had more than three times the risk of dying over the following year compared with those who remained uninfected.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(22)00087-4/fulltext

The study you have linked is hardly conclusive given its noted limitations. It notes another study showing cognitive impact from long covid and then says:

"Furthermore, those with the most severe disease may have been unable or unwilling to participate; it is possible that those too ill to participate were at higher risk of experiencing long-term symptoms after COVID-19. It is also possible that those with cognitive impairment may have been less likely to enroll."