Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

Numbers have always been of adult population. No point including a group we may not even decide to vaccinate.

As of midnight, Saturday 17th July, we are reporting

1179* confirmed cases of #COVID19.

22 in ICU. 91 in hospital.

*Daily case numbers may change due to future data review, validation and update.

https://twitter.com/roinnslainte/status/1416768016721883137

Great drop in numbers and positivity today, hopefully get under the 1000 cases tomorrow.

Vaccinated or non vaccinated?

young or old.

we need these details to know how big a problem this is.

icu will increase.

Cant see that happening, high numbers yes, hospital numbers low, i know one thing by boss wont lock down again no matter what happens.

In other countries with Delta, the younger and the vaccinated seem to be suffering shorter and less difficult illness in hospital (still unpleasant and scary though). So hopefully the hospitalisation figure doesn't turn into ICU figures at the same rate as before, and also importantly people don't spend as long in hospital.

So no need for a booster shot? Excellent

It's her job to express medical opinions in very general terms. Such individuals also want us not to do lots of other things we as humans enjoy. There is nothing wrong with these kinds of views but it should also serve as a reminder that life is so much more complex than just a medical commentary.

If we didn't have social media and a 24/7 media environment we would not have noticed much about covid last year even. It is still the case, without vaccines, that the vast majority of people have little to no symptoms from it. The age profile of those dying makes it clear that simply being at the life expectancy in Ireland was enough to create a risk factor for you. For younger people, obesity is a big factor in vulnerability which is not a reason for locking down all of society - put out a message for people to lose the gut, do exercise and cut down their alcohol but of course those yellow covid awareness posters make no mention of the best defence against covid; protecting your own immune system! At a certain point, I'm not sure when perfectly healthy people started to shift into a mindset of "I am terrified to contract covid" as this is entirely irrational.

This is a fair comment. We already know many (most?) people are really bad assessing risk. Whether that's because they're far too cautious for the scenario, or not cautious enough, we've seen crazy behaviour from all ends of the spectrum throughout this pandemic.

Like you say, there will need to be some level of "reset" of expectations to be done. Plenty of people who've lost sight of the fact that protecting the hospitals was ALWAYS the end goal here. Not getting overwhelmed so that they could continue to provide all services. No matter what way you spin it, there is a fundamental truth that people die, people die of viruses, and if herd immunity is possible, then great, if not then we have to do what we can to protect ourselves while allowing life to continue. We eliminated many diseases through vaccination, but we didn't restrict society indefinitely while vaccination was taking place. We cannot keep ourselves restricted in order to save every single life. We cannot save every single life. We are animals living in an ecosystem that is beyond our control. Infection is part and parcel of that. Deaths from infection are part and parcel of that. We have to strike a balance between acceptable deaths and acceptable restrictions.

People die of 'flu every year and aside from infection controls in hospitals, we don't do anything else. Once we're at the same threshold with covid, then we have no rational basis for restrictions.

On Twitter the cry is often, "what about long covid?!". But it's not a rational basis for maintaining restrictions. For a start, it's poorly defined. But also, if people didn't die of covid and a certain % developed long covid, then we would never have locked down in the first place. From a healthcare standpoint, long covid is manageable, even if we end up with hundreds of thousands of sufferers.

It's clear that those running the show know all this. NPHET are not recommending further restrictions. Reid spoke yesterday about a "bumpy ride". They have no intention of locking down again if it can at all be avoided, and they believe that we can probably weather this surge because our vaccination rates are so high. We will vaccinate enough people before there is enough time for this virus to do any serious damage. If anyone still thinks that NPHET are itching for a lockdown, consider that we've had an average of 1,200 cases a day for the last 4 days. And nobody is talking about it. "Stay safe". International travel is open again today. Indoor dining most likely next Monday. Incomprehensible last year. The whole game has changed, and people are going to have to accept that a certain level of infection and ICU admissions are acceptable.

Yes, those 22 people in ICU are someone's mother, father, sibling. But so are the thousands of people who've had serious medical care removed or restricted.

Because the primary aim here is not to prevent Covid deaths. It's to prevent other deaths from occurring due to all our health resources being consumed by covid.

I don't think "sour grapes" are the reason people are criticising the UK's opening up..

"Yes, those 22 people in ICU are someone's mother, father, sibling. But so are the thousands of people who've had serious medical care removed or restricted"

Why do people deny that the second group are caused by Covid and the solution to their problem is to restrict Covid?.

We have had endless dangerous misleading nonsense posted here and elsewhere to the effect that removing restrictions on pubs will somehow help cancer patients, when the exact opposite is true.