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

maybe someone could run fibre the 200 yds I need to get decent broadband so I could easily work from home.

The absolute irony of you throwing the term doom monger around. How's the echo variant that's gonna shut down travel between Ireland and the UK coming along?

Thank fûck!!!

7k is definitely way overstating it, but it's also not just as simple as having some furniture and computer stuff delivered to an employee's home. It has been up to now, but into the future there'll be more scrutiny.

There are certain obligations on an employer in regards to health and safety in terms each employee's workspace and its suitability. This includes - and always has included - that for remote employees that they have an appropriate workspace. A tiny desk and stool jammed in under the stairs, or a few pillows propped up against a headboard, are not appropriate.

These are statutory obligations that can't be signed away by an employee with a contract saying "I know my workspace is crap and my back and neck will be fucked, but it's OK, I accept the risks". A certain level of self-certification is probably allowed; The employer provides employees with a description of what an appropriate workspace looks like, and the employee signs a declaration that they have access to such a workspace.

But for the most part, the employer will be on the hook to ensure that their employees aren't in some cramped accommodation crowded around a kitchen table with four other people.

There are security considerations too. You can't be working on sensitive documentation in full view of someone who doesn't work at the company. The bare minimum requirement will be a room in your house configured in such a way that your screen/documents are not visible to anyone else who does not work at the same company.

Scientists are now saying herd immunity is now unachievable and every person will catch COVID 19 at some stage whether vaccinated or not and that mass testing should stop and only people who become sick or hospitalised should be tested and counted.

Tbf, if WFH gets limited to people who basically have their own house, government are signing their death warrant when it comes to elections. Young people already feel crap about a lot of stuff, and with the housing market the way it is, if WFH privileges are gatelocked like that, there will be hell I'd reckon.

I wouldn't call this "fairly close"

Ya, that would be horrid. I'm someone who doesn't own their own house and WFH does not work for me (it's more a 1 day a week would be plenty for me as that's what I did occasionally pre covid) but if they gatelock it, it'll go down very badly. I'd hope/expect government to pass laws on what constitutes as acceptable for WFH (they'll have a separate issue here between urban/rural divide if companies implement minimum broadband speeds for WFH that they'll need to sort)

Yeah thought i was missing something . Seems like we peaked over a week ago.

Not being smart but time and time again they have got their modelling way off….Not sure what data scientists they are using but wouldn’t pay too much attention…

Don't have the figures to hand, but we have actually increased ICU and bed capacity quite a bit since April 2020.

There are significant set up costs for ICU, not least because they require specialised staff, but your typical bed isn't just one you throw in the corner either. There's always talk about "open beds", which is to say that you have enough medical staff to accommodate the number of beds you have available. Many hospitals have a bed capacity that they can't use because they don't have enough staff. So adding beds in general requires you to add staff in general. We have quite a bit of difficulty adding staff anyway, hence our reliance on foreign staff. But as you'd expect they're much much harder to come by in the middle of a pandemic.

In a warzone or natural disaster, you just bring people in and throw everyone on any bed you can find and treat them regardless of how much staff you have. But outside of that there is a balancing point where if you have too few staff for the number of patients you have on beds, you will actually kill more people. The guy with severe angina will die because the nearest nurse was treating the guy with a bad 'flu. Whereas if you send the latter guy home to rest because you have no spare beds, they'll both survive.

Gerry will probably wake up some morning and all the villagers will be gone off in a big boat

When it comes to the HSE and the health system there are enough pet peeves for everyone in the audience. Eyes will now be on the very well-paid Paul Reid and what he does about it as we emerge from this.

Maybe we need an emergency committee to deal with the looming crisis of our lack of beds and ICU capacity . It needs forward planing years ahead , training and recruiting nurses , increasing care home capacity , training and retaining doctors and building hospitals and care facilities . This has got to be addressed now and quickly