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

yes, this is it. And we shouldn’t ever be considering a return to any lockdowns in any part of the economy.

The way forward is i) sorting out or health system (never going to happen), ii) enhancing ventilation and filtration etc in our office, social, retail and public buildings (will happen eventually) and iii) personal responsibility in which people stay home if they don’t feel well (which could and should happen now and in perpetuity).

In the meantime rely on better treatments (improving all the time) and new vaccines (unlikely to ever end this). But, other than that, we just get on with our lives

The reality outside boards.ie is way different. People are getting on with their lifes, pubs are busy, people are attending sports and social events, meeting friends, holidaying etc.

Yes, it will linger for a while and some people will die unfortunately but for most it's essentially over, me included.

In town last night, no one was discussing it, it was the usual sports and family stories. We're vaccinated and we've moved on.

Yes the vaccines protect vulnerable people and have saved many of their lives for now.

I didn’t say vaccines would get us out of this. They will not. But nor will restrictions. We are just along for the ride now and hopefully treatments will continue to improve, meaning that those admitted to hospital are discharged sooner. And vaccines will continue to limit serious illness.

As for case rates, they will be what they will be from here. Hopefully people, if they don’t feel well, will stay home…..that’s part of our work culture that has to change

That is true, you did not say vaccines would get us out of this, that was another poster.

I agree work culture has to change, not going into work feeling sick, we need focus on treatments and better ventilation. I would add we need to improve our health system. 400 and something ICU beds for a population of 5 million.

You’re missing something.

CO2 concentration is used to show air changes / build up of stale air. If you’ve an occupied room, as people exhale the CO2 is analogous to everything else in the air that’s being expelled from their breathing.

So high CO2 = poor air quality.

It’s an extremely simple and effective way of knowing when you need to ventilate a room.

There’s no practical way of measuring viral concentration in the air as the particles are so tiny they’re not easily detected, but you can use measures like this to show when you need to get air changes moving.

Just on this - the UCD architect has been “attacked” (I’d rather say challenged) on Twitter as she is part of an extremist group (ISAG) who have constantly used children as emotional pawns in their bizarre push for extra restrictions, extra anxiety, and let’s be honest, extra airtime for them (masks in schools, wanting schools closed, saying kids will die).

She May be an expert in her field, but any credibility has been long lost as part of that group, given one of their self stated goals is to stoke anxiety and fear in people. Even McConkey distanced himself from ISAG.

I think even if every restriction was released tomorrow we would not return to normality. The fault for that IMO sits squarely with the government comms strategy and RTÉ. It’s not necessarily the fault of NPHET and McKonkey/Staines/Ryan that they were given a disproportionate and unsupervised platform. It’s the fault of the government and RTÉ respectively. We were fed a daily diet or NPHET concern and RTÉ / ISAG scaremongering for 18 months. That will resonate with large parts of our population for months if not years. It’s RTÉ primarily who will be to blame for our slow return to normality compared to our peers

People can talk about restrictions ending in Ireland in October but it’s not true.

Masks will still be mandatory in retail and other settings. The maternity hospitals have laughed off removing restrictions and more or less said they’ll do as they please.

Im going to a christening in early November that is apparently restricted to 12 people.

There are 2 forest/wooded areas close to me that are still blocked off with barriers since Covid started.

As others have said, normality may never return in Ireland after the severity of our lockdowns and the constant doomsday communication strategy.

People may have to leave this island if they want to live unrestricted lives.