Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

By risky behaviour I presume you mean young people meeting up with their pals, seriously,what did you expect them to do.

Everyone is going to get covid, hundreds of thousands of people got it and had no symptoms. Double vaccinated people are getting it and will pass it on, old and very obese people, tripled vaccinated, boostered up to their eyeballs will get it and die, life goes on.

If you think people will shun each other in the longterm, well, I have news for you, they wont, they will socialise, engage in what you call risky behaviour😄😀

You can tut tut all you like.

There was an item on Drivetime yesterday about nurses in Vincents speaking out about the conditions they are working in and staffing levels.

I would pay an awful lot more attention to what those in the hospitals are actually witnessing than what Philip Nolan and his modelling is saying, his models have no credibility now after what he portrayed in July.

Its not even mid October yet and nurses are stating wards are being opened and there is no one to staff them. Staff are being recruited from overseas but there is a huge problem with retention of staff, the staff are demoralised and burned out, I wonder what the sick leave levels are like.

I cant see us not going back into lockdown by December, if nurses are finding life very difficult now how will they cope when elderly vaccinated people get covid and this is going to happen unless elderly people stay at home. The only way we will survive the winter is if those vulnerable to covid avoid other people, this is the reality as we cant stop education, normal working and normal socialising for the rest of the population every winter.

"plenty of talk about potential plans for it"

Asa matter of interest what exactly are the plans for winter, I havent seen any detail on whats planned.

Last winter we were locked down for six weeks In October and locked down again from before New Year for six months.

This year everything is supposed to be back to normal from october 22nd. The staff werent burn out last year, hospitals had never been quieter until the christmas period, we are going into winter now with burnt out staff, not enough of them and wards being opened so more work for staff already unable to cope.

We have hundreds of people getting late diagnoses of cancer because either they couldnt get a GP appointment or they sat at home afraid to seek medical help due to RTE reporting non stop on covid. We have thousands more needing expert mental help and its not there, there is literally nowhere to go if a family member develops depression.

"It will be variations" isnt exactly reassuring, its now almost mid October, flu season is coming and we know vaccinations dont prevent transmission of covid.

Winter is going to be a nighmare, it was chilling listening to what the intensive care nurse in Vincents had to say yesterday.

You can multiply those cases by a factor of ten, we have no idea how many people have had covid as so many would have had no symptoms and others wouldnt have gone for tests for fear the puritanical type would say they had engaged in "risky behaviour" and got the virus through their own fault.

The projections appeared to not take vaccinations or seasonality into consideration and you can combine that with the fact that many elderly people will rarely leave their homes again. Its this cohort that will end up in hospital, the young can get get covid and it will be a head cold.

In any event the projections made no sense in early July and they still dont, no one advised the Government that cases could be in their thousands over the christmas period so as far as I am concerned the modelling is useless and the less we hear from Philip Nolan the better.