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

Serious question, if vaccination significantly reduce the spread then how do the two most vaccinated counties Waterford and Carlow) also have among the highest infection rates?

I know that the trials showed the vaccines reduced the spread but these trials were sped through so they only had data for several months and after 4-5-6 months it seems the ability of vaccines to reduce transmission severely reduces. Data from The early vaccinated countries and/or statelets (Israel, Gibraltar, Malta etc) shows this as they all had huge spikes 4-6 months after vaccinating the population. Perhaps the one of the early vaccinated states which has had the lowest spike is San Marino, who interestingly used Sputnik

Not trying to be a sh1t stirrer but up to recently enough I used to be reasonably on top of covid news/developments and I didnt see 'vaccinations significantly reduce spread'. What I saw is that the jury is very much still out on that and several papers and statements from health officials worldwide state that vaccinated people carry the same or near the same viral load as unvaccinated people. Other statements make some mental gymnastics around vaccinated people being infectious for a day or two less than unvaccinated people and what have you.

Covid number reductions in general can easily be explained seasonally and by the way of fact that vaccinated people do not have the same testing requirements as unvaccinated and that testing requirements in general have been relaxed siginifcantly. So far all I'm seeing is that vaccinations sginifacntly reduce severe symptoms. Which is great but its not the same thing obviously.

I am vaccinated since May just to make clear I'm not an 'anti-vaxxer' but since you have actually thread banned people for saying what I'm saying/asking above could you please link some info to 'vaccinations significantly reduce the spread'?

Maybe people didn't see what De Gascun said. It has been posted a couple of times already

He's saying a vaxxed individual who has covid carries the same viral load and CAN transmit to others included fully vaxxed. But as a vaxxed person your chances of catching it in the first place are lower. And at a population level this somewhat suppresses transmission and cases.

This is not binary, it does not eliminate it, or is 100% or complete. Like masks etc. But it does reduce it. If it didn't we'd be dealing with much much higher case numbers. A much higher proportion of cases every day are in the unvaxxed than the vaxxed.

We're lucky that once the safety and efficacy was established that this could be further researched using real world data that showed considerable drops in R rate among the vaccinated, enough to keep the current R rate at ~1 while R0 for delta is believed to be 8+.

But again, you're arguing against all the science and studies that have gone into this and keep digging into a narrow set of data to try and support an absurdly narrow viewpoint that is not supported by the data (except in anti-vaxxer world).

The vaccines are nowhere near as good as we are all lead to believe. The Government want vaccination to be the silver bullet because they have no other plan. It’s vaccination or the country’s fucked. That’s why they push the vaccine certs so hard because they are still desperately clinging to the idea the vaccines are going to end the pandemic.

Yep a massive percentage bought into the vaccine as we were told it would bring an end to restrictions

It's seems to have worked for other countries. Another lockdown would do so much damage to people's mental health.

I don't get all the lockdown talk in here. It's the only place it's being talked about.

Incorrect, last year wet pubs opened on September 21st as part of lv2+ on the living with COVID plan

On the 6th of October the country moved to lv3 and pubs were once again closed except for 15 people outdoors, you couldn't travel outside your county

There was also the constant threat of lv5 restrictions which eventually came on the 19th of October... But you are saying you felt more free then because you didn't have to show a qr code on your phone to drink inside a pub?

Almost 50 more people in hospital today with the virus, crazy even for a Sunday... I'd hope to see a massive drop tomorrow due to the weekend effect

Yes of course...

That isn't evidence that vaccines reduce spread. It may be evidence that vaccination reduces admission to ICU.

What do you envisage for January, Case-Wise, Hospitalisation wise?

Remember, everyone thinks they're invincible after the vaccine. Everyone will be visiting each others houses over Christmas, where they may have not last year. The HSE will undoubtedly be calling for it. If they are calling for it, NPHET will be. If NPHET and HSE are calling for it, you betcha the Media and Opposition parties will be. So it will be then up to Micheal Martin, the weakest man who has ever lead a sovereign state, to say No. Not a chance.