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

The hospital situation is quite complex. For one you cannot just magic up ICU beds; a big component of them is the staff to make them work. That's a huge challenge for the HSE and second the most obvious reason is because we've been in the middle of a pandemic, where most effort has been given over to managing what's there. Into 2022 we certainly should demand a lot more progress on HSE reform and improvement.

If very few people require hospitalisation it is mild and you manage the recovery yourself. How exactly did a car crash become an illness now?

You seem to be labouring under the false impression that our hospital system ticks along just fine normally.

If we open up now, our hospitals and ICUs will fill up with people suffering from respiratory illness. A&Es will be stretched, hospitals will have to activate surge capacities, people asked to stay away from A&Es unless they're very ill.

In other words a *perfectly normal winter in the Irish hospital system*.

Just because this time around restrictions are an option, doesn't mean it's ok to put them in place. Emergency powers exist to deal with the extraordinary. Using them to tackle business as usual problems is executive overreach.

If in winter 2019, they had proposed closing nightclubs, limiting numbers in pubs and restaurants to protect the hospitals, it would have been an outrage. This is no different. Luckily flu levels in the community are zero right now so we're unlikely to see much of a flu season till the tail end of winter.

We've had this discussion already. Restrictions are fine when there's an extraordinary threat. Once that's gone, they're not.

I have no idea what an "overton window" is.

You could google the phrase in 2 seconds if you wanted, I suspect you know full well what it is.

Just like I suspect you don't want this discussion because it is an awkward one, you know full well restrictions are not justified but you don't want to acknowledge it. Because if they are not justified now then they weren't justified previously, and you defended them previously.

Like half the nation later on when lockdown is recommended

Like half the nation later on when lockdown is recommended

Hard to believe that only a few short weeks ago we were told that NPHET would be stood down in mid October.

Well we're running out of ICU beds. And its 18c out there today. Grim winter ahead lads.

Absolutely .It was flagged by nursing unions , consultants and nothing was done .Long before Covid struck the bed and ICU capacity is falling way too short for the population

Open up and start giving booster shots to those in nursing homes where over 50% of people died.

Don't mention the fact that they are also testing 50 times more people per day.

Unreal amount of cases lately in England with one in twelve school kids last week testing positive. A good job they are testing them all though, could you imagine having no test and trace in schools, all those kids passing it on to other kids, parents and grandparents and things. What a disaster it would be !

RTE second story about a school being closed to covid outbreak.

How is this considered newsworthy?

My point is that I'm sure this has happened since September but only today is RTE giving this type of story such attention.

We are still in a country where a high profile political correspondent is reporting on covid numbers and hospital numbers, not his area of expertise.

It's a mad country.

There was an extensive review of antigen tests done and they were proven to have poor performance. HIQA also reviewed them and warned against them.

In real world settings, these tests varied widely from the manufacturers claims.

They should not be used on people with no symptoms. Their performance worsens when they are not done by trained professionals. There is no data on their performance in children.

One off tests should not be used as a green light for entry to events. A negative result means nothing. It would cost another tens of millions to implement.

Compliance wains, people lose interest and stop doing them. They can be easily manipulated to get the result you want.

There is plenty of real world evidence that these tests do not work they way people assume they do or want them to do.

And yet people still choose to ignore it and think nphet is the bogeyman who authorise them for their ego or financial gain. It's ludicrous.

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/07/11/why-all-the-secrecy-around-innova-lateral-flow-tests/