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

Don't listen to Pat Kenny so no idea what you're blathering about but blaming the hospital crisis on Covid is more political misdirection.

"“Ireland’s beleaguered health service continues to break records in the worst possible way. Our members are working in impossible conditions to provide the best care they can.....The government need to immediately initiate a major incident protocol. We need to cancel elective surgeries, stop non-emergency admissions, and source extra capacity wherever we can." Covid? No, INMO on the worst ever week for hospital overcrowding, January 2020.

Maybe that was early covid cases we didn't know about? Nope. 2019 had already broken the annual record for patients without beds before we even hit December.

There were over 400 fewer inpatient beds at the start of 2020 than in 2010.

There were 427 patients waiting on beds last Wednesday. The corresponding second Wednesday in November 2019, that figure was over 40% higher - 603. (Source)

Frontline healthcare workers are horrendously overworked. But the fault doesn't like with unvaccinated people, or people going to pubs, or travelling abroad, or barbers, or whatever. It lies with the politicians who have repeatedly failed to invest in a chronically underfunded health system. We've two former minsters for health running the country, frantically trying to blame everyone but themselves for the chickens coming home to roost. Sadly, it seems to be working.

I think they're more petrified of the January **** show again to be honest but you do you.

Cant blame the government/nphet/hse/medical staff for that either. Hospital outbreaks are a function of community case load and no matter how perfect someone is with their PPE, you will inevitably get hospital outbreaks.

It's not the house party animals who are ending up in hospital! It's much older groups where vaccinations did not do enough to protect them or where they have not been vaccinated. As always hospitals are full of people with underlying conditions.

Same here for the winter months so one would cancel out the other.

I have been there a number of times and even in summer early and late in the day with care homes you see many of them outside. Sometimes even in the middle of the day out in the shade of verandas. Probably out there whether they like it or not as it leaves it easier for staff to do housekeeping. Not something you could do here in the depth of winter.

The U.K case numbers are trending upwards again and their average daily deaths are higher than they were for October, so it looks very uncertain there as well.

To be fair, I don’t think it’s as much him having been mistaken as it is him simply changing his tune. The high level of vaccination has done much to remove a great chunk of the ethical oppositions to keeping things open which even I, as a consistent critic of the lockdown approaches adopted here, still accept existed. That is because vaccination has greatly mitigated and reduced the human cost, in terms of deaths and hospitalisations, of the reality that we must face and endure Covid rather than perpetually seek to suppress it. Those who have not opted to get vaccinated have only made the ethical argument of the lockdown advocates that bit harder to overcome — and while they are free to choose not to get vaccinated, they must accept that they are part of the problem too.

The potential problem with Martin’s thinking, as has been the problem with the Irish government’s thinking in general for quite some time now, is that it has always been mired in short-termism (i.e. address an immediate problem with short-term measures). And so here they are again, presented with an immediate issue of rising infections and suddenly the long-term pathway (to which the high level of vaccination now gives added benefit) seems to be at risk of getting blurred by the societal and media demand to do something — or to at least be seen to do something. They need to show steel now and be willing to set out the plain reality that living with Covid invariably means actually living with Covid, which means the virus will spread whether we keep kicking the can down the road or not.

It makes it look like they're doing something though, which is of course the real goal here.

Oh no they're still open, just now they'll be closing at midnight! I wonder if there's a loophole that they can reopen at 00:00:01... if I were a nightclub owner I'd look into this

They didn't even stagger the closing times. So lots of packed luas and buses full of drunk folk.

The pub change isn't too bad though is it? It's 12.30am of a weekend anyway isn't it? Or maybe I'm off there. Hazy ha.

But the nightclubs thing is some blow to them after a few weeks open.

Bet nightclub owners will be ecstatic.