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

This is not a dig……..turn off notifications, they are damaging to mental health. Our brains have not evolved to have that level of constant exposure to threats and danger. A lot of people I know really struggling now more than any stage of the pandemic. People need to double down on protecting themselves.

Eh. Remember how well they were doing after their initial successful vaccine roll out?

Don't forget that 40 % of Unvaccinated comes from about only 8% of the population , So you are far far more likely to be in hospital if you are Unvaccinated ,

No references to Israel when cases were through the roof because of the ineffectiveness of the vaccines. We’ll see how many people reference Israel when the need for yet another booster comes around.

Either you misheard or whoever it was is mistaken.

Perhaps they said that around 20% of those in ICU are unvaccinated with no underlying conditions? That's the current situation.

More arguing against things nobody said. Mandatory vaccination has been happening for decades and society has not collapsed or devolved into Nineteen eighty-four. That's the point.

Vaccinations have been required for travel, for minor illnesses, for a long time.

Kill rates though are not the only measure of impact of an illness. We don't vaccinate everyone for Ebola. Why not? Because it's actually not that infectious. Likewise rabies. Rabies has a 100% kill rate. Why don't we vaccinate everyone? Because it's relatively difficult to catch.

The need for widespread vaccination programmes is not just based on the CFR. The R-number is important, as well as the overall impact of an illness. If the CFR is high but the R-number is low, vaccination is not that important.

Likewise if the R-number is sky-high but the CFR is close to zero, vaccination won't save many lives.

However, in the latter case if the hospitalisation rate is high, then vaccination plays an important role in keeping people out of hospitals.

Delta variant Covid has unfortunately managed to occupy this niche where it has a relatively high CFR, a high hospitalisation rate, and a high R-Number. It's about 3 times more infectious than smallpox. It's not the worst in any of these measures, but it's bad in all of them. A perfect little storm of a virus, that leads to high levels of pressure on health systems.

Just because it "only" kills 2% of those infected, doesn't mean it's no big deal. If lots of people get infected, lots of people die. And covid is really good at infecting lots of people. Much better than smallpox is.

The argument against mandatory vaccination is not, "covid is just a little 'flu". It's about whether all avenues to encourage people to make the right choice, have been completely exhausted. There may come a time when principles have to be abandoned in the interests of saving lives. That's reality.

No sensible western government is going to adopt let it rip and if they die, they die. Not so much because of COVID deaths per se, but equally because of the impact COVID has on health systems and all the non covid stuff that has to be cancelled. You'd have people needing or having had surgery that requires ICU and they'd be the casualties too. I mean, we've what, 3,800 hospital staff off work currently because of COVID, our system is rubbish, I think most would agree, but there's not a system in the world can cope with the Delta R number being let run through a population.

I honestly don't think anyone really knows how this all plays out or what the answer is. Hopefully the extra protection from dose 3 of the jabs does it.

@seamus 'There may come a time when principles have to be abandoned'

For somebody who is prepared to become corrupt yes.

Life is a test, and you're setting yourself up to fail.

So what will we do ? Hold people down while injecting them ? In mass centres with straps on tables ? Of course it wont happen

On the work from home thing, if your job can be done from home I don't see a problem. Would it be better that you go into the office but that those who work at the Aviva or in pubs have their livelihoods taken away from them again?

Hi George. It's more to do with the lack of logic behind the latest restrictions. It just makes no sense. I'm all for working from home etc. I don't see the logic in closing the pubs at 12. it makes no sense at all in the grand scheme of things. I think it's just NPHET and the Government being seen to do something and the hospitality sector are an easy target.

But the working from home where we can allows those other things to open which are places of work for people who can't do it from home. So it makes some sense imo.

If we actually had a "circuit breaker" I wouldn't mind that much personally. I have no faith whatsoever that it would actually be a circuit breaker though. If we close down we'll be closed down for months.

And yet countries with near 100% vaccination are reacting the same as countries with 60%. Principles my dear, were abandoned long ago. The vaccines against covid are way to ineffective at suppressing the disease and governments are scrambling to get out of the rabbit hole which has been sold to the public. Breakthrough cases are everywhere. Either the vaccines protect those who have whatever underlying conditions are causing them to need care, or they don’t.