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

The media's stories for tomorrow are not instilling confidence... caps on hospitality numbers, lowering household visits, Pfizer jab waning significantly within three months of second shot, masks for primary school children. Can anyone see the iceberg on the horizon?

Which banned user were you?

Can't believe NPHET are still not admitting they were wrong on antigen tests, it's unbelievable.

Firstly, NPHET say if you get a negative test it will encourage you to do things? Well yeah, do things as in live our lives. It might seem like it makes sense now with cases so high not to do things but we could have encouraged antigen tests 3 months ago when hospitality was opened and not actively discouraged like now. Maybe if they did we wouldn't be in this mess now.

Secondly, last week Tony said in the previous 2 weeks 1 in 6 had flu like symptoms. Ronan said something similar this week but I think it was about 1 in 10 in a one week period. Let's go with the lower 1 in 10 as an example. Are 10% of the population (c. 500,000) expected to isolate for a number of days every time they have a little tickle in their throat? Go to the bother of trying to organise a PCR test for probably 2 days time, spend well over an hour combined travelling to/from the centre and waiting another 1 to 2 days isolating while waiting for the result? There is not enough PCR tests to test these 500k people every week anyway, never mind the asymptomatic and hospital testing on top of this.

Will antigen testing pick up all of the cases? No most likely not but it'll get vast majority and that's good enough. It's not like our current system us working as anytime time we try live anyway normally its a disaster anyway. Coming up to 2 years into this pandemic and our message is still to hide from covid rather than find ways to live with it.

I'm going to a show next week, I'll take antigen before and one a few days later. Going to a wedding a few days after that and I'll do the same. Why wasn't this kind of thing being encouraged months ago and NPHET and government have to be dragged kicking and screaming to it?

And you are the arbiter of what's dangerous? You do need to be able to stand over opinions and to show that they are not based off things that are untrue or wrong.

OK, that's not the best article and it's all over the place. How does more money make people less "burnt out"? It's not a switch and you are or you aren't.

It looks like people were invited to go off and rant and The Journal promised to publish all of it.

Where do you see the end goal with booster shots? Give your opinion on the matter (there is a whole boosters thread as well if you want to talk about it in more detail).

Was on front page of independent. Didn’t fully read article as I won’t pay for it but mentions that and increased mask wearing for kids and outdoor events.!! The irony!!

The vaccines still strongly protect you from serious illness. The waning is mostly for breakthrough infections.

i think masks might work. My line of work is very high risk and so far i haven’t caught Covid 19.

598 in hospital this AM, down 13. Discharges are always sluggish until Friday night, so any decrease at all is good.

Not sure if it means anything, but when you chart the growth rates of admissions & discharges, they broadly tend to follow the same pattern.

Admissions start to grow, and then 2-6 days later, discharges start to grow too. Of course they do; more admissions must eventually mean more discharges.

And same on the way down, admissions growth drops or becomes negative, and in short order, discharge growth drops too.

This week, that pattern is not being followed. Admissions rate growth peaked on 15th and has been steadily declining since. As of this week, we have a negative growth in the admissions rate (i.e. the average number of people admitted over the last 7 days is dropping).

But ten days later, the discharge rate is still growing. It must peak, of course, but it's just curious. It bodes well though that the rate of discharges is still increasing week on week.

Great post- we have been using antigen tests in this manner since last Christmas. We know it isn’t bulletproof but even when you wear a bulletproof vest you know there is still a risk of being shot in the face!

secondly is there any other country in Europe or the world where the government has taken a back step from direct leadership and allowed a hurriedly assembled group of medical influencers take charge of the day to day running of public information?

never have we had such a weak government.