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

This must be a new level in "searching for ominous-sounding headlines"

"Expected to consider"

Not "expected to recommend"..."expected to consider"

In other words, "We think NPHET is going to discuss whether increases in mask wearing should be recommended".

Bloody hell.

I think it's more trying to find the most negative angle rather than pushing for more restrictions. Not sure if that's much better to be fair.

It’s abhorrent and oppressive towards our kids! They need to see facial expressions and mannerisms to develop. Like I said if they want to wear one then fine but don’t force masks on the kids!

Wasn't this conspiracy theory a short while back?

That vaccine efficacy can decrease? Not really?

No?

This is about the risk of infection, not the efficacy of the vaccine against serious illness and death. When the vaccines were first rolled out, we had no clinical data about their effectiveness against infection. That wasn't tested. We had broad-spectrum data which indicated that there was a defence against infection for some amount of time, which we then saw - in the data and anecdotally - that breakthrough infections were more likely after a time, but the efficacy against serious illness remains strong.

People have been banging on since January that because vaccinated people can get Covid that the vaccines don't work. But it was never claimed that being vaccinated would protect against getting covid. Because that was never tested.

Any road, this is more evidence that an elimination strategy is an impossibility. Vaccination of under-12s and boosters for the under-40s are an absolute waste of money, and bordering on criminal when you have millions elsewhere in the world with no vaccines at all.

He either doesn't understand or doesn't care that his advice isn't practical for a large number of people. Not everyone can take a few days off work while they wait for a PCR test appointment and result. He seems to be under the impression that people who can't get a PCR test will wait until they can - but not everyone is going to do that. By getting behind antigen testing, at least some potential COVID cases would be caught, which is better than nothing.

The fact that the man overseeing our COVID strategy doesn't seem to realise this is concerning.

I don’t usually post much prefer to just lurk and read. I have flipped flopped from open up to lockdown myself and have had both jabs.

I have to say that in the beginning this was all about been in this together and we can’t lockdown just the old and vulnerable. Which I think everyone agreed with.

However in the last couple of months it amazes me how quickly we are to call lockdown on hospitality,the unvaccinated, How now we are starting to shift the blame to primary schools it seems to me that we aren’t all in this together by a long shot. The government are willing to blame anyone but themselves.

This virus is not going anywere but it’s clear as day that it is less prevalent in the summer months. The government needed to open earlier in the spring and then if it required masks etc coming into winter people will be more willing to do it.

There have been many mistakes made in relation to the handling of this but still we have no accountability it’s just blame blame blame. It really baffles me how the media don’t question anything. If we asked more question we may have been better prepared and maybe be in a better position.

Absolutely. The best bit is that you still need to isolate for another 48 hours even after a negative test if symptomatic (which includes a runny nose). In my household if every time one of us had a runny nose that person had to isolate while we wait 2 or 3 days for a test and 1 or 2 days for the result and then another 2 days on top even if negative, there would be someone in the household isolating on a permanent cycle from about mid October to early April. In fact I get some cold symptom most weeks in winter. I reckon I on my own wouldn't be far off being permanently isolated for 4+ months - I.e. by the time I followed Tony's protocol for symptom 1 (say a runny nose), which would take broadly a week from initial onset of the symptom, I'd have developed a new, different cold with a sore throat and would have to start all over again...

This has been highlighted by RiochtConor on twitter, whose interpretation of the data I can sometimes find to be too much confirmation bias and not objective enough. Nevertheless, we have this from Paul Reid yesterday:

5,800 staff on covid-related absence. Hmm.

In September, the HSE had a total absence of 5.89%, out of which 1.09% was covid-related. Helpfully, the HSE has around 100k employees, so we can say that's about 5,800 staff out, of which 1,000 were Covid-related.

Of course, that's September, not November. If we look at the overall data, the number of confirmed cases has tripled in the population between September and November. Which would be 3,000 HSE staff. Right? And you could argue that being on the front line, HSE staff are more at risk of their rates more than tripling.

However, the HPSC has helpfully been producing reports that tell us what proportion of cases are in healthcare workers (HCW). Unfortunately they only started at the end of October, but what they do tell us is that proportion of HCW workers getting covid has dropped by about two-thirds in the last month. 3.06% of all cases were in HCW at the end of October, as of yesterday that was 1.13%.

So what we can say is that in spite of the increase in covid cases generally, that they've been static or reducing in HCW for at least a month, if not longer.

This means that there is basically no way at all, that there are 5,800 HSE staff out with covid.

Like the discussion a couple of weeks ago about scoliosis surgery, this is another example of where HSE management is using "covid" as a catch-all excuse for gaps and failures in their organisation.

Will they ever actually get pulled up on it though?

Covid is the goldengoose for the HSE - they can blame all their organisational failings on it. Once covid is gone, it will still be blamed for the state the health service finds itself in then (waiting lists are all because of covid - not because we had massive waiting lists pre covid, etc)

They will do whatever they can to shift the blame off themselves and onto covid

I think they are an absolute disgrace. Parasites at this stage. Nothing wrong with calling them out in it either.