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

Deaths are a lagging indicator - those people probably caught covid in Aug-Oct...

More evidence that boosters work.

They do but they would also be expected to do things well, something that is really not true.

The modelling In particular has been a disaster, even accepting that modelling itself is not an exact science. Yet they continue to use data from these models to pursue that remit. Not a big deal in its own right but when it is the only arbiter of government policy there is a problem.

They are also not above playing politics and they know that the media will report any musings from the CMO or other NPHET members. Witness the persistent use of the absolutely nonsensical 400,000 cases and slightly less nonsensical 200,000.

Recent decisions and recommendations have become even more bizarre. There is apparently an obsession with COVID certs, gyms and hairdressers and basically anywhere indoors, including pantos.  The decision on masks in primary schools really looks like a clinical decision without once remotely taking into account that there are people involved and small people at that.

Of course, if we come out the end of this period without all doom and gloom emerging the public will be praised for doing the right thing. As somebody observed recently about a CMO tweet, he really doesn't get much of a response anymore. In a lot of respects it is a pity that they didn't slip into the background on October the 22nd.

Your own scapegoat I see is the HSE!

There's even a poster who shares this regularly!

To prove my assertion I only need a single example.

Yep it's great to see the vaccines working. Fair play to everyone who took them. Hopefully we get an even better run at more stuff back to normal after winter.

Except that potentially 10-15% of MenB will die, never mind the 1 in 5 chances of a variety of long term disabilities. COVID really is none of that and it leaves kids largely unaffected. While I appreciate it's a professional opinion, that can often be far too clinical and forget that we are dealing with human beings.

Before we delve into the fairly dubious area of state control over personal vaccinations there needs to be a whole lot of work in terms of what public health policies have done to persuade people to take vaccines. In some countries this worked very well, whether it was cultural or indeed a very good public health success. Other countries are complete failures on this and mandatory vaccines is effectively a nuclear approach to what is really pest eradication. I don't think it's warranted at this particular point, if ever and it does allow those with poor vaccination rates to paper over their own failings. 

That no longer matters as vaccines have taken care of that risk for the vast majority of people. We are 5th lowest for deaths in the EU.

Your funny in fairness

I don't disagree at all on this as a discussion point. But it's a bit like saying that someone should have installed better anti-pest measures in a building while the place is absolutely crawling with them and the timber is about to collapse.

Is it possible that for countries with low take-up due to cultural or educational issues, that such issues could be reversed/overcome in the short term? Maybe if they use the carrot approach rather than the stick. But we know from the US, that some are so entrenched in their position that it would require an unreasonably large carrot to get them to take a vaccine.

So it's reasonable to suggest that we should be prepared for the eventuality that mandatory vaccination may be necessary to address the problem. That's the talking point. Hopefully the outcome of that discussion would place an onus on countries to try a load of other things first before resorting to a mandate as a final step. A framework of escalation to improve vaccination rates, that applies EU-wide, and applies a threshold that must be met before a member state is permitted to mandate vaccines - say less than 60% take up.

This is better than refusing to even entertain the idea and then the union being in complete disarray when it comes to figuring out the questions on human rights, certificates, travel, etc etc. As it is, I expect Austria and Greece's approaches will end up in the ECJ and take years to sort out. We could have these questions answered in advance to avoid vaccine mandates becoming a default tool.

It's a discussion and suggestion that shouldn't be tolerated. It's a slippery slope we could go down if we give them the powers to make vaccines mandatory. No doubt there is an element of lobbying going on by big pharma. It needs to be resisted and people need to retain choice. We all remember the campaign to have 8th amendment abolished. People should have the choice of autonomy.