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

How does that conflate to recent hospitalisation though?

is fairly clear that with community transmission a higher number of cases will be in vaccinated, as that’s the vast majority of the community. That’s nothing anti vaccination, it’s simple fact.

the correspondence of those cases to hospitalisation is where we need to be looking

Here is the UK latest data

Certainly a lot of covering it up going on. This morning the experts are giving out pure lies about it

Surgeries have been deferred and cancelled every winter for years due to capacity issues in Irish hospitals. For example from 2018: HSE Winter Plan highlights vulnerability of scheduled surgery – RCSI President - Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and from 2017: Surgeries at Cork hospital cancelled for two weeks as flu and 'revelry' make their impact (thejournal.ie)

You really have to hand it to government & HSE PR that they have manged to deflect criticism of years of government incompetence and mismanagement away from themselves and onto the bogeyman of the unvaxxed. Unfortunately people are buying it and absolutely lapping it up as they have a nice handy bogeyman to direct their ire at i.e. the "unvaxxed", while the government and HSE get off scot-free.

He has studied epidemiology but has actually never practised as a doc or anything. He is a party politician first and foremost. But at least his qualifications match the new job. His predecessor was a banker. Not that thats in anyway remarkable. Most ministers dont actually seem qualified for their resort. So I give him that.

But he's on every talk show and in every paper every single day (literally). He is Germany's number one shrill doom monger. To the point where I have wondered in the past if there was something wrong with him. And I dont think thats just my bias talking. He comes across as a bit unhinged. He's like Claire Byrne with a party affiliation.

As for his appointment I'm actually surprised. I thought he was going to be the useful idiot dropped the moment the elections were won. Like the Farage of covid.

Having said all that I think he's genuine to some degree. While he talks in the most pessimistic superlatives only and has spread nonsense himself he has called out other people's nonsense in the past, too. He is nobody's fool that way. For that I'll give him the benefit of doubt. And like I said at least what he's talking about has its roots in actual qualification.

Why would we still need certs? They achieve nothing from a health perspective. I get masks, I get (though often disagree with) other restrictions. But the certs are nonsense, they aren't stopping infections. The only valid argument I can see is to encourage people to get vaccinated, but there aren't even making that argument.

To be fair, we have higher vaccination rates than the countries you cited, it may only be a couple of percentage points, but they clearly do matter. And I don't agree with your last paragraph whatsoever. If we had enough/more than enough hospital capacity, why would there be any restrictions for a largely-vaccinated public? And kids don't get sick.

Also, what restrictions are UK bringing back? Masks in indoor settings is all I've seen.

yes i agree, ive heard this from a few people

They may have inadvertently been a bribe to get vaccinated at first, but at 92+% eligible done, they won't make a difference to the rest.

Where they do make a difference is reducing the chances of the unvaccinated getting infected (where they are 12x more likely to end up in hospital and take up a bed) and if they do, from spreading it to others, where the reduction in transmission wanes from vaccination time but still appears to be apparent (even in the home setting with almost continued exposure). Maybe an age cert would be better but good luck with your political career after doing it (+ everyone can get vaccinated, people can't be younger no matter how much they try).

Even the UK is bringing them in (Wales, NI, Scotland, Boris doesn't give a sh*t about the English) along with every other European country, country's with the highest vax uptake are also seeing the lowest hospitalisation rates.

Amazing stuff from Sweden really, just getting on with it. No idea if vaccines were much to do with it or not but it seems to of worked.

Even with Delta going around the amount of over 65's going to hospital and ICU is crazy low compared to others.Will be interesting to see what things look like in a couple of months when it looks like those just above them seem to be just kicking off again.

Covid certs aren't just unique to this country. I was in Germany and France a few weeks back - covid certs required every where. Hotels, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions.

Yeah, but other countries are using them to try to force up low vaccination rates. Our government didn't voluntarily choose to use them and the original plan was to drop them from hospitality on October 22.

And possibly the fact that they rarely closed anything - just empowered people to be responsible?

Capacity limits and curfews restrict supply but not demand for socialising, and just pushes people to socialise in denser and less-regulated environments.

Swedish bars and restaurants have been open almost as normal for most of the pandemic. A lot more than ours certainly. Also as with the UK, there was definitely something to be said for allowing everything as normal during summer to build up immunity in advance of respiratory virus season.

Good point Lumen, i think they did not vaccinate a huge % of the country though.

Figures i get are 1.9 AZ & 4.9 PZ.

I know they did ban one of them to be given to under 65's early on and kept it that way and donated the excess ones to other countries.

At the behest of NPHET and I'd expect them to drop them as soon as they think they can.

C'mon man cases don't matter. Look the ICU numbers while Delta is in full flow around Europe. Yet we all know that those that go into ICU are older people but it just seems like it is not happening for some reason.