Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

I was in my local for 3 pints as normal this evening. Left as normal at 930. It was very very busy !!!!

it going to be a crazy weekend in pubs which is counter productive.

Stephens Day id normally head over around 4 and head home around 9 before it gets too messy. This year everyone will be bottlenecked into a 3 or 4 hour period ( I won’t go over now ). Again counter productive.

And the talk amongst a lot of my friends (40-49 year olds ) is they won’t bother getting the booster now. Once again counter productive.

So overall a waste of time and so frustrating. I’m not at all political but I never ever want to see or hear M Martin speak again. Spineless.

So your argument is that the 30 members of NPHET are basing their public health advice on what will benefit their investment portfolios rather than what will benefit public health. Is that it?

To be fair, you don't need to be easily confused anymore to wonder if your comment is serious or not.

Poe's law and all that.

Of course we'll tolerate it.

Lets be honest here, we've been one of the easiest nations to subdue and control during this thing. Most of our population have been happy to swallow countless lies and false promises from our politicians. There has been very little desire to question people in authority, like in other countries, or to question the merit of most of the measures implemented.

Sadly, the mentality has very much been one of "any old port in a storm" from most people. Content to follow any sort of leadership figure - even terrible hapless ones like we have in government - rather than engage their own brain and trust their own judgement.

It's the lazy option, for people who don't want any kind of complications in their life.

The virus is not endemic yet though.

Do you think people should go to work with symptoms? If not, are you willing to pay them for any time off work? Or maybe if they get tested, and it's positive, they can isolate and claim some money from the government. It will be a lot more than you will offer them.

So only the public sector is fueling the current caseload, that's a very strange take on it. Have you any lick of evidence to back that claim up?

The definition of Endemic is not about the % of cases you catch though. Go look it up.

So only HSE worker's kids test positive to Covid?

And any HSE worker who tests positive don't still have to look after a kid at home because their kid can't go to school?

You seem to have an issue with HSE or Public Sector workers who have kids who test positive.

I'm not familiar with the HSE guidelines for works who are close contacts of a confirmed case (I know at one stage it was different than the general public), but certainly those workers would be better off staying away from patients if their kids test positive? You want them working and mingling with patients instead?

Irish Times reporting that no indication of the severity of restrictions was given by NPHET at the Tuesday meeting with government leaders. The main purpose of the meeting was to ensure no surprises yesterday/today.

How many times now have NPHET pulled this stunt? Simply unacceptable behaviour. They need to be seriously spoken to or an additional group should be formed to lessen their power.

Is there a reason a government liaison couldn't be sitting in on NPHET meetings?

It would certainly remove these surprises and Government could get ahead of any issues/leaks.

d

Just some thoughts using amateur basic segmentation, there is a large group, probably around 60% judging by lowest uptake in other countries that trust the experts, feel vulnerable, want to help others etc. that took vaccines gladly and will take boosters too. Great.

Then there is a group of sceptics that just don’t trust the vaccine and won’t take it without extreme coercion. In Ireland this is a small number because of the strong social contract, probably under 10% judging by success of first roll out.

Then there is a group of around 30% that are not strongly motivated in either direction. First time out there was a form of social contract where by and large this group were happy to take the vaccine to protect the vulnerable on the understanding that then life could return to normal. And for many they believed this was the end game. This delivered a 90+% vaccination rate.

A marketing expert would probably tell you this 30% is your key group to encourage to get boosters if you believe that’s the priority. But the attraction of boosters is lower this time out as they offer less personal upside to this group. For example, you need a negative test as well as a vaccine passport to re enter the state. Makes it a much higher hurdle to leave Ireland for more than a day or two. Now we add new limits on socialisation for vaccinated people, closing earlier and likely expiry of vaccine pass in a few months. Also talk that a fourth etc. will be needed soon.

I know there’s many other factors at play but I think for many of the 30% the calculations will be different this time and it will take much longer to get to overall boosted numbers much above 75 or 80%.

I don't believe that times report for a second. This has been a very choreographed charade IMO. Tony laid out what they wanted, and they all agreed to leak the worst case scenario, while their real intention was what that fraud of a taoiseach announced yesterday evening.