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

Ireland will still be under severe restrictions come April.

And as sure as night follows day, you will be justifying those restrictions under the basis we won't reopen until such a point as we won't need to roll back, just as you did back in September while we awaited Irelands reopening day.

Its already been said, but if we have the expected surge of cases in January then socialisation will remain restricted until April/May.

We all know it is stupid, but that is what happened before and it is what will happen again.

Those people who last summer twisted themselves in knots trying to justify the extended restrictions really should have learned something from that.

You know thats not going to happen though when it comes to reopening?

In June whilst the rest of Europe opened up, full stadiums enjoying euro football, people allowed eat and drink indoors, festivals, nightclubs etc etc we were told "the greatest hurricane this country has ever seen" in terms of COVID was coming. We opened on October 22nd!! For 3 weeks! There was no hurricane not because we were restricted because there wasnt in every other country that wasnt restricted.

The same thing will happen, you know it, i know it, we all know it.

Every country in Europe has a plan to live with COVID that actually means living with it when possible, we dont, and we just accept it. Oh and the same posters will defend it, over and over and over again!

The full report is here, particularly notice the peaks and troughs follow the lockdowns/re-openings quite closely in 2020 and early 2021, also that the CSO is purposely going from March to February with the reports almost in anticipation of people trying to misuse the data:

Measuring Mortality Using Public Data Sources 2019-2021 - CSO - Central Statistics Office

You'd think this empirical data would be enough to put to bed the "lockdowns and restrictions don't work at all" and "there was no excess deaths" crowd, but it won't be.

What will be worse this year though is other countries have learned to adapt and move more quickly now, we will simply be left behind comedians/plays/band tours will go ahead but just cancel the Irish leg where up to now the tour was cancelled.

Films will be released in the cinemas abroad they might give us the option to stream but I doubt it with how easy it is to pirate so we just wait longer on the stream release.

Those are the only 2 examples I could think at the minute as I've to take a day off work to see the new Spiderman and Matrix films and have to go see a comedian at noon on the 27th now instead of 8pm, before people try to say its not all about gigs and cinemas.

We will do it the way we have always done it.

It's the simplest thing in the world

2020 deaths = 31,765

2019 deaths = 31,134

2018 deaths = 31,140

2017 deaths = 30,418

Black and white. An annual summary.

We'll be hard pushed to identify over 10K positive cases a day off our testing, unless positivity at least doubles and while 40K tests might be doable that's about the limit. We may have hidden positives where people test themselves or those with "colds" just self-isolate. What we also know is that we batten down the hatches when we see such panicky numbers, which provides its own protection. As a comparison to what we might see our January peak was only three days of horrendous numbers.

With your hands over your eyes, how do you cover your ears?

And are you embarrassed that even the CSO knew what the loons would try and do with the data and made sure the data couldn't be misread to support a narrative, yet you fell for it anyway?

There is someone working for the CSO that sat down, analysed the data, and anticipated that idiots online would try and do what you're doing and made sure that the data was presented in such a way that it would make them look ridiculous. That person has inadvertently trolled you mercilessly.

And yet still, you do not back down. Someone in the CSO has proved you completely wrong using actual evidence and analysis and yet your pride will prevent you from acknowledging that (well mostly because it's been pointed out so clearly that you've got nowhere to run and a climb down is very difficult on an internet forum). So you will need to persist with this direction even though you know, in your heart, that you are wrong.

FintanMcluskey is.

I don't believe the stuff he posts