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

The schools are been kept open for one reason and one reason only if they close then a lot of essential services will have problems with child care. If the kids are all at home the most two income family’s have a problem

Thats the problem. "Eventually".

COVID has probably removed my ability to ever have a family. I moved home-home, in with the parents on a temporary basis in late 2019. Then Covid happened and I couldn't leave them then to move in with a (now) ex. I knew I would not be able to see them. That relationship ended for other reasons anyway. Now one parent is quite ill and the other is deteriorating.

I am 38, pushing 39. I can't leave the parents, they need care and I have no brothers/sisters/relatives. None of my grandparents ever went into a nursing home, so my parents assume I'll look after them. There is already a huge creep in the amount of work I need to do to keep things going.

COVID means I can't date without risking bringing it home to them. They are massively paranoid about it. There is little to no dating going on in my age group. Even a gig I wanted to go to in London after Christmas - gone due to Omicron and the hysteria around it.

Had I been living with someone before all this started I'd likely have a family now.. I'm going to be too old by the time it ends, and more importantly by the time NPHET and the Irish Government back down.

That's what we were saying this time last year. Ego comes into on our side though. I get the impression Tony doesn't like being over ruled or doesn't like his instructions not being followed. Omicron and Covid shouldn't be leading to these types of restrictions and impending lockdowns anymore based on what we know and the data we have available from the last 20 months. Yet here we are. Another over reaction.

Eh the point is that journalists on Rte are pushing people to say what they want to hear .

I rang the HSE helpline this morning with a complicated query . Credit where its due the man couldn’t have been more helpful and got it sorted .

Sometimes we get lucky !!

I don’t think it’s anything more sinister then we don’t have a fit for purpose health service along with a highly transmissible virus. We pinned our hopes to vaccines which although work haven’t worked in the way they thought and this is dragging into a year 3. Leo said himself he thought 2yrs would be it. So when your only other weapon is lockdown your kind of fecked. So they have so do this were as the UK and other countries health services are able to deal with higher hospital numbers and can stay open longer.

You could be right they will push hard for the kids to be vaccinated before the summer when cases will start to drop with the warmer weather. Parents won’t be as quick to get them vaccinated unless they want to go on holidays and it’s required.

But I still think they don’t want to close the schools because of the knock on effect of child minding for the essential services.

Do you think the government have some sinister ulterior motive for wanting to vaccinate? I'm genuinely curious about this as it comes up an awful lot around here. I know that a lot of people here seem to feel that the government are trying to control us - but why? A lot of posters here very good at telling the rest of us what we think and why, so can anyone tell me what they think the government is up to trying to "push to vaccinate the 5yr to 11yr cohort", other than keep transmission lower?

It has already been pointed out a couple of times here that transmission is higher in primary schools than anywhere else. People were denying there was any Covid at all in schools when there was talk of them not opening. Now that the bars are being closed, there was one poster on here complaining that sure "it's not even in the pubs, it's the schools it's in" So like ...... what do some of ye want? High case numbers are a problem for the hospitals. So, if they don't close primary schools and they leave hospitality alone and the 5-11s aren't vaccinated, then what do ye want?

We are a similar age. I’ve often thought of people like you, and how for some people two years is more significant than for others.

That is a really really hard situation to be in. I’m so sorry to hear.

I think you need to go talk to your gp about this stuff and tell him/her everything you are feeling.

Sounds to me like this whole thing has hit you very hard.

It will end. 2019 isn't coming back. The world has changed. But that doesn't mean we're going to spend the next five decades alternating between closing and opening society based on the prevailing health situation.

There may be some people who enjoy being wrapped up in cotton wool, but it's a negligible minority. Nobody is enjoying this. The politicians, the civil servants, the CMO, the health staff, nobody. Everyone wants to be able to book a table at a restaurant, sit there for as long as they want, go back to a pub for a couple of pints and then hug eachother and go home without ever having to think about testing and close contacts and covid certs.

Don't confuse, "I accept things need to be done to protect society", with, "I like this". Nobody likes this. It is merely being tolerated as the lesser evil. For now.

Public tolerance is wearing very, very thin. Assuming Omicron is as infectious as we fear, I can see us coming through the other side and as a society just deciding that we're done.

I see it every day now. More and more people who would have been very nervous, very conformist at the start, beginning to decide that after Omicron, we need to just move on. Realising that we can't wallow in this indefinitely like a widow grieving.

wow, this mindset is still around.......wow wow wow

Get busy living or get busy dying, I know which one you'd pick

im glad there is no talk of retail closing, its been proven to be absolutely pointless and little effect to the R number.