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

I'd bring Vincent Browne back to front a Covid debate.

Its badly needed.

NPHET is primarily made up of HSE personnel. It's perfectly fine for them to want to protect the health systems from any threat, real or imagined. These restrictions not only help with covid numbers but other seasonal winter illnesses. This can be used to gloss over the incredible ineptitude with which they have managed the health system with for a long period of time. There's nothing sinister going on. It's just good old fashioned ass covering.

Vincent is a big loss, he wouldnt have left politicians away with whats happened over the last 21 months.

Yes I see what you mean that they can kind of claim to be right regardless of the outcome.

Yes they do have a narrow outlook, but I guess the anger then needs to be directed at the government as nphet are probably correct in their stance you know? The government have done well to create/allow this, a lot of anger directed at this advisory group across social media platforms. Dilutes it a bit for the government.

Often a difficult question can be answered with well nphet said, but then at the same time I wouldn't want Michael Martin making these decisions either, do we have much sight of the other groups who feed in to the decisions, or is it purely nphet meeting cabinet and then decision made.

But also that there could be a review

"People at least know where they stand between now and the end of January, but there is always a caveat that of course, things change dramatically for the better or the worse so we can review things." - Leo

Why in God's name would anybody in Ireland have any wish,or need to change African attitudes to anything ?

It smacks of some form of Imperialist superiority syndrome,in which we see ourselves as having to direct the lives of the dusky foreigners,and recieve some thanks for it also !

Many millions of Africans with tribal traditions stretching back millenia,have as good a reason to decline Mr Bourla's chemical potions as any of us savvy caucasian hipsters.

The fact that we pooh-pooh the old faith based methods does'nt make our views any more relevant than theirs.

Is it the case that you suddenly want Africa to ride to your Covid rescue,if so,I wish you luck !!

Why ? WHY ? WHY ??.....so many questions now being asked by the "Man on the 19 bus" at this stage,but most incredibly not a single professional journalist appears able to ask the same questions in the Public Arena.

What has gone on between the Media and the Governments of the West ?...as it is now Blindingly obvious that significant information is being suppressed,manipulated or refuted without consideration to the benefit of nobody save for a small number of well placed administrative types .

It STINKS.

Are you saying - essentially they are protecting the health service?

Did you ever tell us the follow up to that great story you had about your neighbour getting omicron, ye know the bit where they were specifically told it was omicron!

Jabs in arms will reduce the chances of variants, which would go a long way towards reducing case numbers, hospitalisations, deaths and restrictions

But what happens on January 11th if Omicron doesn't lead to as many hospitalisations as Delta would have? That is what the data would suggest at the moment even without vaccines or boosters

My worry is that Scotland and Wales have today announced stricter restrictions than what we will have after Christmas and BJ is suggesting the same is coming around the corner for England... Something which won't sit well with our fearless leaders

I'm done with the conversation about Covid, restrictions, Holohan, Nphet. Nobody is able to think with nuance not in the real world anyway, everyone is just like NPC's parroting the good boy and girl lines. There is nothing more jarring when someone says Holohan and Co. are "experts" as if their expertise extends into all areas. But we have such a cult of authority and genius(not saying Holohan is regarded as a genius per se but in a meritocratic world he has risen to the top of his game for most lay people) that if you put doctor on front of your name people will just assume you have a domain of every field and have no blind spots. Make no mistake about it we all have blind spots, we will see by the end of the decade just how consequential on the global economy and society these restrictions turned out to be. We will never fortunately or unfortunately know the alternative history. What is true is that lives have been upended because of this pandemic and that was going to be true no matter what policy we pursued. That's a humbling thought that there was no good answer just less wrong ones. At the end of the day its not just the Irish Government or Nphet, they're just nice fall guys to vent out frustration. It's idealogy shared by most countries it seems and we reap we will reap what we sow or alternatively look back at a decisive time where the power of monetary policy was used to safeguard citizens as best we could and signal the dawn of a golden age for our globe.

Last thing, in defence of the NPC's I think they just have a get on with it mentality which is probably better for their sanity. It's already a tough time, no point fighting a revolution from your bed.

The complete and utter bunkum is that this Tony Holohan living in your head is some Svengali that is able to exert his will over 31 other members of a board to get the recommendations he wants, and then do the same to a Government cabinet made up of three different political parties to just rubber stamp and enact these recommendations. Svengali on his best day could only manage that with one young girl, and even then he had to use hypnosis.

Chris Whitty and Jaap van Dissel are taking up the same amount of space in my head as Tony Holohan, none whatsoever I mentioned them because for your theory on Tony Holohan being some super Svengali then the other two lads must be the same.

It matters a lot. There are many many people in the developing world want vaccines but can't get them which is a ticking bomb for variants