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

It's an identity politics thing. Zilch to do with covid. Can't be seen to be doing anything like England these days.

Exactly. It extends to a lot of other areas too.

An unvaccinated 20 year old is at far less risk of suffering severe disease and being hospitilised and going to ICU than a fully vaccinated 75 year old.

If preventing tourists from using our hospital capacity is the concern then statistically we would be far better off banning the entry of all 70+ year olds, not having rules based on vaccination status.

But thats not the real reason the rule is in place, is it? Its entirely down to pressure people to get vaccinated.

Well well , updated covid cert just arrived In my inbox 😏

I mean they are correct - he is a clown, is he more or less of a clown than our double act of Micheal, Leo and sleepy is the real question

Mine arrived around 3am apparently. Not that I'm asked for it much anyway

Sooner the media makes the next logical leap from the tone of their coverage over the last week or so, and starts questioning the validity of current restrictions, the sooner we might all be able to close this theatre and get back to normal.

Discussion on children's vaccination on Saturday with Katie hannon , now, seems registration levels low

And rightly so (low registration levels)

I completely get why parents would be keen to not be rushing to get their young children injected with something that they don't need anyway in most cases and where there are questions (as others have posted) around the potential effect on their development.

The only reason to get it done is if they're actually at genuine risk, or to make the parents themselves feel safer.

I always felt take up would be low , I'm not a parent and not qualified to understand reasons for hesitancy , I can appreciate its a tough decision whatever side of the argument people are on 🤔

Unvaccinated can enter anyway with a negative pcr. They can catch covid on the plane from vaccinated people who can contract and transmit covid. They can contract covid in the intervening time between test and boarding.

The passes for air travel do nothing from an infection control point of view.

They are nothing more than punishment for those who refused to comply.

You can dress them up all you like. They are useless from a health point of view. The have no point other than to inconvenience the non compliant and give (some) of the compliant a nice feeling of superiority.

My dark mind would agree with you. However, i do think this time it IS different due to Omicron vs Delta. It looks like the infections, hospital admissions and numbers in hospital will go down rapidly after tye peak in 10-14 days time. Together with the mildness of Omicron i do think the patience of the general public is wearing off. Even within Nphet there is optimism. To counter my own argument i think it is fair to say that the issues due to people not showing up to work because of both Omicron infection and isolation rules might drag the so called staggered approach out for longer than is reasonable, like you mentioned. But in the end i think there will be enough pushback within government parties for a different approach this time. What that exactly entails is anyone's guess but i would say the first thing to go is isolation for close contacts, then a shorter isolation period for those with Omicron infection, then raising the 8pm closure time to 11pm for restaurants while keeping them for wet pubs, no music or other entertaiment until spring/summer. And in any case keep the Covid certs and linkeage to boosters as a way of selling the lifting of those restrictions. Non boosted and/or non vaccinated still fecked, the 'price of freedom' idea. As a musician i try not to feed my dark mind but it still looks like no night gigs for february or even march. As i am also a music teacher with diminishing student numbers i am feeling it deeply. I am not entitled to get compensation for any of this and i know many self employed people in the same leaky boat😩

Par for the course, everyone other than them are the "little people". You just have to look at MUP, ostensibly introduced to curb binge drinking and to boost the health of the nation, yet there still exists a Dail Bar. Yep.... a bar in the workplace. Do as I say not as I do.

When it comes to civil service perhaps (and I'm not entirelysure they can), but definitely not the wider economic sectors 🤔

By that logic we should ban the obese from entering the country as there is no vaccine or a test that they can take to prove they will not end up in ICU with Covid. I’m sure you would agree to that.