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

well I certainly won't be forgetting what actions he and his merry band have advised government to do. I won't be forgetting the decisions taken by government. Equally, I won't be forgetting absence of opposition or those that let things descend into the mess we have now. I hope others take these things into account next election too

Masks should become advisory only and certs will probably go once they open up fully

More good news Gerry is off back to Africa!!

The antisocial variant, I'm susceptible to that myself.

Lots of positive kites flying over the last couple of days, hardly a mention of COVID on the front pages of the major news sites, increasing signs from hospitals that this isn't a serious disease for the vast majority anymore (as long as they're vaccinated anyway).

Waiting a couple of weeks just in case is sensible given the large number of cases we're seeing on a daily basis, and I'm sure there are some things that have changed permanently or will take a while to return to how they were before, but unless something significantly changes by the end of the month this is over.

They can still refuse to go to events. Instead of covid, they'll have to come to terms with the fact that they might just be miserable.

So the deaths are going up in South Africa, the UK, the US, Denmark, and Ireland - who were the other early adopters of Omicron and how are they faring?

Sure, a person who has Delta is more likely to die than a person who has Omicron, as everyone is keen to point out, but is a person who has not yet caught covid actually less likely to die in an Omicron environment than a Delta one?

(I can't remember when Delta raised its head, and I do think we're in a much better spot with Omicron, but people are writing it off awfully quickly..)

Wife has had a number of shifts over the past 2 weeks as has covered for colleagues out in her Dublin hospital. Was only talking to her this morning and she was saying she hasn't treated a patient for covid in 10 days. Still having to manage with covid protocols and all the time and resources that goes with it. But none of the care or treatment she has been administering for almost 2 years now.

She said loads of people turning up that shouldn't be remotely near a hospital because they're simply not sick. And are not being admitted. Think there is an element of people panicking with a positive antigen or something. And also people are coming in at night and gone by morning. Admitted for observation and quickly discharged.

All positive signs. The covid topic rarely comes up between us now. I don't think there should be any need to wait until end of January. Remove restrictions from this weekend or Monday. No need to give places notice. If a restaurant or pub wants to open with normal trading hours, let them. Those that need time to prepare, then that's their own doing. Open in their own time. Absolutely no need in keeping these restrictions. Doubt they are keeping cases lower by much anyways. People are just mixing more earlier. I couldn't get into loads of pubs last weekend in the early afternoon as no seats left.

Its Dr Holohan, Dr Glynn and Donnelly who keep promoting the fact that antigen tests are open to manipulation, something I wouldn't have even known if it hadn't been promoted by NPHET and the Government.

Cop on

You wanted people trapped in a room for their safety but then you give out about them being on the internet. If you want people to get on with their lives how about let them get on with their lives.

Haha

Seen those jibes before.

Think it was near the end of Novemeber that Tony gave his assurances that NPHET didn't recommend any restrictions only to recommend restrictions a few days later.

An egg on face moment

The irony is you and your ilk want restrictions more than anyone, just for something to shout about. Even now everyone seems happy this is coming to an end except you.

Devil is in the details. No major indicator yet of any increase in deaths in Ireland due to Omicron.

Most recent HPSC report on deaths has December deaths 25% lower than November at around 6/day. January so far coming in below that again at 3/day. Bearing in mind though that death reports can take a long time to come in so we won't know the real numbers for 2-4 months. Last week we still had some Covid deaths from January 2021 first reported to the HPSC.

Other countries count deaths differently. The UK counts all deaths within 28 days of a positive covid test. That was OK when they were pulling in a few thousand cases/day. But when 5% of your population has had a positive test in the last 28 days, you can see how counting deaths this way becomes very problematic.

Denmark count all deaths within 30 days of a positive result.

Don't know about the rest. But on the face of it, you can see that DK & UK now have a flawed counting system because it was never considered to deal with this level of infection. Our is probably pretty accurate if unfortunately too slow.

It's time to move on.