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

Paul Cunningham on RTE news has government trying to play down expectation as we can't be sure of anything until NPHET meet Thursday

997 in hospital at 8pm last Tuesday at 8pm.

Is that nearly 100 in less than 24 hours.

Did a hospital burn down or something

Bad news: "The World Health Organization on Tuesday said the pandemic will not end as the omicron variant subsides in some countries, warning the high levels of infection around the world will likely lead to new variants as the virus mutates.“We’re hearing a lot of people suggest that omicron is the last variant, that it’s over after this. And that is not the case because this virus is circulating at a very intense level around the world,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said during a coronavirus update in Geneva.Van Kerkhove said now is not the time to relax public health measures, such as curtailing mask wearing and physical distancing. She called on governments to strengthen those measures to bring the virus under better control and head off future waves of infection as new variants emerge.“If we don’t do this now, we will move on to the next crisis,” Van Kerkhove said. “And we need to end the crisis that we are currently in and we can do that at the present time. So don’t abandon the science. Don’t abandon the strategies that are working, that are keeping us and our loved ones safe,” she said."

Still, she also said "#COVID19 is not airborne, #COVID19 spreads via droplet & contact transmission" in early 2020, so there's hope she's wrong on this one too 😀

https://twitter.com/mvankerkhove/status/1241830233101275137?lang=en

We have 95% vaxxed and a huge amount of natural immunity. She's not talking about us.

Polls and surveys lol.

That restriction survey would most likely be the same "quality" as those about brexit or first woman president.

Probably more down to quickly falling admissions but the a.m. numbers are what is tracked and that often varies.

Of course, all surveys are ridiculous. Unless one agrees with the results, in which case they're proof that people are finally "coming to their senses".

SA's rate is low enough yet two variants have emerged there. Global vaccination reduces that risk.

it's not for us to decide to vaccinate the entire world. it is up to the leaders of those countries to make the right choice for their people

there is no possibility of putting up a barrier. the virus is infecting the vaccinated. we are not going to force other countries(many of whom are doing a lot better than us!) to vaccinate their population with an ineffective vaccine so we can be safe

As an international health organisation they also have to be very careful to stick with known science and to tailor the message for everyone, not just a few. Their advice on breastfeeding, for example, is that all children should be breastfed for the first two years of life. There's nothing wrong with this, but where women have access to clean water and healthy foods, the statistical gain on breastfeeding past 6 months starts to drop very quickly. But for women where clean water may not be reliable or good quality food hard to come by, it is essential for child welfare. So you can see how the WHO's advice has to be really broad and be applicable globally.

Although it's plain as day now that Omicron is endemic and cannot be eliminated, the WHO can't declare that to be a fact without the data and analysis to back it up.

In terms of mutations, what we want to happen is to see new variants of Omicron. Thus far, each of the dominant Covid variants have come from separate sub-lineages of the original infection, which makes it a bit of a pot luck in terms of what traits you get. That is, Delta was not an descendent of Alpha, more a cousin. Likewise Omicron is not a descendent of Delta. Variants along a single sub-lineage are more predictable and tend to just be variations on infectiousness.

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Separate to that, we have 910 in hospital this morning, a drop of 66. We're motoring now, should be a good week. Lots of noise in the media from various cabinet ministers about easing restrictions quickly, which tells us that it's a near-certainty. Hard to say exactly when; some narrators suggesting that it could be as early as this weekend. Ryan this morning saying the "end of next week". I think we can say for certain that on Friday 28th you'll be able to go for a pint in your local and stay till midnight. But it could be as soon as this Friday. The closing hours are the biggest thorn in everyone's side, and the government have basically admitted that they're pointless. So I expect they'll be seeking to eliminate it as soon as possible.

But midnight closing is not an elimination of the restriction.

If they want to eliminate it as soon as possible, then why not eliminate it as soon as possible?

Sure. Note that I didn't say they'd actually close at midnight just that you could still be in the pub at midnight 😋

I have no idea what scheme they will concoct next. The roll back to midnight closing was a way to force nightclubs to close without explicitly closing them. I expect they'll still be too excessively cautious to allow nightclubs to open.

The 8pm closing is what is annoying people the most at the moment. Because it's not just pubs, it's everything. So that's what they'll be looking to eliminate as early as possible. Nightclubs and very late opening only affects a small subset of the population - one which votes considerably less than the rest - so there's far less pressure to get them open yesterday. If we look at previous approaches of loosening restrictions and waiting two weeks, they'll probably wait till mid-Feb at the earliest before opening nightclubs. It's pointless, but on-form.