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

This. Whether or not he did a good job (and various views on that), he was paid €180k for doing it. So enough of this "he worked tirelessly for the State" nonsense!

What's up with China locking down again? If they were any good the first time round, it wouldn't have spread.

Cliona O’Farrelly is basically finger wagging at people living their lives. She can go and do one as far as I’m concerned with that statement.

So do you match the criteria for the trial?

I don't read the thread or visit here really anymore but I see you are still banging the same drum about freedoms and restrictions not working despite them actually working, You have provided a shred of evidence to the contrary, the current situation isn't evidence either as well you know. Thinking you are right and being right are two different things. It's quite funny now 😂

Not really, as far as I can tell. He seems to be calling on the government to not let the possibility of restrictions fall away, to ensure that the plans set out to manage Covid are kept in play rather than just abandoning them and taking a complete return to normal. (Granted, I only skimmed what's being reported)

Remember that he said this before we pillory our own INMO and other commentators - it's not a uniquely Irish position that some call for this. :)

I understand why there is concern. And GG laid it out earlier in the thread. Health services are still struggling to deal with isolation of positive cases and staff absences. They need these to come under control, and from a health perspective, the responsible/appropriate approach is to try and reduce the number of cases in the general population in order to prevent them arriving in hospitals.

The problem is that - responsible as it may be - it cannot work. Omicron is beyond control. China have been locking people into their apartments in Shanghai and testing the entire population every 3 days for Covid, and yet, it's spreading like wildfire. 25% of ALL of China's covid cases have occurred in the last five days.

So it is just not realistic to think that reintroducing minor restrictions like masks into western nations will make a blind bit of difference. We know they don't work anymore. That Omicron is simply better at spreading than we are at stopping it.

So what are health services to do? Ignore Covid unless it is the cause of illness. Which is anathema to health practice, I know. But it's not irresponsible - infection control measures no longer work - outside and inside of hospitals. Isolating asymptomatic patients and absenting asymptomatic staff, is not reducing the spread of covid in hospitals. Therefore, logically if infection control measures are degrading your health service, and they're not actually working, the responsible thing to do is to stop.

Stop doing them so that you can improve the ability of the health service to deliver.

Sometimes the right thing to do is counter-intuitive. If it was discovered that X-ray baggage checks at airport security were actually making it less safe to fly, we would stop doing them. However odd that would feel. Likewise, some of the covid-related infection control measures we are employing in the hospital system are now making hospital systems less safe. People are struggling to get access to important health care. Therefore the responsible thing to do is to fix the infection control measures to focus on what works and what's proportionate.

All the liberal leaning states will be quick to rush back into restrictions. Universities are the same now.

It was under 1,000 last night. Falling nearly faster than it went up at this point. Could be down to 500 or so within two weeks.

Funny how quiet all these talking shops go when their doomsday predictions don't come true.

One to watch, but some experts think it might not be as bad as the last BA.1 wave. Hopefully not as i’ll be over there in 4 weeks time.

Unfortunately nearly everything in the U.S. becomes a political football to the point that legislators will do anything, no matter how insane or damaging, provided that they believe it can score partisan points. They will literally deny reality if the "other side" is seen to take a position on something.

Where in 2020 we saw a load of republican states refuse to enact public health legislation, and a president actively deny there was any real problem in 2020, the logical foil to that insanity was that democractic states went in hard on public health measures, now they have to blindly stick to some of the measures just because it's considered partisan. If they don't do it, it's a "loss".

Because conservatives made such a stink about masks, the issue of masks automatically became a liberal -v- conservative talking point, rather than one based on public health.

We saw some leakage of that over here with the anti-mask crackpots, but that's typical now with the internet. It was never made into a political statement over here.

I have no problem with people doing as they see fit. My point is that speakers like Cliona should not equate not having caught covid with "continue to be super careful" - people can make their own minds up without being encouraged to lock themselves up!

Interesting out of Shanghai. There are currently approx 200,000 locally transmitted cases. Most are mild or asymptomatic . One case currently categorized as severe.

Is that worth putting 25 million people through hell locking them up?