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

The media and unions banging the drum for the return of mandatory masks. They'd love it.

I actually agree with Red Silurian to some extent, when a phone appointment is sufficient enough for the type of illness they are handy logistically, saves a chunk of time on travel etc. Also have an appointment with a consultant soon who is located an hour and a half away from me. Very glad I don't have to travel to that appointment and back, those appointments used to be a massive time sink for me.

I do think it's excessive at this stage to be handing out the likes of bottles for samples etc at the door of the GP office. Not even being allowed in to the building to receive that kind of item, prescriptions, and pay for appointments is a bit beyond the pale.

Each wave seems to have less impact. Hard to know what we’ll peak at but I would bet my right bollock we won’t reach 1600 in hospital like we did in the BA.2 wave.

However with all this talk of “ very concerning “ at 600 in hospitals I wonder if they have decided never to let it reach 1600 again. I have a feeling they have lowered the threshold this time.

Maybe a possible slowdown already. Hospitalizations only increased by 2 since yesterday.

A drop from 629 to 436 in hospitals this morning? Hardly an error? Nearly a drop of 200!

It's very possible

GP's for a variety of reasons are just referring patients to A&E/hospitals for pretty much everything now. Patient lands and is triaged and whoops happens to have covid as well.

Case numbers and scaremongering goes up as automatic protocols are engaged. But then once they've been treated for whatever they were actually referred for, they're sent home.

A dose of the sniffles is not a concern.

Case in point - after 2.5 years of no illnesses at all, I finally woke to a bit of a cough, stuffy nose and headache on Monday. I didn't run off to the doctor or emergency room or down to the shops for test kits (I've only ever had one covid test and that was as part of admission for a cataract operation up north last year). I just took 2 panadol, had a shower, and got some benelyn day and night and exputex in the chemist.

3 days later I'm pretty much 100% again and have been working remotely (as I usually do) throughout dealing with a major incident all week.

No need for tests or adding to case numbers and "worrying" statistics in the media. Just get on with it... Like we always did before we gave it a scary name!

It's an error due to a technical issue not all hospitals reported

But as usual I think the important question is if they're there BECAUSE of Covid, or WITH Covid?

“Phew” - Claire Byrne.

Outcome of cases (as I've said for 2 years now) is indeed the important metric, however the WITH or BECAUSE OF is also important given that decisions are made based on the number of these.

What would have happened if you did ignore it tho? A couple of those people might have gotten a runny nose, if even? Realistically you could have ignored it and nothing bad would have happened.

Difference of opinion I guess.

For me the decent thing to do is to avoid contact with people and not give it to anyone I care about. Same way I wouldn't be out and about if a had a cold or any other viral infection.

"the decent thing"

"the right thing"

See, this is what I think it's really about. A desire to show and be seen to be more socially and morally conscious than others, especially "selfish" others. I am not having a dig by the way, but I think this is ultimately what it's become about for some people.

Covid is of little real risk to the overwhelming majority of people. That's just the facts. Yes there are some for whom it is a threat, but really no more than a whole host of other illnesses is to them and yet we don't ask or expect others to stay home or shut down the economy to protect these vulnerable people from those other things.

Also, unless you similarly stayed home or restricted your movements prior to early 2020 anytime you got a cold then it also makes no sense as the same level of risk existed then. What if you gave your cold to someone who might get very sick from it? What if they died?

The only real thing that's changed is that people have become conditioned to be nervous of others in general - from not just a health perspective but even things like safety in general (eg: women feeling automatically more nervous around men at night because of a thankfully very small risk that they might be attacked). I'm not saying that doesn't unfortunately happen sometimes, just as I'm saying that yes people will sometimes die from a virus, but we have definitely regressed as a society and are poorer for it thanks to the constant coverage and fear generated over the last 2 and a half years (never forget the infamous NPHET "concern-o-meter" chart that they rolled out at one point).

Everything in life involves some level of risk or danger. Every time we go outside the front door we are taking the chance that something bad might happen - we might fall and hurt ourselves, we might lose our wallet or get robbed, we might be in a car crash or be the victim of one etc. Yet despite these things (which are a lot more likely than dying from covid) we do it anyway.

Why is covid different? We have 2.5 years of dealing with it, we have vaccinations and stats on what groups are actually at risk, and we know from the outcomes that (proportionally) very very few people will die from it.

In other words, as I said very early on, our level of response is and always has been massively disproportionate to the actual levels of threat involved. We have spent billions, we have damaged jobs, the economy, caused other health problems through inaction or delays and absolutely have we created a culture of fear and anxiety in many.

All for basically very little real reward. I think when we look back at this event in 15/20/50 years we'll ask "was it worth it" and I think the only answer will be "no it wasn't. We completely overreacted and - as I said above - became poorer as a society as a result".

That to me is the real impact of covid, and it's why I refuse to spend the rest of my life living in fear of something that realistically is extremely unlikely to occur.

I can't understand why people compare covid to a cold, if you go out with a cold you might spread it to 1 or maybe 2 other people that you're close to indoors, if you go out with covid you could spread it to multiples of that. Yes, most of those will get a dose of the sniffles, if anything, but do you really want to be the reason a pregnant woman miscarried?