Reflection on the pandemic: questions about the authorities' response.

Tony Houlihans personal behaviour should be investigated, time and again he demonstrated that the authority bestowed on him was getting the better of him.

Altho, in this country, he'd probably win the next presidential election...sadly it wouldn't surprise me!!

Lockdowns were in response to a potential overwhelmed health service. While it was strained in early days, that was nothing new, health services have been maxxed out at times as long as I can remember.

When the first wave had clearly passed our authorities sat on their hands and decided to wait and see. After that, restrictions were indeed to ‘save lives’ by attempting to stop covid, and authorities dabbled with zero-covid influenced policies until it became clear that vaccination would not eliminate Covid. This despite vaccine trials showing no evidence for interruption of transmission beyond reducing the number of people being infectious at the same time.

Protecting our health service included initially moving elderly out of hospitals to free up beds, without testing them for Covid - to spread covid to respite facilities and nursing homes.

Up to date information was available from many different countries at the time decisions on restrictions here were taken so hindsight is not applicable. We decided to paddle our own ridiculously cautious canoe, to the detriment of so many other health and economic concerns. They may get a pass for the early phase of pandemic but thereafter it was a sh*tshow of fear propaganda and misinformation from the media, and knee-jerk political decisions, that had the public in thrall to lockdowns and restrictions.

And as you say Mike Ryan reckons we can learn from incorrect action, so why not look back and learn from mistakes and make policy to ensure those failures are prevented from happening again?

As someone who lost a parent during covid after a long battle with cancer I absolutely want a review carried out. Our last year together was greatly hindered by draconian measures that ignored patient wellbeing and dignity, especially around end of life treatment. The sheer hubris of senior civil servants telling people they couldn't spend time with dying relatives was outrageous.

We all have our own experiences of lockdown and the pandemic. I would like to ensure that families in any future pandemic are treated with respect and dignity in a similar circumstance.

Seems to hit a nerve quite accurately though ...

Lol. Just not the relevant ones.

I see New York Supreme Court has over turned the decision to sack people for not getting the vaccine. Employees will be reinstated and be given back pay.

Just remember "we had to move at the speed of science to understand what is really taking place in the market".

It's a ridiculous thread. I agree with you.

Why would you want a tribunal when it's full of the things this thread is opposed to, and they never achieve anything, other than cost a fortune. No matter what the findings are you won't believe it anyway.

One the main issues in that article in the first post was nursing homes. It's been almost entirely ignored by this thread. Because the threads mostly not interested in it.

This is why a tribunal is pointless. They followed international practice and the countries DolanStats are better than most. They have get out of jail card.

That's not to say the govt can't be critised for all the stupid stuff they did. Mistakes were certainly made. Some investigation to generate future recommendations has merit.