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

It's not like those looking for punishments would trust the replacements anyway.

Hindsight is 20:20.

For every question asked of the government, people should consider the information that was available and the public mood.

Most of the public was hugely in favor of lockdowns if they kept numbers down, which they did. Relaxing lockdown = more positive COVID cases. Remember that lockdowns were a response to an overwhelmed health service, not to keep deaths down. Also remember that every country was finding their feet in a new crisis, with no solid information on the virus in the first 3 months.

It's not fair to say "well country X had this policy and it worked, so why didn't we?" when the information on the policy's success was unavailable at the time.

Mike Ryan said that incorrect action is better than inaction. At least you can learn from incorrect action.

"Pulling restrictions out of their asses"

There was no data to work from. We entered a 2 week lockdown. "Two weeks to flatten the curve" Sure it was guesswork, but the alternative was to do nothing.

Restrictions were designed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. Just because we didn't have corpse carts doesn't mean they weren't worthwhile.

I think you'll find the ICU figures were near maxxed out for most of the first few waves. Didn't we get daily reports on it?

That quote from Mike Ryan was from the START of the pandemic, based on his ebola experience. He didn't have hindsight when he said it.

I agree that accountability and lessons need to be learned, but it seems you've already got your pitchfork and torch at the ready.

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!!

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.

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.

The very fact that we were working from WHO and medical advise is what worries me being honest. The WHO or doctors don't know the first thing about running a country and blindly taking on all their advice is daft. Should what they were saying be considered in the broader context of what's happening in a country? I would say, they should be one part of the overall discussion.

Our government can't just abdicate responsibility because a handful of medical people tell them one thing. Lok at how laughable the modeling was for the first 12/18 months of the pandemic.

Who's to say that the next set of restrictions won't come from a group of climate experts in the UN reckon the end is nigh unless we lockdown for an extended period of time? It sounds completely batshot crazy to even suggest it but if we blindly follow "the experts" then it's not as far fetched as you might think.

The best of that lot was the €9 substantial meal that was required in order to sit down and drink a few pints. They were making this stuff up on the fly and then claiming it was based on "the science".

These rules that we didn't follow didn't work. Kinda self fulling prophecy in fairness.

Hard to argue they would never work because they did were they were rigidly enforced.

You can argue with some validity they would never have been as successful in Ireland due to our inability to follow rules, or the govt to enforce anything. But the govt can counter argue they worked well enough based on the metrics of that period.

Anecdotally almost everyone I know who got COVID knew exactly where they caught it. Even if they were asymptomatic they could point to a person or an event where they were mostly likely to have got it. Quite predicable like that.