"Nobody cares about Covid anymore"

Well I think your post is nonsense, Patnor. And here is why ...

Do you not remember (or did you not read) the whole point of this conversation was that some guy who didn't want to wear a mask or take a vaccine or be restricted at all , was complaining that all non Covid care was cancelled. If you don't remember ( or haven't read it ) I suggest politely you go go back and read the posts again , the ones I was replying to anyway , before getting engaged .

Non Covid WAS reduced to emergencies for the first part of the pandemic . Staff diverted to Covid care which was exploding at the time those two..posters say they were in hospital ( Jan 2021 ) which must have been nonCovid if it was " quiet " .

A&E was even separated in most hospitals, so it would depend what was wrong with you .

Were you or any of this others talking about " quiet " hospitals actually hospitalised with Covid or in Covid ICU during that time ? ie .Does any of you have a notion what you are talking about ?

If non urgent care had not been cancelled we would have been overwhelmed. Plain and simple. As it was , there was barely enough staff even with derogation, with people testing positive etc. If those strict restrictions weren't brought in at those high peaks in infection Ireland's health service would have ended up like Italy.

And @DLinkthose videos were made on people's OFF DUTY time by young staff who had nothing else to entertain them and needed to let off some steam and lighten the mood. That is all. So silly of you to be saying otherwise and the fact that you still do only shows your bias tbh

Yes I think there are posters here who are hysterical and obsessed alright with Covid , but not the posters you are referring to !

Absolutely lessons need to be learned , as they were in fact the way our reaction changed through the pandemics learning and data evolved, but some people are so upset over the initial severe lockdown they can't move on .

We were too long opening up that first Sumner , too slow to shut down when cases climbed, didn't use masks early enough when everything was pointing to it being an airborne virus, didn't start using antigen tests early enough, didn't make use of private hospitals to treat non Covid elective patients.

These points are recognised now but yes it would be good to have a citizens assembly to discuss what should be dispensed with if it happens again.

The zero Covid group did science no favours , using emotive and exaggerated language, nor did the very " yes man " and infantilised approach of our main TV station .

But on the other side there are many very serious questions as well to answer..

Isn't it time to examine why some people feel their individual freedoms and rights in society should be put above protecting lives at a time of extreme urgency ? By all means believe in it if you have a mind to, but don't act out as some did. There are rules and laws to protect everyone in society in normal times and not just the fit and able never mind in a pandemic of world proportions.

Remember there was a time in the last century when that thinking was allowed to gain primacy to everyone's cost , lest we forget .

Do you not agree errors of judgement were made by those anti restrictions as well? Believing absolute hogwash over respectable scientific evidence for one ?

Allowing themselves to be used as fodder by right wing groups ?

Remember those who said we would never have restrictions removed and that it was all leading to... many conspiracy theories I won't be discussing here!

There are so many criticisms of the thinking of both sides but unless people stop with the tag teams on posters who are willing to try to discuss it rationally , nothing will ever be achieved here except venting .

Or is this all a one sided excercise ?

Is it just point scoring/thanks garnering at this stage?

I would venture here is no longer the place to discuss Covid anymore as everybody here has their battle lines drawn from past.. experience. But not to hide it away from examination. We owe it to those that died to look at it properly and fairly and not be partisan.

A citizens assembly would get my vote as the best forum.

Indeed, also I wouldn't take views here too seriously, it's an anonymous internet forum.

80,000 medical staff? With covid? Think about that for a minute. Given that they aren't in the cohort most of risk from covid, what did they die of???

The rest of your claims are debunked here. Covid was the primary cause of death. Just because someone has co-morbidities, it doesn't change that.

https://www.thejournal.ie/how-many-people-have-died-from-covid-19-in-ireland-5198763-Sep2020/

A new strain would need to be more infectious than omicron. More infectious would likely mean a weaker variant also (like what happened with omicron) there's a strong chance we are on our 4th or 5th post-omicron variant without realising it

Best of the lot. Last July the WHO were calling for the return of social distancing.

Ireland needs to increase Covid-19 vaccination efforts, reintroduce face masks and social distancing, and encourage regular antigen testing, according to the World Health Organization.

That poster isn't being serious.

Was it not obvious like?

Who victim blamed anyone about cancer screening? I didn't read or certainly don't think that. It is a fact though that initially for example Breast Check were trying to get people to keep their appointments, for which large numbers were either not turning up or were cancelling. Yes, it was Covid and fear of Covid partly but why blame the service when they were doing their best to open up safely?

And eh no, you normally would not get hcws dying at work... A percentage acquire work related injuries through accidents, reoetitive strain or assaults, but rarely serious diseases. Occasionally TB but very rare and very treatable now.

In 40 years nursing I have only heard of one nurse who died from a work related infection and that was in the UK... before Covid.

And nurses are no more unhealthy than the rest of the population.. Fat ones, thin ones, olympic medallists and tik tok dancers.. All sorts!

Nobody wanted fathers to miss out on their partner's labour.

Unfortunately, women in the late stages of pregnancy are at higher risk of severe illness from Covid than the general population. If your sister had got really ill or lost the baby because the partner of the women in the next bed gave her Covid, how would you feel about it then?

Like so many other things, restricting access to partners was certainly unfortunate but done for all the right reasons, and that's something people cannot seem to grasp, or simply don't want to grasp.

Because health bureaucrats behaved in a manner that was extremely irresponsible and were allowed to do so. Letting people die alone, advising old people not to hug their grand kids for the best part of two years, banning kids sports, etc was demented. Much of what was imposed was unnecessary, most of us ended up being infected anyway.

It was a huge threat, national health systems were at risk from collapsing or being overwhelmed. Italy was in a state. People in India were suffocating to death because they didn't have enough oxygen.

That was with all the measures.

The individual revisionists are coming out of the woodwork now the threat has passed. Now that we have vaccines, that we have herd immunity, that we've been through multiple variants, that we have a much higher understanding, that we have all the hindsight - they're playing the "it was fine all along, what was the fuss" spiel.

It was a greater threat than cancer. Its an infectious disease. It could lead to numbers dying and requiring hospiral care which would overwhelm hospital services - as happened in Italy and Wuhan. And spread to and take out staff. And when that happens the standard of care for all drops.

Cancer does not pose that kind of threat.

Targeted protection doesnt work.

Tried nowhere, worked nowhere for all the reasons explained... in a society where covid is rampant how do medical and care staff avoid it? Multi generational households with vulnerable? How do the vulnerable safely access essential services?

Well, you can look at the states that didn't impose the severe restrictions and compare them with the states that did...you can also factor in the rate of excess death that we are now witnessing.

How can you say it doesn't work if you also believe it wasn't tried anywhere?