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

What should there be consequences for? Should a doctor not give medical advice for fear of being struck off? should a meteorologist not give the weather in case you go the beach and it rains instead of sun? Should a waiter not recommend specials in case they are not to your taste?

What consequences should a public health emergency team face for giving public health advice in an emergency health crisis?

Tony holohan put the country into level 5 lockdown? When did he become taioseach? Considering 8 weeks later we had the highest case numbers in Europe, maybe it was the **** meaningful Christmas that was the problem, remember stick Granny in the garden, maybe blame the lads running the show.

Answering questions is not consequences, what happens to you because of answering it is a consequence.

What's going on in Kilkenny?

I suspect the same that is happening all around this country since around April-May of last year.

I know that my local hospital has been at over capacity since at least July...it's now beyond crisis point.

Just watch how skillfully the media are ignoring what seems like one of the biggest surges in excess death we have witnessed in a long long time...remember when they used to give us the daily death count?

It's certainly looking like the catastrophic cost of lock downs is no longer just an economic cost, like many of us here have been saying for over two years.

Looking back I don't think NPHET was the biggest problem. The actual problem was most of the rest of the state apparatus using it as an excuse to take an extended holiday (most notably early-2021) rather than making even a tokenistic effort to keep things ticking over. INIS not even returning GNIB cards and passports for months, causing people to lose jobs, was pretty disgraceful.

Flatten the curve (absolute nonsense we can all now see) they said, follow the science they said, what does the science say about excess death across all demographics.

What does the science say about the harm children have suffered?

What does the science say about the impact of prolonged social isolation for extended periods of time on a persons mental health and immune systems?

Don't suppose we will ever get an answer to those questions!

The excess deaths were showing in the data available from various sources from an early spring of 2022. It was in line with a number of other EU countries and at 12-16% on average with respect to pre-pandemic numbers.

As I and others stated in 2020 the government and NPHET had failed to consider their actions when it comes to second order effects, and had created only a short term plan and tactics for dealing with covid. They had hoped that it would address the most immediate issues and factored in only first order effects.

Unfortunately, as it often happens it is much more beneficial to plan long term and take into account second and even third order effects, and consider outcomes at all levels. It is only an implementation of such a comprehensive strategy that can yield the best results. Optimizing only for first order often short term outcomes can come, and often does, at a very hefty price. This is unfortunately one of those cases.

Comprehensive analysis of first and higher order effect of any plan and strategy is very difficult to do, especially when the frightened herd is already galloping in a specific direction.

And the media – well the excess deaths don’t suit the current narrative of ‘let’s forget this dark times and move on’, therefore this topic is largely ignored. While the perception of the ability to prevent covid deaths has been monetized and profited from to the extreme degree, the same may not be applicable to the unexplained excess deaths, and thus no interest in the underlying causes.

The sadder thing is that if it was not for the media we would have not had the panic that ensued when covid appeared in the western world. The media have plenty to answer for.

I recall a poster on boards expressing concern that their neighbours were possibly no longer on board with the lockdown... because they had ceased applauding the HSE in the street after the first week!

The poster decided to keep a close eye on them in case they broke any rules.

That was the level of insanity we were dealing with. Cult-like.

A lot of daft comment on this thread. Figues quoted 8 thousand deaths! How many more if we didn't have restrictions before the roll out of vaccines?

One teacher union wanted to keep schools closed after the Christmas break going into 2022!!

Luckily by then the government ignored them.

The teachers came out of covid very badly.

No doubt the measures were inhumane and over the top. What was disappointing was that so many people supported them. It showed how conservative and right wing and harsh, Irish society can be.

The keeping of windows open in classrooms right through cold months was inhumane, cruel and nasty.

This was pointed out many times and yet teachers freakishly kept the windows open.

What I won't forget is the nastiness of people to anyone who spoke out against the restrictions or chose not to get vaccinated. It was sickening seeing people turn on others like that, all they short of doing was asking for these people to be put into camps and people cheering them on. A good few posters on here were like that and they would be the first to go on about being nice. Absolutely sickening.