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

Notice the unanimity across the media/FFG/public health doctors in wanting the Covid review to be brief and not involve any accountability. Gabriel Scally was in fact wondering if perhaps the review might be best held in private... he wishes ;-)

Why is he therefore quoted as saying this:

“It is important we learn lessons from what went right and what went wrong so that we can prepare better in the future. Whether it needs a full public inquiry with the amount of time that would take,” he said. 

“In many ways inquiries are best when they are not in public when people can speak their mind behind closed doors. You often get closer to the truth then having it all in public. So, I think it is a difficult decision to make.”

It’s also notable that he doesn’t want any scapegoats or people blamed. He was a member of ISAG who were openly and blatantly spreading fear in the Irish media.

I remember people getting banned for calling new strains 'scariants'.

Turns out that Matt Hancock confirms what those people thought.

Good discussion on Brendan O'Connor show on the Covid response retrospective.

I think there is no doubt that any inquiry will find that children suffered the most and the schools were closed for way too long.

ISAG were just the experts who were frustrated over not being invited into the tent. (Prof Nolan as head of epidemiology data modelling group was especially galling for so many.) Not one to easily relinquish the public gaze, Scally is still sniffing around for a role on the Covid review. He's dropping soundbites - best to review in private, no witch-hunt, Sweden's Covid public health disaster, cross-border cooperation - attempting to show he'll be a good "team player" LOL!

Big difference in what is quoted by you there and what he is talking about which would be delays and inevitable nitpicking and media circus if completely held in public. That is not to say he called for a PRIVATE inquiry.

And before you tar him with the ISAG brush remember he was the man who has expetience of dealing with a public enquiry and how best it works. It is the reason he was being asked his opinion in the first place.

so the UK government behind the scenes wanted to scare the public in order to change their behavior,luckily for us NPHET and co didn't have to resort to anything like that,you know like instilling fear and worry into the public,they could have even charted it's progress every week.

Entitled to your opinion.

His, however, is an experienced one, having run the Cervical Check inquiry.

I think something has gone wrong in your statistics there if you think that there wasn't many more deaths the common cold?

The response was based on science, which is not a static thing - there was uncertainty \ evolving understanding of a new respiratory virus. The virus itself evolved over the course of the pandemic. And the uncertainty wasn't helped by early misinformation from China.

Em that's how polls work. A random sampling within a margin of error. So even within the margin of error it shows a clear and overwhelming majority of the public backed the response overall.

A political opinion polls is also only around a similar to 0.02% of the population and yet broadly - within the margin of error - tallies with the actual overall vote %. Even if you double the margin of error on this poll you still have a clear majority in favour of Ireland's approach.

This poll is also in line with polls conducted by different media outlets \ poll providers showing approval for Ireland's approach.

It is the usual resort of someone who doesn't like the poll result to roll out the basic misunderstanding of how they work tactic. What will the next poll bingo deflection you'll roll out next?

Did Ireland a good job overall in dealing with Covid 19.

Not vague. Getting a sense of how the public viewed the pandemic response.

So no it doesnt support your view people had huge issues with the response. Some people perhaps but clearly not the majority.

Given the overwhelming majority backed it overall. If you had a huge issue you would not answer yes to that question. You may have issues with specific points.

If they asked more specific questions people would say oh they are leading questions, deliberately worded to get the answer they wanted.

There was no question about the 'horrible treatment of kids'. That is misrepresentation.

Yes, certainly , retrospectively ...with the knowledge of hindsight , not just conjecture .

I don't disagree and said so myself at the time. However despite calls from teachers and parents the DoE never did anything about ventilation in schools when they had the chance. Buck stops there I think .

What my point was that it is knowledge in hindsight that has many questions now as opposed to previously when anything anybody may have said was pure conjecture .