Interesting. So will be very difficult to ever put an accurate figure on it so?
Macro levelā¦disingenuousā¦ASSIST IN SPEEDšā¦fig leafā¦logisticsā¦primary determinants
Say what you like about glas, he really knows how to dress up hogwash.
How many guards have died of this thing? Would that not be a handy way to determine risk factors?
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Typically in Health and safety the risk is determined by a combination of how likely something is to happen and the impact if it does to give an overall risk assessment level.
I think itās clear that age is the biggest predictor of severity of impact for Covid-19. Iām sure other things like BMI come into it but for the purposes of vaccination, taking aside āat risk due to underlying health conditionsā groups - age seems reasonable.
In terms of relative risk of exposure, while Iād agree there is likely to be somewhat of a higher exposure for a teacher vs a member of the general population it would need to overcome the overwhelming age related severity risk to result in a higher overall risk level. The number being quoted in some news reports today was that a 60-64 year old has a 70 times greater risk of death than a 20-34 year old. Is the relative risk of exposure enough to overcome that difference in risk of severity?
Iād be very very surprised if NIAC didnāt follow a similar approach and some of the commentary on their advice certainly suggested they considered it.
Finally, to your point about the real reason being to make the roll-out easier. Iām as happy as the next man to have a cut of the HSE but I donāt think thatās particularly fair. It is clearly quite difficult to endlessly sub-divide on increasingly abstract definitions. If teachers have a higher risk of exposure you could make a similar argument for every other worker not at home. Construction workers? Shop Assistants? Taxi-drivers? Kitchen workers etc etc etc. Even if that approach was done efficiently (lol!) it would still slow the whole program down which prob increases the overall population risk.
Overall it seems to me having vaccinated the most at risk groups either due to exposure risk (healthcare extra) or impact severity risk (underlying health conditions, over 70ās) then an approach that works by age as quickly as possible is logical and allows more rapid deployment. Their main failure I would think is not planning this way from the start and as a result having teachers (and other groups) feeling outraged because they feel theyāve been promised something or that they feel theyāve been ādowngradedā
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443/9
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Even if youāre going to give them the benefit of the doubt that age is the most important factor, why was their initial assessment different and why are they changing now?
There is another issue at play for me here and thatās the social contract and fairness. Weāve decided having schools open and in person is a priority and so teachers will be required to attend schools, and we need GardaĆ to do a job that may of necessity bring them into contact with the virus (literally, we want them to arrest people who have tested positive in some cases). We have told everyone else to stay at home. In those circumstances where we are asking more of these workers than we are of the general population is it fair to prioritise them for vaccination? In my view absolutely yes. Special needs workers, carers and home help assistants too. And yes I think the same reasoning applies to taxi drivers and retail workers, although the risk is along way of a lower order to what teachers and GardaĆ are required to do.
Another thing I found interesting was Denmarkās age based system of prioritisation. Once they get down as far as 50 or 40 they skip down to the youngest people and work their way back up. Something to do with the numbers of close contacts and it being the most effective way to prevent spread. That appears smart to me. We appear to have taken the most simplistic approad with the least nuance and argued itās supported by age being the most important factor. Iām entirely unconvinced by the rationale being offered, I think weāre taking the simplest approach because itās the simplest approach.
Now, it may be that getting the vaccine out faster is the best approach full stop, and this is the way to doing that. Iām not convinced by that either, but Iād buy it. I donāt buy the age based approach because for me it ignores too many other factors.
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In other news
How are the Deliveroo drivers above there?
Well, if there are any survivors they must surely be suffering from long covid?
You canāt catch Covid if youāre on a push bike
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When they are doing stats on 14 day rolling death averages etc do they count all 9 as for today?
I see Paul McAuliffe has made a tit of himself.
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Doing the vaccine rollout by age is the most brutally fair way to do this. We can see the public tearing each other apart as everyone has different opinions on whoās essential. Everyone will bump themselves up too.
Its a cold way to look at it. Like the leaving cert not an ideal way to evaluate the process but the easiest fairest way we have without getting into semantics
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It should have been like that at the start.
Itās another example of the Government stepping aside for āde expertsā and being burnt ultimately. It wouldnāt have been such an issue if it had happened at the start.
Given they only started thinking of this in November, it isnāt a surprise that poorly thought out decisions were made. Itās clear as day that this Is because we donāt have a good idea of the data beyond HSE payroll records and local GPS.
The teachers have walked themselves up an awkward cul de sac now though. Outside of āfrontlineā health workers, the public arenāt showing the same automatic compassion for worker causes as before.
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The public mood is just nasty and irrational at the moment.
Iām not going to get into bashing any professional as everyone has a good case for themselves. Some have been more vocal and the not read the public mood. The goverment need to get the finger out as the supply is now opening up. No excuses to miss targets now
This is really vexing. The tune the last while was that the British variant was ālike a new virusā and even outdoors is no longer safe. Turns out thatās bollox and outdoors is actually safe. So now they say oh we didnāt mean the outdoors we meant on the way to the outdoors. The on the way to the outdoors, thatās what it was, even when it was the bears I knew it was them.
RTE news : Outdoor Covid transmission data āmisleadingā - Henry
http://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0406/1208074-coronavirus-ireland/
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Goes to show these guys donāt follow science or facts when they donāt suit them.
Snake oil salesman levels of bullshitting.
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That Henry fella is an absolute clown.
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For once we agree.
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