You saw all this through a chink in the curtains?
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What part of “from my morning run…I observed…” did you not get?
FFS sake.
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Fair point, I just scanned your post and thought of curtain twitchers. Apologies.
There are protests kicking off all over Europe. Lockdowns have to go
We’re nearly there. Stay strong my friend.
They have to go. Lockdowns are short-term, emergency measures. They don’t belong in civilized western society for months on end.
They will. When numbers have been driven down a bit and a good number of the most vulnerable have been vaccinated. Then we should see further and sustainable reopening by summer when all the vulnerable people are vaccinated, combined with a low incidence rate driven down by lockdown, and more favourable weather allowing things to happen outdoors.
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They’ll be gone shortly. We’re nearly over the line here.
That’s not the point. They should be illegal. Everything fundamentally good about be a citizen of a civilized society goes with a lockdown. Whatever about level 2 and having restrictions on the numbers inside a premises, limits on mass gatherings etc we can argue but locking people inside their homes and having them justify every journey to a police officer has no business existing in a western democracy in 2021
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This would be my thinking too, and would hope that NPHET or the government would be thinking likewise. People could take more of this shite if we knew there was an end in sight, that another month of this, and then reduced restrictions for another month whilst the second vaccine was given to the most vulnerable etc, and then we can start looking towards a proper future, then people will be more accepting and more likely to comply. They need to start reinforcing positivity, increase the vaccine and keep more informed about vaccines than cases and I think it would make a big difference to the way people are acting. Luke O Neill seems to be the only one I’ve heard of who has ever mentioned some sort of end to all this. The rest of the doom and gloom merchants are talking years of misery.
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Well, western democracy is essentially the EU. And pretty much all of the EU has the restrictions you find so repugnant in place in order to save lives.
Yes I’m aware of that. I still strongly disagree with them
Absolutely correct with all of that. O’Leary’s point this morning was that with all the vulnerable people vaccinated there will no longer be a need for travel restrictions, and he’s right.
Our leaders have shown no signs of looking towards reopening or positivity yet though. I think it’s a combination of politicians being scared of overpromising, NPHET being extremely conservative and restricted minded (as they have been ever since their fuck up of the first wave), both being still rattled within an inch of their lives after the Christmas spike (which is completely fair enough), and also both not really having a plan for stepping down as vaccination proceeds.
On the last part, I think it’s fair that they can’t promise on the detail yet, but they could at least signal that we are looking towards reopening and relaxation this summer.
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Needed to be done in December. Positivity was actually a cornerstone of Lockdown 1.0.
In fairness, not a lot can be done with vaccine supplies which makes it difficult. Martin needs to be smart though, get open air activities back for March of all kinds. Tell the over 60s to stay at home but get rid of the ridiculous no garden visits rule.
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You can’t maintain that they have no business in western democracy when it’s mainly western democracies implementing them. Clearly your understanding of “western democracy” is flawed.
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Pretty clear pattern in the EU now of countries removing restrictions due to population unease. They had a harder Christmas so we are a month behind but we will be in that position by the end of February I think.
Maybe it is. I was listening to an old clip of Anthony Fauci when China initially locked down and he said (I’m having to paraphrase as I cant remember the exact quote) well obviously you couldnt implement measures like that in a free country like the US.
I think if you wound the clock back to 2019, the idea of a lockdown, of people having to explain any trip to a police officer, people having to close their business for months on end etc would have horrified people of western democracies
Some are. Some are still increasing restrictions. The English strain has been a game changer and is causing serious unease, which is understandable. As you said, we are a couple months behind the curve of the rest of the EU since we were the outlier in opening for Christmas.
To be honest, I think it’s all progressing in positive lines towards a relaxed summer and the worst of it in the past by autumn.
Yes you’re right but the context has changed dramatically since then and it’s odd that you are still living in that past rather than seeing the current situation.
There is no doubt it has. The Danes were talking about it making 0.5 of a difference to R alone.
We will be relaxed for Summer as the Med destinations will demand tourism is open for the summer.