Youâre a twisted person
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Weshtbound.
Stop being weird
Thereâs something about the spread of this thing that is truly weird. Countries like Poland that had low incidence back in the first wave are riddled now, as are remote US states like the Dokotas. The most vulnerable are getting hit here far harder now as the disease progresses inland, would make one worry about the winter ahead.1918 redux?
shocking scenes in Cork last night
3 people were killed according to Brendan and Nuala on facebook
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Nphet and Government expected to clash again on Christmas plan
CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER DR TONY HOLOHAN AND PROF PHILIP NOLAN OF NPHET AT A COVID-19 PRESS CONFERENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH THIS WEEK. PHOTOGRAPH: COLIN KEEGAN
Pace of reopening and travel likely to be the next key points for discussion
Pat Leahy
Information is the currency in Government and news travels fast. Within hours of its conclusion on Wednesday, word was swirling around official circles about a fiery meeting between senior Government officials and the chief medical officer Tony Holohan.
Some of the officials present expressed in blunt terms their own displeasure â shared by their political masters â at what they see as attempts by Holohan and his colleagues on the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) to âbox inâ the Government to a more cautious, conservative and ultimately restrictive policy corner.
Martin Fraser, secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach and the most powerful civil servant in the whole Government apparatus, made his feelings clear. Robert Watt, the top official in the Department of Public Expenditure, also weighed in.
âWent mental,â was one officialâs report. âA humdinger,â said another.
Fraser is said to have been critical of the number of times that the team members appeared in the media, where they had been pushing the need for caution in any opening up.
Two days before, Mary Favier, a GP who is also a team member, told RTĂ: âWe really need to follow our public health officials in this area, they are the experts.â
Various other team members and allies appeared on the airwaves in the following hours and days to warn about the need to heed its advice.
Whether they knew it or not, the media campaign â and thatâs how it was seen â was raising hackles in Government Buildings.
People in Government believe this is a careful and deliberate strategy by the public health experts to push the Government towards a more restrictive and cautious reopening.
Holohan is central to the teamâs operation and thatâs why the Government pushback has been personally directed at him. He is, say people who have worked with him, forceful and focussed; they also say he is reluctant to take no for an answer.
âLike Hizbullahâ
âHeâs like Hizbullah, thereâs no negotiating with him,â laughs one official, who speaks highly of him. But ultimately, as officials have been reminding him, itâs the Government that makes the decisions. Holohan knows this, which is maybe why the team seeks to make its case in public.
The differences between the two sides are not just about what should be done in the future, they also concern the recent past. The Government side believes that the âLevel 3-plusâ restrictions are what brought the recent spike in infections under control. The team insists that it was âanticipatory behaviourâ â expectation of the lockdown causing people to modify their behaviour.
There is also a suspicion in Government that the team is not sharing all the data it has. There are many reasons for its suspicion â not least the fact that the team was insisting on a lockdown when the numbers were just at their peak.
Sharp-eared Government officials heard RTĂâs George Lee â a journalist with a special insight into, and affinity for, the teamâs thinking, it might fairly be said â say that âNphet have far more numbers than what is publishedâ.
In a not unrelated development, the Department of the Taoiseach has commissioned its own data marshalling operation.
Consultants EY have been drafted in to crunch the data in order to get a clearer picture of exactly where infections are occurring.
The idea is, according to sources familiar with the brief, so that commercial areas shut down but posing little risk of spreading infections can be allowed to open, and stay open.
Experts âspookedâ
This is not just a matter of clashing personalities, compelling and all as people in politics find that narrative. There are and have been substantive differences between the politicians and the public health experts about the best approach to managing the pandemic, and how those choices play out has a direct effect on peopleâs lives.
It will have a direct effect on how people celebrate Christmas. The team-Government relationship, scratchy and suspicious though it may be, is a locus of huge power.
According to a source familiar with the groupâs thinking, the team was âgenuinely spookedâ by the recent stalling in the decline of daily infections reported.
After peaking on 1,200, daily cases tumbled for three weeks, before starting to creep up again.
But the change in trajectory was seized upon by team officials as a reason for caution â immediately conflicting with the desire in Government to have as broad based and enduring an opening up of society as possible.
Itâs a simplification â but not a misleading one â to characterise the differing priorities of the team and Government in this way.
That has been the cleavage between the two sides since before they fell out over the last lockdown.
The public health experts favour more restrictions, the politicians less.
And that, broadly speaking, will be the division between the two sides next week as the plan for opening up, for Christmas and for beyond, is finalised. Indoor hospitality â restaurants and pubs â travel restrictions and the pace of reopening are likely to be the key battlegrounds.
âEveryoneâs getting ready for it,â says one person who will be involved in the discussions.
âAll set for a big scrap next week.â
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The lockdown happened here from March 12th and was quite severe. Schools, borders, pubs the lot. There wasnât a lot of testing and not a lot of reported cases. The Government were focused on the Presidential election and keeping the economy substantially open. Epidiemologists here say that there wasnât a first wave. From the third week of September the case numbers rocketed. The only variable changing from the previous four months was the schools reopening. Maybe the kids are asymptomatic but anecdotally Iâve heard of a number of cases being spread through kindergartens. There is a lot of testing now.
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George Lee was audibly deflated talking about the roll out of a vaccine on the news there. It was great.
The paper of record again the leading publication in questioning/ holding to account the public health officials. Nice little dig at George Lee too
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Tony doesnât take no for an answer
Fucking hell, McDonkey might come in handy and get me out of going to the in-laws where last year there were about 20 people inside in a small sitting room on Christmas morning.
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Thinly veiled George is in Nphets pocket
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âhizbolah hoolahanââŚ
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George has (inadvertently?) thrown them under the bus with the revelation that they are holding back data
What kind of data are they holding off? Locations of outbreaks? Schools? HSE run facilities? Contract tracing finding staff members breaking restrictions that lead to outbreaks? Or its all a cod?
@Tassotti
leave an auld plate of turkey outside a neighbours door there per sam.
I expect we will see lots of pictures of psychotic folk brandishing pictures of santa that they forced their kids to draw on the inside of a cornflakes box stood grinning and waving outside nursing homes and some old one in there with dementia looking out not having an iota whsts going on with drool running down the side of her gob being forced to wave by some Filipino on 7 euro an hourâŚquick selfie then . post on Facebook and job doneâŚâlook iarlaith âŚwave to grannyâ
thatâs Hizbollah Hoolahanâs version of a meaningful ChristmasâŚ
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Testing explains the higher cases but not really the deaths. Why are they so much higher at the moment? Most of irelands happened in spring
Hizbollahan?
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Irelandâs extremely vulnerable were killed off in the first wave as we were somewhat slow to react. The majority infected in the second wave were resilient enough to recover. Central Europe locked down hard early and didnât have much of a first wave but their vulnerable are getting infected in October/November and sadly dieing now
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