The only thing that works to limit spread is social distancing. The sensible response to this crisis was to go absolutely overboard in terms of communication and education, and put in place measures to protect the vulnerable and make social distancing practical for the broad population.
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You really are as thick as pig ordure plaited.
The HSEâs lack of competence might be scarifying â time and tribunals will tell, no doubt â but is irrelevant to my general point. I know something even a small bit subtle might be really difficult for you to grasp but the reality is that infection rate, beyond a certain point, will bring about a de facto rolling lockdown, irrespective of a de jure lockdown via legal measures. Capiche?
Now, go away and do not be wasting my time with your guff about freedom. The biggest freedom in life is not to be stupid.
I did not use the Mad Max speak about âcollapseâ beloved of the histrionic right. I simply said certain infection rates would constitute a de facto lockdown, irrespective of legal measures. This facet is obvious if you take proper thought.
A government, when it contemplates a certain rate of infection in the offing, has to act in knowledge of what that rate would mean. The decisions in front of them will be highly complex but the recognition, though stark and painful, is hardly so complicated.
On Sweden, two factual points. The country has 12 times less population density than the UK â to make one comparison of point â and a far better health system. Counties and states are different. This Sweden stuff is a total canard â and bespeaks a lost argument.
The real nub of the issue is that in all cases, the countries where hospitals have been overran essentially had no warning.
Regardless of your opinion on the actions of the regional government in Wuhan, it basically emerged there overnight. The âscenes from Lombardyâ emerged within a couple of days of the ânew casesâ. Similar in Madrid in New York.
Even Ireland waited until nearly a month from the point of the known outbreak here (which we now know was a lot earlier) to closing down the country fully.
Some are reacting to case numbers now and being very conservative on their assessments of their true impact based on recent history. Any pressure on hospitals is being met with natural fear. Madrid has had pressure on hospitals for a couple of months but still a fraction of the peak.
The countries getting hit hardest at the moment are the ones where they had few deaths first time out ie the Czech Republic.
We have to react logically and not just use case statistics on this. Look at Nolanâs assessment of us catching 1 in 3 cases at peak, that is fanciful.
But even though there is mass hysteria, the vast majority of countries have still not gone near to where Ireland have gone in our latest lockdown.
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Sweden is a big country with a population of only 10M but 80% of the population live in urban areas.
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It wouldnât last for as long as the current indefinite lockdown that Micheal Martin is planning and it would be targetted at the people who actually need to lockdown. I live alone, what risk am I to anyone? And if it didnât lead to de facto rolling national lockdown then that would mean that the national lockdown was never necessary.
This just makes no sense. Iâd say that the greatest freedom in life is the freedom to go outside whenever you want, to talk to people, go dancing, play sport, enjoy your life or the freedom to sleep with thousands of women like you have. Saying the greatest freedom is the freedom not to be stupid is like saying "the greatest freedom in life is the freedom to be born a handsome 6 foot six inches tall olympic-level athlete. Are people with Downs syndrome born unfree? I wouldnât say so.
I wouldnât be so sure.
Wrong. You are making a basic mistake in not understanding that outbreaks can focus on certain geographic areas. Thereâs little point in analysing Lombardyâs outbreak in purely Italian density, geographic and other terms.
Swedenâs population density in the likes of Stockholm is very high. Metro Stockholm has about 25% of the Swedish population. That is where they had the concentration of their outbreak.
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You do realize the discussion on this thread is Ireland and the measures taken by the Irish government? Constantly referencing the UK is a deflection, compare Ireland and Sweden if you want to compare. In terms of population density the south of Sweden and Ireland are similar.
Where are you getting Sweden has a far better health system than the UK? Sweden has fewer hospital beds per capita and the same ICU beds per capita as Ireland, and is roughly the same as the UK.
I far from agree necessarily with a Level 5 lockdown â and was surprised by it.
But a government is there to govern. So I will get on with it. And I will not put up with straw arguments about Zero Covid and such like. We are in a terrible and a terribly messy place â and will be for quite a while to come. Clear thought rather than trite straw arguments would be some step in the right direction.
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I know that Ireland is not Sweden⌠And vice versa.
I am not the one trying to make Sweden the avatar of everything righteous. What are the Swedes doing that Ireland â or anywhere else â should be doing? I hear a lot about Sweden but in the vaguest terms.
To say the UK is not relevant is nonsensical. There is that entity known as The Six Counties.
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FFS⌠Of course there are differences in regional density. Ballyferriter is not Lucan and so forth. But a point of comparison has to be drawn somewhere. Obviously Stockholm is more comparable to Dublin or Manchester than to Inis Oirr or Bodmin Moor. But by using the noun âSwedenâ or the adjective âSwedishâ you are obviously already making a macro comparison. Or can you not grasp that point?
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Sweden is relevant as they took a very different approach than literally every other western country. None of the doom and gloom predictions have come to pass, their deaths are nowhere near predicted, their health care system hasnât collapsed, their economy is doing better than most. They by no means did everything right (nursing home deaths just as bad as elsewhere) but there is a valid argument they got the response more right than wrong.
NI is relevant, but your point was the population density of the UK which is irrelevant to NI.
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That is a weak sauce argument Iâm sorry.
Rolling lockdowns was never the strategy for pandemics. China, social media, the willingness to print money and Niall Fergusonâs model led to the first one. Go back to the the 1957 and 1968 pandemics and look what they did. Because they did do a lot, including at an individual level, this is not the first pandemic in living memory for many. Whatâs interesting is if you go back to the likes of 1968, the equivalent of 168k Americans today died in that pandemic. CNN have a good 4 part series on 1968 and I didnât see one mention it.
Holohan did not call for a lockdown in February when you could have actually significantly reduced the outbreak we had. He didnât as they did not expect to get the level of influence and âpowerâ they have.
Things have changed and moved on & a committee like NPHET have got to be scrutinised.
The phenomenon of groupthink is real. That doesnât mean that these people are all wrong or their intentions are, but it is a fact of life. Look at the difference between SAGE and Independent SAGE in the U.K. Ireland are still following the âmainstreamâ Imperial led modelling in the U.K., but Independent SAGE have different ideas. They want the circuit breaker but are critical of SAGE, they are quite left leaning and are influencing Labour thinking on this. It is not necessarily good to have political slants to this but they are inevitable in the social media age and demonisation (and veneration) of Sweden shows this.
It is good to have alternative voices, scrutiny and accountability, we donât. We do not even have access to figures behind Level 5. In the U.K. at least they have released their figures and they can be scrutinised. That includes politicians here who have no idea, and have stated as such. They simply are âfollowing the expertsâ.
I donât want to bring certain lads names up on here but I know they have been fucked over by this with little interaction or transparency from Government as to why. But if we take the example of a barber here, SAGE there reckons it impacts by 0.05 on R, would you be happy to be one in Ireland just been closed down when you hear that? After youâve invested in your business to get it back open?
These are questions of billions and questions of lives here, they have to be given their own airing. I am fearful of the people directing these decisions given the performance to date frankly.
In terms of NPHET and the Government overall. NPHET are a committee of 40, many with their own interests at hand. The Government are here for only a short time in the grand scheme of things. They are all heavily influenced by social media & the media with the short term goal of keeping their jobs. Do the Government really care about an extra few billion in borrowings to be paid down the tract when they could be under serious pressure if hospitals get anywhere near the normal Winter levels here (the trolley count would be x100 this January). Do the HSE want the same? Long term they will simply point to this being a pandemic and doing âwhat was neededâ. Thatâs how we needed up with the bank guarantee as well.
They all have an obligation to one another with interests that are aligned, but are not necessarily in the best interests of the country. When we go back to the Celtic Tiger and the various mistakes made by experts then, why did that happen? Everyone can claim to be a Morgan Kelly now with hindsight. The truth is that the country was locked into a cycle of mutual obligations so the show didnât come off the road.
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Itâs a point when you compare approaches to policy.
You are trying to say that Sweden isnât possible because of their density. It isnât a consideration for them, it is only a consideration for you as you have just googled their relative density and donât have the knowledge of the country on the ground.
The âSwedesâ are well aware of their own density and that factors into their decisions.
You wouldnât have made the point you did for Russia say, as it is obvious to someone just how vast it is and that average density doesnât play a role. It isnât as clear with someone like Sweden but it is the same.
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A ridiculous amount of swedes live alone. Obviously a huge help when you see how much of our transmission was in private homes.
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Thatâs a very fair point when it comes to Sweden no question. Average density isnât.
Franceâs daily new cases has been 40k+ for the past 3 days.
Their highest daily case in the âfirst waveâ was around 7k.
Just how underreported was the first wave in terms of positive cases. Could the French equivalent been around 100k a day in the first wave? Is that conceivable?
The death rate per case has fallen by a multiple of around 30 when you compare first wave to second wave? If you took that multiplier you could have been talking about 200k daily cases at the peak of the virus - would that have been feasible? You wouldnât be long getting herd immunity at that rate.
Herd immunity close in Ireland?
At least 10x at peak.
lf people are getting re-infected what chance here immunity? Do people who had it in matlrch still have immunity?