So you were wrong?
Covid cases steadily declined in Ireland for two months. But yet hospitalisations and ICU numbers increased.
Now the vaccination programme has hit a wall, weâre opening up on October 22nd, and weâre heading into winter.
Anybody see the problem?
Anybody want to address the elephant in the room?
No, of course yis donât. Just whisper sweet nothings to yerselves.
Cases rose to 2k, which was a significant rise but not to the extent that I expected. That happened because we retained common sense public health measures and the vaccination programme went gangbusters.
Let me remind you that you literally laughed at the idea that cases would reach 900 daily if the pubs opened on July 5th - which they didnât.
You believed cases would stay in the low hundreds.
Whatâs your solution? Lockdown forever?
The trick is to get things open quickly enough during the two month lull before the doomers and media get their graphs and models out. Weâre probably hitting that sweet spot in Ireland.
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Quote that there for me, sounds like you are making things up that people said again.
Iâve continually said what I think should happen.
Vaccine passes, mass testing, work from home retained, masking, social distancing measures retained, comprehensive financial support so people donât go to work while infected.
Rolling out the vaccine to all age groups when approval comes is a given. Boosters will have to happen. And at a world scale vaccination production has to be dramatically ramped up so vaccination allocation isnât a zero sum game where a rich countryâs booster programme isnât denying poorer countries their initial roll out.
Restrictions again if necessary.
What is your solution?
From your pithy response, it would appear you have none other than âlet the health system be overwhelmed and be damned with itâ.
That isnât a solution. Society will not function if that is the âsolutionâ.
Right there buddy.
Until when?
Whatâs the point of the vaccines in Ireland, a country with a massive proportion of population vaccinated if it doesnât stop the health system being overwhelmed? What are you basing the health service being overwhelmed on?
So why have hospitalisations gone from 298 on October 2nd to 400 now?
Hospitalisations were as low as 42 on July 3rd.
So hospitalisations have increased by 9 and half times in 100 days.
To throw in a pointless film reference, where will they be in nine and a half weeks?
Until conclusive proof comes we no longer need them.
Have a think about it.
What you seem to be proposing is we just throw our hats at it, because pandemic public health measures are hard.
Does that seem like an adult policy response?
To me it seems like magical thinking - that somehow, everything will turn out alright.
What is the evidence for this magical thinking?
Would you say that the biggest part of the reopening casewise is done though? As in opening primary schools with all the unvaccinated kids meeting again. Iâd imagine that has a much much bigger influence on case numbers than full reopenings where vaccinated people meet again. The primary schools opened 6 weeks ago. Iâd think that we are slap bang in the middle of our third wave and that itâll settle and go down again.
On the issue of sweet nothings etc. I donât think many people donât believe in the virus or its danger, I think they are just trying to get on with their lives. Very few people I know are going to the pub, people are eating outdoors where possible. People are trying to draw a line between minimising risk and maximising life.
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I am not proposing anything.
Itâll be interesting to look back in a few years to see if this lasts - sitting at a table and no music is no fun really.
I do think people will go back to pubs but I expect they will end up going less often than before.
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Ha, I know one principal who would liken it to that actually, lets just the say the first month was a monumental shit show. Over the worst of it now hopefully and everyone got on with it. I presume this is what the blitz spirit felt like.
A load of fucking shite.
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Dublin is absolutely jammed every weekend and I presume students during the week as well. In Kilkenny you canât get anywhere on a Saturday night unless you book in advance