Only because itās a city of 1m+ which can only operate at a capacity of about 10% of what it normally could if you could pack people in.
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Yep, was with a group trying to get into somewhere in Harcourt Street last week and was next to impossible as there was more than six and youād need to have pre-booked two tables.
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The 11pm closing is also making it so that everyone is leaving at the same time with massive crowds hanging around outside then
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Dublin seems to be busy most nights atm. Student bucks are making up for a lack of tourism ones currently.
Day trade really varies.
Iād like to see detailed statistics on how many people have returned to offices etc. compared to where we were pre-pandemic. And how many people will be returning to offices post October 22nd.
A point I have been making consistently is that Covid tends to concentrate a lot through the path of least resistance - ie, the highest largely unvaccinated age groups. Currently that is schoolchildren.
But high concentration among such age groups simultaneously acts as a driver for spread among all age groups.
High concentration among particular age groups has tended to move down through the ages, as the vaccination programme has rolled out. But because the vaccines are not approved for under 12s, and because there seems to be quite a degree of irrational ideological opposition to vaccination of children, it seems to me that children will remain a serious driver of virus spread until vaccinations have been rolled out down to 0 years. Then you have no more āpath of least resistanceā, because there are no more younger age groups to vaccinate. It doesnāt look to me like we will reach that stage this winter.
Neither would the evidence suggest to me that we can live with Covid being āendemicā. Because hospitalisations are continuing to go up while cases plateau or slightly decline. Case numbers need to be driven down significantly for the hospitalisations to no longer rise.
People may be just trying to get on with their lives, but it may be the case that everybody trying to get on with their lives in something like the way they did pre-pandemic is simply incompatible amid a Covid winter.
In terms of very few people going to the pub - which from what I have seen is the case - I donāt know how that reduced level of economic activity in a no restrictions and therefore an environment of no more financial supports is compatible with a lot of businesses being able to function.
What I am fairly sure about is that there will be a much increased amount of economic activity and mixing of people in an indoor setting in the run up to Christmas.
That will surely drive a serious rise in cases and a serious rise in hospitalisations, and a considerable rise in deaths, maybe not to 90 a day, but quite possibly into the 15-30 range. As it is right now weāre averaging 4-5 deaths a day.
Local bars out in the sticks are pretty much running without restrictions for the past month or two but itās no real craic with the same faces.
Itās the vibrant cities where you wander into a packed bar and can mingle with others and have a bit of craic or get involved in a barney that had been badly missing for the past two years. You need to wake up to a black eye some random morning to boost morale.
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Is live music not allowed in pubs?
A good kicking every now and then does a lad a world of goodā¦
As long as thereās no broken bones, teeth or long lasting cosmetic damage then itās only a bit of craic.
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The point of the vaccines is obvious. To stop people who are infected dying. The side benefit of that is that is that vaccines significantly reduce your chance of being infected, and because they significantly reduce the chance of developing serious symptoms, also significantly reduce transmission.
A comparison of where Ireland is now in terms of deaths - 31 in a week is our latest figure - compared to Romania - where only 28% of the population of 19 million is fully vaccinated and they had 385 deaths in a day on Friday - is very instructive as to how useful vaccines are.
The problem is that even with an excellent roll out of the vaccines, and even with cases not exploding - with them actually declining for close to two months from August on, hospitalisations and ICU numbers have increased significantly. Delta is the problem. Itās an existential problem for societies.
The sooner we all come to realise this - and especially at policy level, the sooner we might be able to go about solving it. As it is, policy urgency has dropped off alarmingly, at the exact time it is needed more than ever.
Praying everything will be fine doesnāt seem a good policy.
Wankology of the highest order
I heard a place in Limerick which would be popular with the students, was telling bookings for a table of 6 but when you went in there were no tables. (Weāll call it Pollys.)
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Just to cherry pick more stats.
Positive cases on 17th July were recorded at 1,377
Positive cases on 10th Oct were recorded at 1,384.
12 weeks later, an increase of 0.5%
ICU numbers on Sept 17th were 73
ICU numbers 3 weeks later are 74
An increase of 1.3%
Since the 16th August, cases in ICU have wavered between 50 and 75 or so. For 2 months, there hasnt been any significant decrease nor increase in numbers.
On 30th Aug there were 382 in hospital with Covid.
6 weeks later there are 400 in hospital.
An increase of 4.7%
You can manipulate figures to sound either huge and concerning or following trends or whatever. Cherry picking arbitary dates has been an issue on both sides of any discussion on this. Broadly speaking, its clear cases have risen since June with the onset of the Delta variant. However the numbers of deaths do not seem to have risen pro rata with the increase in cases, maybe highlighting the effect of vaccines as those getting infected are not being seriously affected. Which is a good thing. Its also clear that the cases have not risen in the same volume that was being predicted. They rose quite quickly but by and large have stayed relatively similar for the past 2 months after the initial rise.
Iād much rather if these figures were falling when opening up is happening. That is common sense. However they still do not ever clarify who is in hospital because of Covid or who is in hospital that has tested positive for Covid. They are two very distinctly different things and for as long as this has been happening, it has not been clarified. It makes a huge difference as to what the priority in the hospital is with the patient, are they treating them for Covid, or are they treating them for something else but just happen to also have Covid.
Just to note, that these increases also started towards the tail end of the vaccination program, indicating that it is likely to continue in this manner for a while as many wont get the vaccine. Plus there are huge numbers of children included in those case numbers, many of whom cant get vaccinated under current guidelines. So basing it solely on case numbers without any in-depth look as to those getting it is not really constructive. The colleges back on campus, schools back, and offices back also have a contribution to this, essentially everything is already opened up, so the new date of Oct 22nd really wont make much of a difference in my opinion. Many people have already given up on it. I know from a few hotel projects Iām on that their orders of sanitizer and other measures are way down as people just arent using them any more. People have got complacent or else are just fed up with it all and are moving on, regardless of any arbitrary opening date.
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I think places have no staff. I was told by a place last week at lunchtime they were not taking walk ins and the place was half empty.
I headed to the next place and it was half empty too and they took me no bother.
Thereās no fun in that
That was me laughing at you assessing the optimism levels of the modelling. I still find it funny, āvery optimisticā 
As it turns out you were wrong about that too, the modelling was very pessimistic.
Table service is much more demanding on staff Iād say.
And wearing masks. Patrons who demand staff to be vaccinated and wear masks for hours on end are really just narcissists with a very nasty streak
And these cretins with their passports. Does anyone seriously believe that an infrastructure costing hundreds of millions is going to either vanish or not be used for other purposes. Any politician pushing for such a measure should probably have their cage rattled a little
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Roasters everywhere are bemoaning the death of the carvery
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I think it was Chris Whitty the CMO for England who said earlier this year that pandemics donāt have a defined end point. People eventually just move on with their lives and it slowly fades into the background.
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