I assume Sweden, without the necessary and mandated lockdown, has been essentially wiped off the face of the earth by COVID-19? Must be way ahead in terms of deaths per population?
If the cure was in the bed some lads would lie on the floor
It’s not accurate in that many countries are underreporting deaths. It is accurate in setting out fairly clearly that we have been very bad at managing this pandemic.
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My answer to you @Bandage, is… NO. But it is a good metric for observing how some countries, and in particular western democracies, have fared.
I wouldn’t believe any of the numbers coming out of China or Russia for example, who cover up their numbers, as witnessed by the amount of doctors who spoke out about it dying/disappearing. Similarly, the likes of Brazil or India cant really count their numbers accurately even if they would like to because of how many people below the poverty line may get it and die without seeing a hospital.
Excess deaths would be my preferred method of rating countries really but that data is harder to come by.
It does point out how poorly Cummings has done for the tans though. Their reported deaths are way way lower than their excess deaths.
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I’d expect the numbers to fall now that Borris is in charge.
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Is there anything at all you think the government has done well?
They kept paying him a full wage?
In response to Covid? Surely the answer to that is obviously no. You seem defensive of the government, I don’t get why. It seems we did a good job on preparing hospital space but made a hames of everything else.
I think that’s a difficult thing for many people to accept, because they have made huge sacrifices, and they have not been effective. And that’s a very difficult thing to swallow. It’s hard to accept we are one of the worst countries at the world in managing this.
The numbers clearly show we are firmly in the bad category. We are a rich, not densely populated country, with effectively no land border, and where the virus appeared later than most of the rest of Europe. All those are factors in our favor that most of the rest of Europe didn’t have, and yet we are bottom of the class.
I think you’re being too simplistic I wouldn’t trust anyone who thought that either the government had done brilliantly or terribly. It smacks of political bias and an inability to make judgements based on facts. In my view they did some things well and some things terribly.
Fair enough if you think so. Unfortunately the scorecards don’t leave much room for interpretation. Ireland had a lot of factors going in its favour that most other countries didn’t, and yet our results are worse. I think that is comprehensive. Anything else is codding ourselves.
If we were on mainland Europe we’d have been fucked. However they didn’t fuck everything up. They have put their money where their mouths are and stumped up to help people through the crisis. Obviously we’ll all pick up the tab for that but they did their best apart from a few major reactive decisions that resulted in too many lives being lost. We give out about the US and UK approach so it’d be a bit hypocritical to moan about our approach when it contrasts hugely. Unlike the UK or US our mistakes were not deliberate.
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Yes, you are very right there and I should acknowledge that, cc @Juhniallio. I was focused narrowly on the efforts to contain the spread of the virus and protect human life, but the support for people out of work has been good.
We had a few bits of bad luck and then there was a few bits of incompetence and things that with hindsight were bad decisions.
We were unlucky to have had so many people skiing in Northern Italy when the virus took hold there and it was worse luck that some of these worked in hospitals. There was a period then when we seemed to have no idea what the protocol was for people displaying symptoms, especially those working in hospitals. Sending people home to nursing homes from hospitals was a poor idea, but evidence of the absolute lack of confidence that the HSE had in the capacity of its infrastructure. There were the other nursing home mistakes as well. We were also unlucky that the Brits didn’t cancel Cheltenham and that the Atletico game went ahead. Once people went over to these things they had to come home. The pubs were left open too long and venal publicans took advantage.
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There are 20k protesters in Hyde Park today. And lads wanted to hang Cummings.
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I’d agree with most of that. Think they ignored the nursing homes for far too long and had them way down the priority list. Fuckall ppe or emergency staff or even guidance for them.
I think they got most right was getting public buy in for the lockdown at the start, which really hammered the R for a few weeks. Part of that was the supports for businesses so people accepted the few weeks at home. That’s where the real success has been for us.
Ireland is 11th worst in the world for deaths by population. To suggest that that is down to bad luck because the Brits didn’t cancel Cheltenham, or any other factor outside our control is a cop out at best.
Deary me, if you read my post I mentioned “a few bits of bad luck” as well as incompetence and bad decisions.
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Most rational people recognise this was handled successfully by the government. It was not perfect but lads who predicted an apocalypse have lowered the bar in hindsight.
They now need to handle the next phase and restore the economy.
In fairness the Irish are very good at pulling in the national interest.
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