Over 50s who have featured in the âauld birds you would shagâ thread would naturally be exempt from this rule
Sure lookit @Copper_pipe will be able to get them IDâs. As long as the ID doesnât disqualify them from the âauld birds you would shagâ thread strict age limits.
Through even the toughest days of this crisis, it has only been the over 70âs that have been asked to take measures which are different from the rest of society. Your mention of curtailing over 50âs as we emerge almost fully from lockdown is clearly utterly ridiculous. If it was attempted to be introduced there would be uproar, as there are no grounds whatsover for stopping that age group.
As for me being âcomfortableâ, it is not about that. There are people out there who propose that over 70âs should be locked away until this thing is eradicated but that is part of an overall strategy - not a random solo run by pubs.
Your initial comment almost suggesting that older people (over 50âs apparently) somehow owes the younger crowd for the actions during lockdown so let them go and fill their boots was quite offensive actually and needlessly divisive.
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15th May 1997.
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Yeah as far as I understand it right now, if youâre drinking alcohol, you have to buy a âŹ9 meal and that would be in every pub you visit
Special offer, buy one ham sandwich, get two pints free. âŹ9
VID-20200619-WA0011
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FOAD
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*ham sandwich optional
It wonât work. Youâd have auld lads outside pubs pestering young fellas to buy them drink.
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IMG_5666
Welcome to 4 posts ago.
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Sorry mate.
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I forgive you child
Pubs are a Covid-19 risk. So why rush to reopen them?
Jennifer OâConnell
Tony Holohan declaring that eating a packet of peanuts with your pint does not make it a meal was the moment we hit peak 2020; the most surreal interlude yet in a year where even the quieter days have run the gamut from inconceivable to untenable.
Ever since the chief medical officerâs declaration of two weeks ago, the question of what does make a meal has been preoccupying some of the brightest minds in FĂĄilte Ireland, which drew on the advice of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
We didnât need further proof of our dysfunctional relationship with alcohol. But we got it anyway in a discussion that has been all about the leaps of logistics and linguistics required to allow pubs to reopen as restaurants on June 29th, and little about whether they should, or why there is the rush to reopen pubs instead of, say, schools or cancer screening services.
The combined wisdom of FĂĄilte Ireland and the assorted acronymed expert bodies culminates in a 20-page document on the guidelines for the reopening of pubs. A substantial meal is one that costs âŹ9 â presumably if those âŹ6 goujons donât ward off Covid-19, the âŹ9 prawn cocktail should. Staying in the pub for 105 minutes is okay; 106 minutes is trouble. Cocktail umbrellas are to be avoided. Straws need to be individually wrapped. Nozzles, tap optics or bottles must not be touched against the glass. Freshly washed glasses canât be stacked on top of each other. Toilets should not be used simultaneously by multiple gatherings, the report cautions, conjuring up vistas of a group of lads after a feed of substantial meals begging the barman for their turn.
Barren wastelands
These guidelines are just to get us through the barren wasteland of the next three weeks, until pubs can reopen without all that faffing about with food. They are a funny read, as Prof Joe Barry, a public health expert, said on Morning Ireland yesterday, warning that it is âa little bit prematureâ for all of this. It wasnât clear if he meant funny-haha or funny-tearing- my-hair-out. It would be comedy gold if there wasnât so much at stake.
Nothing is ever 100 per cent safe. What weâve been led to believe so far is that every decision about unlocking requires a careful calibration of risks.
It means looking at the best available evidence for the risks of opening, and measuring it against the risks of staying closed, and then making a judgment about the pragmatic need for a return to reality. This is the reason dental surgeries have reopened, despite dentists being second on the CSOâs list of most at-risk professions, by virtue of their close contact to patients.
The reality is that most people canât go very long with a bad toothache.
Itâs the reason creches are being reopened on June 29th: the low risk to staff from children is offset by the reality that, for the economy to reopen, parents need to work.
Routine cancer screening services have not returned yet, and the view of government sources is that it will not be safe âfor quite some timeâ. The Irish Times reported last month that those who need a clinical exam may be asked to isolate for 14 days beforehand. No oneâs asking pub-goers to isolate for 14 days beforehand. They donât even necessarily have to book.
Itâs not an either/or, of course. We could have pubs and routine cancer screening up and running together. But we wonât, because thereâs no powerful lobby group demanding a return to screenings.
Inhibitions cast aside
Publicans have managed to turn the careful balance of risk and reward on its head. Pubs are a petri dish for coronavirus. They tick every box in the transmission toolkit. Indoor setting: check. Little flow through of air: check. High turnover of people: check. Close physical contact: check. People shouting at one another over the din: check. Food being shared: check. Masks not practical: check. Inhibitions cast aside: check.
The reality being weighed against this risk is that we really, really like to drink. Pubs barged up the queue not because of any public good imperative, but because they have large and muscular lobby groups behind them.
Theyâre reopening here before they reopen in the UK, where even Dominic Raab â not known for his overly dovelike approach â says they are âfraught with all sorts of particular risksâ.
The international evidence suggests heâs right. In Jacksonville Beach in Florida this month, 16 people got sick after a night out in Lynchâs Irish Pub. Everyone in a group of friends tested positive.
It was their first night out since lockdown, one of the revellers said. âMurphyâs Law,â she added.
In South Korea, one 29-year-old man who visited three nightclubs on a night out three days before he tested positive, spread it to 50 others.
How long before there are headlines like that about Ireland?
Publicans are as keen to get back to business as any other small business owner, and no one can blame them for that.
Many have invested in their businesses with a view to reopening as safely as possible. As a society and an economy, we canât stay in lockdown forever. Even so, the mostly unchallenged rush to reopen pubs is a grim reflection on our priorities. The numbers may be going down here, but Covid-19 is far from in abeyance globally: last week saw two of the three highest tallies of new cases since the outbreak began.
Hereâs a suggestion of my own, drawn up without the guidance of the HSE, HPSC, FSAI, HSA, WHO, VFI or LVF. If weâre so worried about reopening pubs that we need 20 pages of guidance on how to do it, maybe we should wait.
Open the pubs. If you want to go, go. If not donât.
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Thatâs not the way things work anymore @Julio_Geordio.
Iâm not going to go, simply because I think it will be negative craic with the current restrictions.
Also, there will be a pretty big witch hunt for the first week or two from people like the author of the article above