If true, at least Dr Holohan called it a pandemic almost two weeks before the WHO did.
There’s an interesting contrast between the WHO’s handling of the SARS outbreak in 2002 and this latest outbreak in 2020. In 2002 the WHO was led by the outstanding Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, ex prime minister of Norway. In December 2002 the Chinese government were aware of the outbreak of a deadly respiratory disease (SARS-1 was far more lethal then SARS-2) but didn’t alert the WHO. Not to be deterred the WHO were monitoring the Internet chatter of Chinese doctors and scientists, and took their information directly to the CCP and forced them to tell the truth. Brundtland publicly accused the CCP of withholding information and demanded to be let in to study the outbreak. As soon as cases were found outside China, the WHO advised against travel to affected areas. Their swift action was one of the reasons SARS-1 was contained, with fewer than 1,000 deaths worldwide.
Fast forward to 2019/2020. there was just as much or more chatter from Chinese scientists and doctors on the internet in December 2019 as there was in 2002. No action from the WHO. Finally on December 31st, the CCP informed the WHO that they had an outbreak of a new pneumonia. Chinese scientists had sequenced the new virus and knew it was SARS-2 by January 1, but this wasn’t shared with the WHO until January 12th. The numbers being reported by the CCP were utter bullshit in early January, claiming there were only 59 cases. Tedros never called the CCP out for withholding information, asked but never insisted that WHO scientists go in to investigate, finally met with Wi on January 28th and said what a great job China was doing.
When the US and other countries stopped travel to and from China these actions were called racist by Tedros. As the virus was literally being spread all over the globe in early February.
Tedros needs to go, and the WHO reorganized under competent management.
How many of these people will die or have their lifespans greatly deduced because the HSE has switched over to mostly COVID-19 response and cancelled other much needed treatment including surgeries? Who exactly is thinking about these potential deaths “because” of Covid-19?
This is one of the moral hazard issues raised by the OP, which of course was only met with abuse and disdain from some posters who are actually incapable of rational thought. The kind of thinking that says allowing one death from COVID-19 is unacceptable and immoral, while we (Ireland) as a society accept thousands of deaths each year that are avoidable; people dying from the flu, from decades of smoking, from drinking themselves to death, from lifestyle related cancers, from avoidable traffic accidents, from depression and suicide, etc.
I came across something today that if it doesn’t bring tears to you eyes, you are made of stone. As with all great quotations, it was written by anonymous.
“You cannot save everyone in an epidemic or pandemic, save those you can, preferably the younger and healthier. You’re going to have to let people die, and nurses get the “privilege” of holding their hands while they die, so that in their last moments they knew somebody cared”.
Here’s another quotation from MASH that is also relevant:
“There are two rules of war. Rule number 1 is that young men die. Rule number 2 is that doctors can’t change rule number 1”.
Most people in Ireland have been whipped into a manic hysteria. The media on working on them 24/7 for months now. I was myself until I stood back and took stock of the situation. Paddy is going to sit on his hands adding extensions to the lockdown until some other country finds a solution. By then Irish society and the Irish economy will be utterly destroyed. The population is going to drastically fall because people will stop having sex. It’s the famine of the 21st century
There’s hardly anyone on here having sex these days. They are stuck in their house with someone the hate in 90% of the cases. Drinking and waffling on the Internet all day
How did the past generations survive at all, the great depression when there were no jobs, the emergency years when you had to barter for a few scoops of tea leaves, the 1980s when hundreds of thousands emigrated. It’s actually sad how so many of this younger generation have no sense of perspective.
The ‘lock it down ta fuck’ crew can’t answer those questions or consider any of that nuance. Deaths from respiratory disease in previous years that would have been preventable by these current measures don’t seem to matter for some reason. The current decision and debate isn’t economy v lives, it’s lives v lives.
You can see it from the hysterics of some posters here, with the “people are dying, you don’t care about killing old people” routine. Unable to process the complexities of the consequences of this lockdown and of societies previous reactions to death and disease. You also of course have a couple of the far left types only too happy to see the world economy destroyed in order to justify their crackpot outlook and ideas and maybe score some points on the internet. You know who they are.
A lot of it is based on a fundamental denial of mortality. I don’t think three’s anything more horrible to countenance than younger people keeping their very old and sick parents alive at all costs, simply because they can’t deal with the concept of death. Maybe not so common in Ireland, but it’s widespread here. The death they don’t want to face up to of course is their own. To avoid having to look at that, they will keep people in appalling circumstances and insist they have to be “saved”. Doctors have no choice unless there’s a living will, they literally have to use every technology available to keep people alive who’s quality of life is unimaginable.
It’s bad government. Jesus we weren’t expecting our health service to suddenly shine during this? It was 9 hours for an X-ray before Christmas, this testing was never going to be swift.
Lockdown is the easy way out for the government. Requires no thought or bravery and they know the “won’t somebody think of the children” crew will back them up.
Everyone has struggled with the testing though, except for the Germans who developed a test early and didn’t share it for a good while. It’s not a trivial test, you need good labs to run it, and nobody was prepared for the scale up necessary.
What’s your definition of "longer than necessary "
Unfortunately the situation in the U.K will probably have a very high influence on when we start to relax restrictions
There’s a few critical days ahead for Ireland. The model that most are following (which could be as wrong as any other model) claims Ireland is already past it’s peak, but also just increased the total deaths for this wave by 25%. At times I’m not sure is any of them have a clue.
It’s long past time to stop all flights and ferries, or quarantine anyone coming in from the UK. The lockdown has all been in vain if Ireland continues to allow potential super spreaders in.
It’s only a half assed lock down anyway. The only lock down that can stop this virus is what they did in China, a complete lock down, build dedicated hospitals for the sick, and anyone who tests positive but isn’t sick, board up the doors of their homes. Wouldn’t go down well in Ireland.