I donât recall McConkey âupendingâ anything. He doesnât make policy. The people that âupended everythingâ would be the people who told us it was fine to open the pubs last summer and told us we could have a âmeaningful Christmasâ. Without any plan at all to keep Covid down. Wouldnât it?
What weâre living through now is the aftermath of those decisions. Isnât it?
Iâm telling teacher. Sidâs back.
Ioannidis was all over US television networks playing down the seriousness of the pandemic and was always anti-restrictions. His public utterings show that he believed his 10,000 deaths prediction.
Iâll agree with you there, opening up places of worship was an awful decision. Absolute death traps.
Did you go up north to rejoin the site or what? Iâd say itâs not coincidence that youâve finally managed to rejoin the week the 5km was lifted. You had to travel to change the ISP address.
There you go Iâve told on you
Weâd be in lockdown now whether we had a meaningful Christmas or not
Did opening pubs last summer cause a lot of issues? I canât remember many cases being traced back to them.
Did the places that took fewer restrictions fare much worse? I assume they did
No, Fagan. Iâm about as much of a relation to Tom as the horse Grimes was to Phil. Tom was one of my late fatherâs favourite hurlers and he often waxed lyrical, or not so lyrical as the case may be, about the great Waterford team of 1959 and being at the two finals that year, at least before Covid took him prematurely. It was a delight to sit down with him and watch the highlights of those finals and indeed all the other finals of the time on the IFI Player last autumn, and to watch the current Waterford team march to the All-Ireland final.
You are very welcome on board
Sorry to hear about your dad passing on.
That plus everything else. We had four cases last July 1st. This pandemic can be divided into two camps. Countries who made the decision to eliminate Covid and countries who made the decision to live with it. Those who fall into the former camp are thriving. Those who fall into the latter camp as we did, continue to suffer the consequences. Everything else is noise.
He didnât make a 10,000 death prediction. If you read the paper I posted for you he predicted an IFR of 0.25% which was perfectly reasonable at the time. There are many areas of the world that are much lower than that, over a year into this.
Ferguson predicted 500k deaths in the UK and 2.2 million deaths in the US within 3 months. Which was insane, given that respiratory pandemics never evolve like that, as people take measures themselves to protect themselves. Which is exactly what happened, the infection rate was already dropping before government mandated shutdowns started to take effect. Same with the January wave, people relaxed in December and then copped themselves on again in January.
My sincere condolences on your dad.
My condolences on the death of your father.
The US version of Sunetra Gupta. Another hero of the mentallers on here. Sheâs been quite silent lately. Pity her supporters wouldnât do the same.
Sorry for your loss.
The correct approach is very complicated question. Itâs not an answerable one which youâll see from the constant repeated debates that can be easily re read on here. Better off sitting back and laughing at the hard core sides rather than wasting energy, itâll only piss you off.
Do you still think Ireland should have copied New Zealand?
Ferguson gave a 510k death figure based on absolute worst case scenario with no restrictions and behaviour modification. The UKâs real figures, 127k deaths within a 28 day cut off, probably north of 150k for all Covid deaths, achieved with lockdowns and widespread behaviour modification by the population of the UK, social distancing, masks and all the rest, are a good indicator that Ferguson was reasonably on the ball with that particular model. @flattythehurdler gave a scathing assessment of Fergusonâs character, and who knows, that may all be true, he blotted his copybook with his personal behaviour - but thatâs entirely irrelevant to my point about his figures.
Ioannidis has been widely called out by those close to him in a work setting for the irresponsibility of his utterings. Harvardâs Marc Lipsitch took him apart form the get go and Lipsitch has been one of the most responsible and accurate voices within US medicine/academia right from the start.
It was my pleasure to give that like no 10
127k deaths spread over 13 months. My point is he was wrong because people adjust their behavior as itâs human nature to avoid threats. I agree with you that the only way to minimize deaths was zero Covid from the beginning, my argument is with many of the mandated restrictions once that was not done. The burden fell completely unequally and unfairly, and the long term damage is yet to be felt, both medically and economically. The evidence from Sweden and elsewhere is that sensible measures worked just as well as more draconian lockdowns.
His behavior isnât irrelevant, itâs quite important for those that are giving the advice to follow the advice. How could you possibly convince young people for example to not socialize if you are out visiting your mistress across London? Very few people would know who John Ioannidis is or his research, but everyone heard of Dr Fergusonâs dalliances.
Anyway the private sector has saved the day hopefully, so letâs be thankful for that.