Coronavirus Part III - 9 cases across the Island - 503 errors abound!! *read OP*

SeaBreezes

Gynoid wrote: »

Maybe people, places, schedules etc are not been publicised for fear of mob mentality. Typhoid Mary style knicknames have already been encouraged in some media like "patient zero" or "super spreader". These people just randomly caught a virus and were asymptomatic for a while, so went about their lives, and then got symptoms. It could happen to anyone.

It could happen to a Pope...

Mr.Crinklewood

Fireball81 wrote: »

Interview with a Doctor from the Irish advisory group on Ireland AM now (Virgin Media One).

Cheers...

Quote from the doctor "we're dealing with it pretty well".

Ms2011

regedit wrote: »

As many are commenting, the prudent step for the Italian government is to shut all it's borders until COVID-19 subsides. It may even be to late but at least, they should try it. Both the NI and our patient seem to have arrived from Italy.
It's shocking that Ireland is sending students for skiing in Italy even though the virus has been around there for 2 weeks now! 1128 patients in Itally with symptoms of infection. The ones in incubation must be way higher!
It's a misconception that only Northern Italy is affected by the outbreak. Most regions have outbreaks now (including Sicily)

My niece is still scheduled to fly to Milian on March 16th as an exchange student and 19 Italian students are due here.

el Fenomeno

Tootsie_1 wrote: »

Where is this ?

Lidl in Greystones.

Flippyfloppy

citysights wrote: »

Why can’t they disclose the location in the East of the case.

I suppose this way the entire East of Ireland can be classed as an affected area. (as per hse guidelines on what action to take if you have symptoms)

Flippyfloppy

Mr.Crinklewood wrote: »

Cheers...

Quote from the doctor "we're dealing with it pretty well".

We're dealing with the one case we have so far pretty well. (however we're taking no action preventing it being spread around the country bwahaha)

charlietheminxx

Currently sitting in Aldi car park (mistakenly, thought they were open at 9 but they don’t open until 10) - the car park is almost full.

Tootsie_1

charlietheminxx wrote: »

Currently sitting in Aldi car park (mistakenly, thought they were open at 9 but they don’t open until 10) - the car park is almost full.

And it begins

Akrasia

charlietheminxx wrote: »

Currently sitting in Aldi car park (mistakenly, thought they were open at 9 but they don’t open until 10) - the car park is almost full.

You need to tell them they can’t buy alcohol until half 12 on a sunday

Fr_Dougal

Bob24 wrote: »

You are assuming that most people would insist in finding alternative routes and lie to border control officers when asked if they have been to that area recently.

That is not an assumption I share. I think given the situation most people would just accept that their trip has to be cancelled (because of a mix of being responsable, not willing to cheat the authorities, not wanting to go through additional cost for the new route, being concerned for their own health, and being concerned about further logistics issues complicating their journey). Of course some would refuse to comply, but that is a minority and greatly reducing the flow greatly reduces the additional infection vector.

I was thinking more about people returning home.

Would you be in favour of restricting both inward and outward travel to affected areas?

Mr.Crinklewood

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

We're dealing with the one case we have so far pretty well. (however we're taking no action preventing it being spread around the country bwahaha)

Just rewound....he did not say "dealing with the one case".

greenttc

There isn't a bottle of Dettol to be got anywhere..... its the new bread

megabomberman

The irish authorities have been handling this very sensibly in my view, best to wait for an avalanche of Covid-19 cases to start presenting themselves to A&Es and a full blown out of control crisis to develop before doing anything.

Meanwhile do minimal communication about hand-washing and reassurance that most people will be fine, do not communicate;

If we are increasing testing capacity, what is ours?
What we are doing to increase capacity in the ICUs
Notify the public that there will likely be closures of schools, public gatherings etc.

Utterly disgraceful shower

citysights

As someone said earlier maybe we are a filthy lot. Why don’t HSE organise an ad campaign on tv about the importance of hand washing and not coughing into the air or into your hands.Many people are just not aware of these things or have never given it a second though. An ad campaign would raise a lot of awareness not just for this virus but in general as well. Might also give the pen pushers something useful to do.

charlietheminxx

greenttc wrote: »

There isn't a bottle of Dettol to be got anywhere..... its the new bread

You can get zoflora in most shops, it’ll do the same job for cleaning and smells lovely. Can’t use it for first aid though!

the butcher

megabomberman wrote: »

The irish authorities have been handling this very sensibly in my view, best to wait for an avalanche of Covid-19 cases to start presenting themselves to A&Es and a full blown out of control crisis to develop before doing anything.

Meanwhile do minimal communication about hand-washing and reassurance that most people will be fine, do not communicate;

If we are increasing testing capacity, what is ours?
What we are doing to increase capacity in the ICUs
Notify the public that there will likely be closures of schools, public gatherings etc.

Utterly disgraceful shower

Ah they are doing their best, did you see the stand at dublin airport handing out leaflets?

Tootsie_1

greenttc wrote: »

There isn't a bottle of Dettol to be got anywhere..... its the new bread

I seen dettol bars of soap yesterday in my local pharmacy so some chance of getting those also liquid dettol hand soap in tescos loads of it

digitaldr

Edit: Probably should have made this thread shorter but sometimes soundbites just won't cut it

Apologies for the long post but I'm trying to be genuinely informative and if you're interested in some rational information I urge you to persevere until the end. All the information linked to is accessible to anyone who takes the time to look for it.

Most countries have a list of notifiable diseases. If someone is diagnosed with a notifiable disease there is statutory duty on the part of the treating doctor and lab to inform their local department of public health who will collect further information and enter it into a database - CIDR in the case of Ireland. Depending on the disease various public actions may follow such as contact tracing and/or liaison with environmental health in the case of food poisoning, legionnaires etc. Provision also exists to report unusual disease clusters which is obviously important for something like COVID-19.

Anonymised data is extracted from the database (CIDR) by the HPSC (Health Protection and Surveillance Centre) in order to keep an eye on trends and draw up protocols and guidelines based on best national and international practice. Surveillance also helps with allocation of resources, planning and risk communication.

All notifiable diseases have a case definition - i.e. a list of features - symptoms (what the patient says), signs (what the doctor finds on examination) and tests some or all of which must be present. The case definition also allows for classification of a case into probable, possible and confirmed categories. A case usually only moves into the confirmed category when the relevant lab test is positive. If the test is negative the case can be deactivated on the database.

Contact tracing is the process of identifying and managing all the people a case has had significant (in terms of risk of transmission) contact with. The degree and type of contact necessary to be classed as a contact varies according to the infectiousness and mode of transmission of the particular pathogen. Contact tracing often only starts when a case is confirmed by a lab test. A lot of suspected/possible cases end up having negative tests so it would usually be a waste of resources to do contact tracing for them. If the degree of suspicion is very high contact tracing may begin pending confirmation.

Unsurprisingly the best person to ask about their contacts is the case themselves! Since the people most at risk are household contacts, family, close friends etc the case is usually cooperative as they want to protect their loved ones. As far as possible their anonymity is preserved as they are in a stressful enough situation already and may actually clam up if they think everything is going to end up all over the media. Things can get a little tricky when it comes to workplaces. Usually their line manager has to be informed of their identity in order to check rosters, position of desks etc. In most circumstances this happens with the consent of the case but it doesn't have to as there is an exemption from GDPR if there is strong public health justification. If a case is being a bit economical with the truth/forgetful etc , the contacts they do identify often make this clear and help identify additional contacts. Again if necessary suspected contacts can be approached without the consent of the case but this is rarely necessary.


In addition the case can get back in touch with the investigator if additional contacts occur to them. . This is not uncommon as they're often quiet upset when the initial interview is conducted. As a safeguard the investigator will usually also do a follow up call with the case too.

Contact tracing usually works on a stone in the pond principal in that the closest contacts are dealt with first as they are at the highest risk. Depending on the disease there maybe a screening test available for contacts. If the closest contacts test negative it doesn't make sense to extend the screening further.

Now lets look at COVID-19.

The case definition used in Ireland is based on the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) one, list of regions with presumed transmission is here. I'm posting links and not the text as these are revised as more information becomes available. If someone meets the suspected case definition a test is arranged. If they are very ill immediate hospital transfer is arranged. If they have mild symptoms they can drive themselves (a previously exposed family member can also drive them) to the testing centre. If this is not the case an ambulance is arranged. If they are well enough after testing they can return home but must continue to self isolate until the result of the test is available. If the test is negative (which at the moment it will be in the vast majority of cases) self isolation can end but they need to continue to monitor for symptoms for 14 days post return from an area of concern. Current turn around time for test results is 12-24 hrs.

Broadly speaking, in the case of COVID-19, contacts are classed as close or casual with different actions for each. Full guidance is here.

Contact tracing happens all the time in Ireland and public health are well used to doing it. Legislation exists to support it and in fact it is an offence not to cooperate it with it!

Important to mention that there are frequent high level public health national and international teleconferences in order to keep up with the rapidly changing picture.

Unfortunately public health medicine (up to now at least!) has a very low profile in this country as it is primarily concerned with keeping people well so results are pretty much invisible to politicians and the media. Unfortunately this means it is under resourced in terms of staffing and infrastructure - in particular IT systems, which are critical considering that good information flow, processing and analysis are critical for a well functioning public health system. Sad to say other health professionals often view their public health colleagues as somewhat of an irritant when they contact them looking for information.

If you've taken the trouble to read this post and the relevant links (thanks!) you hopefully realise that releasing lots of info about specific cases to the public doesn't really help what is a tried and tested process and may in fact hinder it. Also please, please read the advice on hse.ie before thinking about calling your GP or helpline unless it's genuinely urgent.

greenttc

charlietheminxx wrote: »

You can get zoflora in most shops, it’ll do the same job for cleaning and smells lovely. Can’t use it for first aid though!

zoflora is the same, gone everywhere I looked! I use it all the time, found a last bottle of the horrible pink flowery one in supervalu and there is none left in stock rooms, all disinfectant stuff sold out completely supposedly!

Augme

The government reaction to this will be key. And I'm not holding out much hope.

This week is jobs week and the citizenship ceremony is in. I wonder if both will go ahead, I am assuming they will be I think they should be cancelled. The Patrick's festivals should be cancelled too now for definite.

It's important to cut down as large gatherings of people as much as possible.

Away With The Fairies

What happened to Italy for it to be classified as an affected region outside of Asia? I know it's the spread of the virus. But how did Italy have so much of the virus spreading?

Montage of Feck

They should have just payed the rugby behind closed doors and got it over with.

Ninthlife

Sunday....Mass day...thousands descend on the houses of God speead across the island each seeking solace in their faith and the company of their parish. They will pray for themselves, their family, friends and like good catholics their enemies.

Afterwards they will converse about sport or politics and current affairs.

And there in the shadows grinning with glee at each new host is Covid 19. Confused as to why they gather so close but delighted the same thinking.....not even God can help them now

DrumSteve

Ninthlife wrote: »

Sunday....Mass day...thousands descend on the houses of God speead across the island each seeking solace in their faith and the company of their parish. They will pray for themselves, their family, friends and like good catholics their enemies.

Afterwards they will converse about sport or politics and current affairs.

And there in the shadows grinning with glee at each new host is Covid 19. Confused as to why they gather so close but delighted the same thinking.....not even God can help them now

FFS.

loveall

Irish media is happy to report specific details of places of infection in other countries. A clear double standard. I have no doubt I'm not on the list for an ICU bed if I needed it.

rafatoni

charlietheminxx wrote: »

Currently sitting in Aldi car park (mistakenly, thought they were open at 9 but they don’t open until 10) - the car park is almost full.

I was in dunnes yesterday doing the big shop and it wasnt too busy at all, shelves rammed. Thought it was going to be a lot busier.

Bob24

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

I was thinking more about people returning home.

Would you be in favour of restricting both inward and outward travel to affected areas?

My personal view is: only allow Irish citizens and non-nationals with an Irish resident status to enter the country if they come from identified clusters, but either test them or give them a basic health check and ask them to self quarantine.

And clearly inform the population that the government recommends against traveling to those areas, and that at the very least the above is what will apply when they return if they decide to go anyway (with a possibility for the measures which apply when they return to get more stringent with no notice given depending on how the situation evolves). Then let them decide what they want to do (forcefully preventing people from going there is difficult to impossible, but with the above I believe most people would themselves decide not to go).

I think this would greatly reduce the entry vectors from these clusters.

Tootsie_1

Ninthlife wrote: »

Sunday....Mass day...thousands descend on the houses of God speead across the island each seeking solace in their faith and the company of their parish. They will pray for themselves, their family, friends and like good catholics their enemies.

Afterwards they will converse about sport or politics and current affairs.

And there in the shadows grinning with glee at each new host is Covid 19. Confused as to why they gather so close but delighted the same thinking.....not even God can help them now

A bit Theatrical .....

Rob A. Bank

I was surprised about just how many of these silly conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation we have already seen on the various boards.ie coronavirus threads.

Some seem to think it is 'great crack' to post this malicious bull$hit even though it 'makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it'.

Swamping social media with a tsunami of crap like this has consequences and those doing it should be called out.

Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak

Efforts to combat misinformation

On 2 February, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a "massive infodemic", citing an over-abundance of reported information, accurate and false, about the virus that "makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it."

The WHO stated that the high demand for timely and trustworthy information has incentivised the creation of a direct WHO 24/7 myth-busting hotline where its communication and social media teams have been monitoring and responding to misinformation through its website and social media pages.

Facebook, Twitter and Google said they were working with World Health Organization (WHO) to address "misinformation". In a blogpost, Facebook stated they would remove content flagged by leading global health organizations and local authorities that violate its content policy on misinformation leading to "physical harm".

At the end of February, Amazon banned over a million products that wrongly claimed to be able to cure or protect against coronavirus. They also removed tens of thousands of listings for overpriced health products.

grindle

Tootsie_1 wrote: »

A bit Theatrical .....

Imagining people still go to mass.