Coronavirus

Heighway61

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118386717#Comment_118386717

Took me two hours between 12.30 and 2.30am Monday night/Tuesday morning to get a booking for Wednesday evening for my mother. It's a flakey system, if you fail to get a booking, start over and you might have better luck. Might. Slots go very quickly.

Queues and traffic jams all day at the high road centre in Letterkenny.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118386717#Comment_118386717

I've heard that people are going to Derry to get a test.

NIMAN

Tests are in very short supply in the North, so that might be a wasted trip.

muffler

20k plus new cases announced today and a big rise in hospital admissions. Things are looking bleak.

Thanks, everyone. My daughter has a test for tomorrow afternoon. We started trying to register Tuesday morning. Midnight last night, 245/6 tests became available. They were snapped up. By the time she got her confirmation code, there was nothing available before tomorrow.

I'm feeling a bit off colour myself today, so, even though I have a negative antigen, and have had my booster, I'm self isolating anyway for another few days. Better safe than sorry...

Take care, everyone!

NIMAN

Despite the high numbers, I get the feeling the doom and gloom isn't taking over the country.

Heard a few experts in the last week reckon this virus is burning itself out. The relatively low numbers of ICU numbers point to this. Heard estimates of Spring time to Sept mentioned. It would be great if this year finally put paid to restrictions and the world went back to operating as it used to. Of course COVID is likely to still be a thing, and it may well continue to kill people, a bit like the flu. But if you are vaccinated then you should survive, unless you are very old and frail, or have serious underlying issues, but we can't keep locking down forever as these people will always be there.

90% of those in ICU are unvaccinated I believe. And so most of the deaths ate likely to be of unvaccinated too. That's their choice of course, but the vast majority who are vaccinated should be allowed to return to a normal life asap.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118405701#Comment_118405701

Everyone, not just the vaccinated, should be allowed to return to normal life ASAP.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118405747#Comment_118405747

Agreed. As @NIMAN says, the unvaccinated are putting themselves at risk which is their choice.

NIMAN

But it's the unvaccinated who will cause restrictions to continue going on.

Restrictions will exist while people are in hospital and icu, but if the vast majority of those are the unvaccinated, then it's unfair to continue locking down the 95% who are vaccinated.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118405775#Comment_118405775

I'm unvaccinated but recovered from covid. I'm not causing restrictions to continue going on.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118406369#Comment_118406369

Apologies, that was a group I hadn't considered.

I am talking about the real anti vaxxers who refuse to ever get vaccinated, many of whom believe ludicrous conspiracy theories. These are the majority making up hospital and ICU numbers, not unvaccinated who have had covid.

I am fully vaccinated. 3 of my children are vaccinated. The others are not. All of them, except 1, has had covid. The daughter who has not had covid is vaccinated. My husband has been advised against vaccination. He refused vaccination until he was advised against it - and it turns out he was right. We've been pretty much in hiding since covid began, because of his health issues.

Because of covid, his hospital appointments were cancelled, gp advised vaccination - hospital consultant, when we eventually managed to see him, advised strongly against it.

Point being, it's not always black and white. People who are young and healthy, who choose to take the risk, have a right to do so.

I'm in favour of vaccination. But, realistically speaking, given the high vaccination rate achieved, the issue now is no longer vaccinated v unvaccinated - it's lack of hospital beds.

Frankly, it's ridiculous, at this point, to lock the whole Country down, and blame the unvaccinated - many of whom have already had covid, anyway. I will be restricting my movements for a long time to come. Anyone else in the same position will almost undoubtedly do the same.

It's long past time the health crises in this Country was dealt with, imo.

Blaming the unvaccinated is just a handy excuse for running our hospitals into the ground, tbh.

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418231#Comment_118418231

How much extra are we willing to pay for additional hospital capacity which would be underutilised for most of the time?

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418362#Comment_118418362

Hospitals are under pressure every winter.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418362#Comment_118418362

Underutilised? Would you like to provide proof of that assertion?

Particularly since I did not propose a particular number of extra beds or services... yet, you baldly state an unknown quantity of extra beds would be "underutilised".

Have you so little faith in our doctors, nurses, and hospital management staff that you think they're incapable of assessing how many beds they actually need? Or is it that the rest of Europe have too many "underutilised" beds, in your opinion?

Bear in mind, we have had ectremely long waiting lists for years. We have had bed shortages for years - long before covid.

And how much has the lack of hospital capacity cost us in economic terms due to lockdowns?

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418389#Comment_118418389

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418429#Comment_118418429

We are trying to deal with a once in a lifetime, once in two lifetimes event even. If we add enough hospital capacity to comfortably cope with this we will have plenty of spare capacity when the pandemic is over.

That capacity (buildings, equipment, medical staff, support staff, ...) can't just be turned on and off like a tap. It's a long term investment.

The more we let CoViD rip, the more we would have to scale up hospital capacity and the more excess capacity / lower utilisation we would have after the pandemic.

For a while we could use this to clear treatments which were deterred due to the pandemic and to reduce historical waiting lists but this capacity is semi-permanent and there would come a time when we work our way through waiting lists and utilisation would drop.

Our utilisation might usually be too high for comfort but scaling our capacity semi-permanently to cope with CoViD would bring our utilisation below international norms post pandemic.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418693#Comment_118418693

We have one of the lowest ICU beds per capita in Europe. Waiting lists are huge. We need to upscale.

FishOnABike

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419095#Comment_118419095

I agree. In normal times our utilisation levels are worryingly high in comparison to our peers. We need to improve but not to the extent that we have normal utilisation levels during a pandemic and are left with inefficiently underutilised hospitals when the pandemic is over.

It's pretty difficult to grow our hospital capacity when there is a worldwide shortage of medical staff. It has been more like shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic but where we have increased capacity we need to hold onto it.

Post pandemic we need to look at improving capacity to meet the increasing healthcare needs of an aging population. It's medium to long term in terms of lead time but it's something we need to keep an eye on once the current crisis is over.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418693#Comment_118418693

At what point did I suggest that it was even possible to increase capacity to a level that would comfortably support covid?

Let's get back on track. I said we need to increase capacity. That's a fact.

It is also a fact that that capacity levels have had an impact on lockdown levels.

Accordingly - blaming lockdown solely on the unvaccinated is political spin.

It is also untrue to blame lack of staff.

73,000 healthcare staff answered the HSE call when Covid reached our shores.

Painfully few of them were hired.

It is fair to say that buildings and equipment were an issue in the short term.

One year, and nine months later? Not so much.

Therefore, there has been, at best, an overreliance on lockdown, as opposed to costing rental/leasing of buildings and equipment vs. the cost to the economy - and the unvaccinated are the scapegoats in the spin machine!

Meanwhile, we know Omicron has mutated to incorporate some of the characteristics of the common cold. We know children all around the Country get colds in September every year, on returning to school,and that those children have parents and extended families - but only the unvaccinated are a problem?

Presumably those children are immune to covid when they enter the school gates, and the vaccinated neither develop, nor transmit omicron?

We know they do. We know the unvaccinated have a higher incidence of hospitilisation. But our vaccination levels are very high. Some of the unvaccinated have medical conditions that prevent vaccination. Others have already had Covid. But the remaining low percentage are the sole cause of hospitals being unable to cope?

Does. Not. Compute.

Ergo, it's spin...

malinheader

How much are people paying for the antigen test kits.

A supermarket was selling them for 2.99. But we're sold out. Chemist last week was €65 for 20 tests so 3.25. I had to pay €45 euros today for 10 so it's 4.50.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422947#Comment_118422947

OH applied for some from the HSE yesterday and they arrived today.

malinheader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118423464#Comment_118423464

Thanks. Must look at that.

Someone also said they were being given out for free in shops in northern Ireland.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118423525#Comment_118423525

Ordinary shops? I'd say chemists for a while but then they had supply issues I think. Still struggling, made the BBC NI news tonight, about how their daily deliveries are gone in an hour or two.

I'd try HSE website.

malinheader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118423573#Comment_118423573

Will do Thanks.

DrPhilG

Lot of chemists in Derry are low on or out of stock. You have to give name and address info for the person needing the test, including postcode as far as I remember.

muffler

One particular brand of the antigen testing kit is being recalled according to the RTE news last night.

byte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118425220#Comment_118425220

Yeah, that's the Genrui branded ones: https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2022/0105/1269898-antigen-test/

In Donegal Town, I saw some shops advertised getting in stocks of single packs of Flowflex antigen tests: Supervalu, Donegal Service Station Plaza and Kee's of Laghey also.

Of course, God knows how long they'll be in stock for.

RandomViewer

Healthwise had antigen tests yesterday,

muffler

Its been a while since this thread was updated in any way.

I was looking at some stats today and i see the number in hospital (nationally) with Covid has risen from 191 two weeks ago to 459 today. The positivity rate in the same period has also risen from 14.0% to 26.1%. Looks like we are seeing the start of another wave.

I was talking to someone last week who said they had a friend working in LUH and it seems they are preparing for another wave in July.

DrPhilG

Hmm, haven't heard a peep about another wave in work (Altnagelvin).