Relaxation of restrictions

seamus

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Iceland shouldn't be compared to the rest of Europe because they tested a third of the entire population

Which is precisely why Iceland provides an excellent metric against which to compare the rest of Europe. Because it tested indiscriminately, effectively eliminating selection bias from the results.

Selection bias will provide an artificially low - and therefore worthless - cases/million value. And virtually all countries are engaging in selection bias right now, because this is not a scientific study.

We don't know the final numbers on Covid-19. We don't know what to expect in terms of how many it can infect if left to run its course, we don't know how easily it spreads from person to person in a typical scenario.

We have no idea what cases/million number is the "right" one.

Thus, as a metric it's a useful note, but cannot really be used to derive any meaningul data in terms of the effectiveness of public health measures.

That's why nobody is talking about cases per million. That's why the R0 value and the day-to-day percentages are all anyone is talking about. Because they're the only way to track whether we're having an impact.

When we get past this and there's more widespread testing carried out and hundreds of thsouands of studies done over the next two decades, we will find out what cases/million should actually mean in the context of coronavirus. But right now, we don't have that. If our new cases rate is not growing, and our death rate is dropping, then we're going the right direction. At this point cases/million merely indicates that we're doing a better and better job of capturing infections.

You don't have to look far to find out why cases/million is not a useful metric. The UK has half the cases/million that we do, and twice the deaths/million that we do.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

seamus wrote: »

Which is precisely why Iceland provides an excellent metric against which to compare the rest of Europe. Because it tested indiscriminately, effectively eliminating selection bias from the results.

Selection bias will provide an artificially low - and therefore worthless - cases/million value. And virtually all countries are engaging in selection bias right now, because this is not a scientific study.

We don't know the final numbers on Covid-19. We don't know what to expect in terms of how many it can infect if left to run its course, we don't know how easily it spreads from person to person in a typical scenario.

We have no idea what cases/million number is the "right" one.

Thus, as a metric it's a useful note, but cannot really be used to derive any meaningul data in terms of the effectiveness of public health measures.

That's why nobody is talking about cases per million. That's why the R0 value and the day-to-day percentages are all anyone is talking about. Because they're the only way to track whether we're having an impact.

When we get past this and there's more widespread testing carried out and hundreds of thsouands of studies done over the next two decades, we will find out what cases/million should actually mean in the context of coronavirus. But right now, we don't have that. If our new cases rate is not growing, and our death rate is dropping, then we're going the right direction. At this point cases/million merely indicates that we're doing a better and better job of capturing infections.

You don't have to look far to find out why cases/million is not a useful metric. The UK has half the cases/million that we do, and twice the deaths/million that we do.

Cases per million is a way to check who well a country's measures are working; deaths per million is only an indicator of how well a country's health system is coping with the caseload it's got.

Strumms

Del Griffith wrote: »

And what, savagely beat them with batons for giving a hug? Is this what it's come to?

No, not to savagely beat them, :rolleyes: but issue a nice sizable fine would be a nice deterrent and a ways to focus attention and remind the needy that the needs of the overall wellbeing of the state and its people come first ahead of the needs and wants of needy individuals who without a thought will gleefully disregard social distancing and the health and wellbeing of the nation.

stephenjmcd

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It’s not long term. The €350 is an emergency payment for up to 12 weeks.

Yes I know that, the thing is what happens after 12 weeks

yourdeadwright

Irish Aris wrote: »

I think the whole pub situation will need a different approach, similar to what we do in the continent, as many other posters have said.

I'll give an example from my home country, Greece. When you go out in a pub (and in some-not many bars as well), the norm would be that you sit down on a table. The tables wouldn't always be 2 meters apart from each other but I guess this can be managed. In Greece, the concept of a pub would normally involve food. If you want to go out just drinking, you go to a bar. So I reckon there is some room to reconsider things here in Ireland. I would agree that profits wouldn't be guaranteed, so pub owners would have to consider it on a case by case basis.

The ones I consider even worse are nightclubs (like the ones in Dublin Harcourt street with the long queues). I'd say they are even lower than pubs in the reopening list. In general the whole clubbing scene could suffer a lot.

Anyway, not that it matters to me personally. Even if the pubs were to re-open anytime soon, it is the least of my priorities. There are things that I miss more than going for a drink.

Its like that in Canada,
You will see a Que outside pubs and its because you are not allowed in if you are not seated ,So people que for tables and seat to come availably,

I don't think that will or ever should happen here , lets not loose the things we love over this , lets just make sure we go wait until its safe again and that coming form someone who is a pub once or twice a year,

Akabusi

Murple wrote: »

Kids with an underlying condition? That would include all children with asthma, roughly 1 in 10 children.
Consider a girl's primary school with children from 150 households. That wouldn't be a huge school by any means. Let's say each household is on average 4 people. That's 600 people. And let's imagine there's 50 of those 600 are secondary pupils in other schools and mixing with people from another 250 households. And 100 are boys going to a boys primary school and mixing with boys from an additional 150 households. And we better add in the school staff from each of these schools now connected to the original single school- principals, class teachers, LS teachers, SNA, secretary, caretaker etc. and their households. That's an awful lot of people who could be exposed and that's with the presumption that every household is keeping to itself. Add in those where people are mixing with others through work or shopping. A percentage of even healthy people have been badly affected and have required hospitalisation.
But sure what harm would opening schools do?!

I'm not sure of the adverse effects it has on kids with asthma? In Europe I think the youngest person to have died was 12 although i don't recall what condition they had if any. I may be wrong but I'm not hearing of kids ending up in ICU (I hope i'm not wrong). Maybe just open the primary schools, if we take it that it doesn't affect pre-teen kids too severely. I had the virus btw and as did my 6 year old, he had worse symptoms than i had but nothing that required a doctor or hospitalisation thankfully.
Yes the numbers of people mixing will be big but it has to happen at some point and if all these people are young and healthy it will have very little affect on them. There is already a relaxation in other countries for construction and industry and I have the feeling this will be coming here two on the 5th May, that IMO is no different to the schools opening.

facehugger99

stephenjmcd wrote: »

584,000 now on the govs €350 a week on top of the 212,000 that were already on the live register.
796,000 totally reliant on the state for income.

This simply put cant go on much longer, theres not a chance the state can afford that long term

A virus that is going to end up with a fatality rate of less than 0.4%, concentrated among the very, very old and very, very sick.

There will be a serious inquiry into the over-reactive response to this in the coming years.

Lackey

drunkmonkey wrote: »

I don't know how your going to get kids back, my 5yr old is here refusing to go for a walk up the mountain because the virus is outside in the air. All air is bad now according to him.

No 5 year old should be thinking like this
Turn off the tv and stop talking about it in front of them.

Mic 1972

seamus wrote: »

Which is precisely why Iceland provides an excellent metric against which to compare the rest of Europe. Because it tested indiscriminately, effectively eliminating selection bias from the results.

Selection bias will provide an artificially low - and therefore worthless - cases/million value. And virtually all countries are engaging in selection bias right now, because this is not a scientific study.

We don't know the final numbers on Covid-19. We don't know what to expect in terms of how many it can infect if left to run its course, we don't know how easily it spreads from person to person in a typical scenario.

We have no idea what cases/million number is the "right" one.

Thus, as a metric it's a useful note, but cannot really be used to derive any meaningul data in terms of the effectiveness of public health measures.

That's why nobody is talking about cases per million. That's why the R0 value and the day-to-day percentages are all anyone is talking about. Because they're the only way to track whether we're having an impact.

When we get past this and there's more widespread testing carried out and hundreds of thsouands of studies done over the next two decades, we will find out what cases/million should actually mean in the context of coronavirus. But right now, we don't have that. If our new cases rate is not growing, and our death rate is dropping, then we're going the right direction. At this point cases/million merely indicates that we're doing a better and better job of capturing infections.

You don't have to look far to find out why cases/million is not a useful metric. The UK has half the cases/million that we do, and twice the deaths/million that we do.

I would disagree with that

Iceland represents an excellent case study, due to the peculiarities we both highlighted. But it's hardly comparable to the rest of the other countries for the same reasons.

Cases per million is an excellent metrics for comparison when the test rate is in a similar range, which is why UK shouldn't be compared to Ireland since they have tested little compared to us. Our testing rate ranks among the likes of Italy/Germany/Denmark/Portugal, we should compare our daily increases per million and total cases per million to these countries

Strumms

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't really see the major problem with pubs when compared to schools, workplaces, and public transport.

Why are they so much worse?

People when under the influence of alcohol suffer from impaired decision making. That we don’t need at a time like this.

Social distancing would be near impossible and a surefire way to ensure spreading.

Anyone been to the Mater A&E on a Saturday night will see that many of the attendees are there all or in part due to alcohol, drugs or a combination thereof.

We cannot afford to put that kind of pressure on the health system or the country.

Mic 1972

Akabusi wrote: »

I'm not sure of the adverse effects it has on kids with asthma? In Europe I think the youngest person to have died was 12 although i don't recall what condition they had if any. I may be wrong but I'm not hearing of kids ending up in ICU (I hope i'm not wrong). Maybe just open the primary schools, if we take it that it doesn't affect pre-teen kids too severely. I had the virus btw and as did my 6 year old, he had worse symptoms than i had but nothing that required a doctor or hospitalisation thankfully.
Yes the numbers of people mixing will be big but it has to happen at some point and if all these people are young and healthy it will have very little affect on them. There is already a relaxation in other countries for construction and industry and I have the feeling this will be coming here two on the 5th May, that IMO is no different to the schools opening.

closing schools isn't meant to protect kids only. It's meant to protect everyone
If kids infect one another in school they will infect anybody else who is around them at home

Mic 1972

Strumms wrote: »

People when under the influence of alcohol suffer from impaired decision making. That we don’t need at a time like this.

Social distancing would be near impossible and a surefire way to ensure spreading.

Anyone been to the Mater A&E on a Saturday night will see that many of the attendees are there all or in part due to alcohol, drugs or a combination thereof.

We cannot afford to put that kind of pressure on the health system or the country.

Social distancing is also impossible in schools. Pubs/Restaurants/Schools are all risky in the same way

seamus

stephenjmcd wrote: »

This simply put cant go on much longer, theres not a chance the state can afford that long term

The ECB will look after it. The US treasury and the ECB are going to be printing money just like countries do in wartime.

Many countries are looking at taking this opportunity to move from the emergency payment model to universal basic income.

This can go on long-term, and probably will.

JRant wrote: »

I disagree Seamus. I'm more on the side of easing restrictions, in a controlled manner, while at the same time will be doing everything possible to limit exposure because I have very vulnerable people to look after also.

Indeed, I don't disagree with any of your post. I was talking about the kind of people who think there should be a public health advisory, but people should be allowed to make their own choices about whether or not they go out, whether or not they open their businesses, etc.

Ultimately the main falling point here is "supporting my family". I absolutely appreciate that many people will risk catching the virus in order to do so. I would too.

As a species we're at a point where there's no actual need for anyone to go hungry. "I need to get out to work to support my family" doesn't need to exist any more.

And if there are some people in that situation, even after the Covid payments, the government should be stepping in to help them.

Nobody should be trying to get out to do non-essential work out of economic necessity. Everyone wants to work, but if it's non-essential then it needs to be balanced against the public interest.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Cases per million is a way to check who well a country's measures are working

But only if you know what the rate should be.

A country doing no tests, has zero cases per million. A country testing a third of the population has 4,000 cases per million. A country testing everyone but not actually imposing any restrictions, could have 8,000 cases per million.

In conjunction with other figures, it has some value. On its own, it's basically worthless because we don't have any frame of reference. We know that any new flu strain, for example, will produce around 80,000 cases per million on a typical year. And thus, we could determine the effectiveness of vaccinations or other measures against that 80k figure.
We don't know what the "typical" rate is for covid, and therefore on its own cases/million is meaningless.

Mic 1972

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Social distancing is also impossible in schools. Pubs/Restaurants/Schools are all risky in the same way

Neither of them will be open anytime soon I reckon.

Strumms

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Social distancing is also impossible in schools. Pubs/Restaurants/Schools are all risky in the same way

Yep, and all closed the same way.

Cyrus

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Social distancing is also impossible in schools. Pubs/Restaurants/Schools are all risky in the same way

so what, abandon education?

pjohnson

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Social distancing is also impossible in schools. Pubs/Restaurants/Schools are all risky in the same way

Tbf I'd trust kids to follow rules somewhat better than drunks.

normanoffside

With the talk of Iceland and schools reopening, it should be noted that Iceland never closed it's primary schools

That doesn't seem to have had any affect on the spread of the virus at all.
They have had very few new cases and no new deaths for several weeks now.

Cyrus

normanoffside wrote: »

With the talk of Iceland and schools reopening, it should be noted that Iceland never closed it's primary schools

That doesn't seem to have had any affect on the spread of the virus at all.
They have had very few new cases and no new deaths for several weeks now.

but but but killer children spread the deadly disease so you must be making that up, they are also the deadliest carriers, whatever that means.

I imagine they'll have to sort something for next school year but May and June are unlikely to see kids back at school unfortunately.

They'll presumably have to implement social distancing for desks anyway, so all kids at school 5 days/week will be somewhat of a challenge.

Nermal

seamus wrote: »

The ECB will look after it. The US treasury and the ECB are going to be printing money just like countries do in wartime.

Many countries are looking at taking this opportunity to move from the emergency payment model to universal basic income.

This can go on long-term, and probably will.

Printing money cannot replace lost output. Our policies are making us materially poorer, very quickly. There's no way to avoid that without changing the policy. Of course it can go on, but should it?

seamus wrote: »

As a species we're at a point where there's no actual need for anyone to go hungry.

I have ambitions in life beyond merely avoiding hunger!

normanoffside

Cyrus wrote: »

but but but killer children spread the deadly disease so you must be making that up, they are also the deadliest carriers, whatever that means.

Yep, there is no evidence Children are super spreaders, in fact they might not catch it at all.

tobefrank321

Dickie10 wrote: »

well Harris came out and said it thepubs are dead RIP, long live the cafe/coffee shop were all Europeans now anyway i suppose, the pub culture was our last link to Britain so thank God we wont have anymore boozed up Britain stuff in irish towns on friday/saturday nights. No pubs open til at least early 2021. lets now draw a line under this talk of pubs opening, not happening til this time next year.

What done for the pubs was the idiots queuing up in Temple Bar and a couple of lock ins elsewhere.

It only take a small number of people to ruin it for everyone. Same happened with those flocking to Glendalough. They had to bring in the 2km restriction because of stuff like that.

If pubs limited numbers, they'd be low risk. if they took the usual precautions around social distancing and encouraged those with symptoms to stay away.

I see schools as higher risk, 6 or 7 hours a day in close contact, staff rooms, parents gathering and so on.

tobefrank321

normanoffside wrote: »

Yep, there is no evidence Children are super spreaders, in fact they might not catch it at all.

They definitely do catch it. There's been a number of cases here, in the UK and elsewhere. Its likely many are asymptomatic though.

Strumms

Mic 1972 wrote: »

Social distancing is also impossible in schools. Pubs/Restaurants/Schools are all risky in the same way

Nermal wrote: »

Printing money cannot replace lost output. Our policies are making us materially poorer, very quickly. There's no way to avoid that without changing the policy. Of course it can go on, but should it?



I have ambitions in life beyond merely avoiding hunger!

I’m accepting that emptier bank accounts are in preference to much fuller graveyards.

Ferris_Bueller

I think come the 5th of May they will have to relax some restirctions as otherwise you are going to see a lot of people breaking them and a lot of anger between those who are still following them and those who are breaking them. I'm sure there are people who aren't following them currently, but by and large I think most people are doing a good job of staying at home. In another two weeks though I can see the average persons acceptance really dropping and people doing things like going for walks with friends, having family over and that kind of thing.

The government and HSE probably know this, so I reckon they will lift some restrictions on the 5th possibly such as abolish or extend the 2km distance thing, open some smaller stores like DIY shops, allow some people to return to work such as construction workers. If this goes reasonably well then I could see more shops opening a week or two later, restaurants/takeaways that aren't already open offering deliveries and collections, possibly some other sectors back to work.

Then around this time or two weeks later again they will probably have to say that small gatherings are allowed of up to 5 or 10 people or something. They will have to do this before they re-open restaurants, schools and pubs to ease it back in otherwise there is the risk of a huge surge when the schools open up for example. Slowly lifting the restrictions, monitoring them closely and allowing two weeks before lifting more seems like the sensible way to do it.

Mic 1972

Strumms wrote: »

I’m accepting that emptier bank accounts are in preference to much fuller graveyards.

I never thought that was even a question to be honest, what are you going to do with all your money when you are in the grave too

showpony1

If they remove the 2km in may - the canal by the barge and most parks probably will be full of people with "cans".

Would like if they give indication over gyms opening to know if worth getting expensive equipment, as would do so if looking at 2021 can only do so many of those "online workouts".

tobefrank321

facehugger99 wrote: »

A virus that is going to end up with a fatality rate of less than 0.4%, concentrated among the very, very old and very, very sick.

There will be a serious inquiry into the over-reactive response to this in the coming years.

That's nonsense.

It doesn't kill the very very sick - it can kill those who can function fine but with underlying conditions such as being over weight, with diabetes, hyper tension, weak heart, etc. All these combined could make up 20% of the non elderly population.

Even if we lifted restrictions, about 40% of the population would have to remain cocooned. There might be an argument for letting it run its course among the healthy, but you'd still have to isolate the other 40% first.

The government should draw up a list of the most financially productive yet least risky areas to re-open. Most shops would fall into this category provided precautions are taken.

It should still be a criminal offence to go out shopping if you are knowingly positive or suspect you have symptoms.

Akabusi

Mic 1972 wrote: »

closing schools isn't meant to protect kids only. It's meant to protect everyone
If kids infect one another in school they will infect anybody else who is around them at home

Yes that is the goal, infect the people who can fight it, protect the people who cannot and learn to live with this virus.

Not really any different to opening up industry or construction. We cannot have these restriction in place indefinitely.