has covid 19 been blown out of all proportion?

CinemaGuy45

First off I have followed all the restrictions and I am also and essential worker.

Nearly 1'000 people dead that is very sad and the situation in elderly and care homes is very bad not saying otherwise the very people who needed to be protected don't seem to have benefited from this lockdown.

I am still working away so I have my wages so this crisis has not cost me anything so I have not started this thread for selfish reasons I also have elderly folks so I do worry about them.


However under 1'000 dead we got warnings of upwards of 100'000 dead I think it is pretty safe to say that number now looks way over the top.


This lockdown has wreaked the economy and did we need to close schools?

At the start of all this I was going for people who said this only hits the old as every life counts.

Knowing what we know not MY OPINION is we should have totally locked down the care homes staff should have been isolated with the residents.

As for the rest of us the virus should have just been let run it's course.

The one group we said this was for have been totally let down.

This is a discussion forum I have offered my opinion and asked others to share their please do not attack me if you do not agree.:)

Edit remember this?

cian68

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

However under 1'000 dead we got warnings of upwards of 100'000 dead I think it is pretty safe to say that number now looks way over the top.

That is precisely BECAUSE of the precautions taken

If a quarter of stories what come out of italy are true,then lockdown was worth it


They have a vastly superior health service to us,and it collasped under strain of this virus

sullivlo

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

First off I have followed all the restrictions and I am also and essential worker.

Nearly 1'000 people dead that is very sad and the situation in elderly and care homes is very bad not saying otherwise the very people who needed to be protected don't seem to have benefited from this lockdown.

I am still working away so I have my wages so this crisis has not cost me anything so I have not started this thread for selfish reasons I also have elderly folks so I do worry about them.


However under 1'000 dead we got warnings of upwards of 100'000 dead I think it is pretty safe to say that number now looks way over the top.


This lockdown has wreaked the economy and did we need to close schools?

At the start of all this I was going for people who said this only hits the old as every life counts.

Knowing what we know not MY OPINION is we should have totally locked down the care homes staff should have been isolated with the residents.

As for the rest of us the virus should have just been let run it's course.

The one group we said this was for have been totally let down.

This is a discussion forum I have offered my opinion and asked others to share their please do not attack me if you do not agree.:)

Define “essential” worker.

CinemaGuy45

cian68 wrote: »

That is precisely BECAUSE of the precautions taken

So it's 100 times less because of the lockdown?

Sweden seems to be getting along ok without the lockdown.

CinemaGuy45

sullivlo wrote: »

Define “essential” worker.

Supplying food for your dinner table.

sullivlo

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

Supplying food for your dinner table.

Do you have any significant contact with the general public?

HeidiHeidi

cian68 wrote: »

That is precisely BECAUSE of the precautions taken

How many times does this need to be stated???


Re Sweden, I've come to the conclusion that comparison with other countries is largely meaningless due to the wildly different manners of collecting and reporting numbers. And that's before differences in population distribution, state of health services, age profile of the population, etc etc.

CinemaGuy45

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

As for the rest of us the virus should have just been let run it's course.

Prevention is better than cure, especially as there isn't a vaccine available yet.

CinemaGuy45

sullivlo wrote: »

Do you have any significant contact with the general public?

Just other workers a few of them have had the virus and are now back at work.

Cockadoodledoo

It’s fine to say staff should have been isolated with the elderly in the care homes but those staff have families to go home to as well. When would they ever get to leave?

It’s not healthy for someone to be at work long term especially in these worrying and challenging conditions.

Even if there was a lockdown, I could carry the virus and not know so it will get in anyway.

A lockdown in a nursing home isn’t the solution.

Balf

Would we handle Covid 20 like this?

I doubt it, if there's any sense in the world.

eviltwin

I attended the funeral today of a family member who died from Covid. I have another family member ill with it who may not recover. Both otherwise in good health if the wrong side of 60. I don't believe this has been overestimated. Observe social distancing, wash your hands and protect yourself and others

CinemaGuy45

Cockadoodledoo wrote: »

It’s fine to say staff should have been isolated with the elderly in the care homes but those staff have families to go home to as well. When would they ever get to leave?

It’s not healthy for someone to be at work long term especially in these worrying and challenging conditions.

Even if there was a lockdown, I could carry the virus and not know so it will get in anyway.

A lockdown isn’t the solution.

I am openly asking questions we are allowed to do that still.

Children do not seem to really get hit by this thing but the schools are closed to stop the spread and protect the elderly?

The elderly in the care homes are being hit hard by this thing the very group this was suppose to protect.

PhilOssophy

Best laugh of the day was Alan Kelly, yes Mr. Irish Water, a rail line costing €600 per passenger in subvention and diddly squat else, telling Leo Vradkar, a trained doctor, that he thought the NPHET were calling the shots.

“Ultimate decision making cannot be in the hands of a few and elected office cannot be subservient even in this crisis.”

Eh yes they are Alan, and rightly so. This thing has killed 2.6m people and you want a bunch of teachers in charge? Dr. Tony Holohan and his team, as well as the entire health service have done a great job to date, thankfully they making the decisions with the health of our nation at risk, not some idiot from Tipp who has made a career out of being a politician.

sullivlo

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

Just other workers a few of them have had the virus and are now back at work.

Good stuff.

I am a teacher. In any one day I would have close contact with over 120 students (30 in the room for 40 minutes) and contact with other staff. Even before the lockdown I was in contact with a close contact of patient zero. I was ****ting a brick because I am also a carer for an elderly, vulnerable relative. Within our school community we have had 4 deaths of close family relatives of staff/students. We aren’t a big school.

This is a very infectious disease. Just because you are in a position to not need the lockdown, thousands of people aren’t.

CinemaGuy45

eviltwin wrote: »

I attended the funeral today of a family member who died from Covid. I have another family member ill with it who may not recover. Both otherwise in good health if the wrong side of 60. I don't believe this has been overestimated. Observe social distancing, wash your hands and protect yourself and others

I am sorry for your loss and I hope your family member makes a full recovery most people do.

I have been keeping my distance from everybody and washing my hards using sanitiser and not touching my face.

In work all of us take our breaks on our own.

I also knew a person who had died with this virus however he had many other health problems.

endainoz

I'm gong to go out on a limb here and say OP is a farmer, who is giving the rest of us a bad name with horrendous grammar.

Your opinion is noted but I disagree with it, this has not been blown out of proportion. We took precautions and we are now seeing the results of it.

As farmers we are lucky to be allowed to continue to work relatively unaffected, others are not so lucky.

It all really depends on what people this is more important, the economy or the lives of vunerable people? America is currently debating that thought itself, it will not end well.

magicbastarder

Re Sweden, they're a famously standoffish culture; I was seeing memes posted by swedes of social distancing in other cultures with the comment basically 'is this not normal life in Sweden?'

Comparing like with like, to a larger extent - Sweden had had something like five times the per capita death rate of Norway.

CinemaGuy45

sullivlo wrote: »

Good stuff.

I am a teacher. In any one day I would have close contact with over 120 students (30 in the room for 40 minutes) and contact with other staff. Even before the lockdown I was in contact with a close contact of patient zero. I was ****ting a brick because I am also a carer for an elderly, vulnerable relative. Within our school community we have had 4 deaths of close family relatives of staff/students. We aren’t a big school.

This is a very infectious disease. Just because you are in a position to not need the lockdown, thousands of people aren’t.

I have elderly parents whom live in contact with me and believe me I have been very nervous.

I was very worried when a few people went out sick however they are back now and this dose not seem to be spreading in my workplace.

This virus has killed people and it will kill more people however not at the level we feared or so it seems.

ligerdub

cian68 wrote: »

That is precisely BECAUSE of the precautions taken

You MAY be correct, but it might also be reasonably unimportant (I'm not stating my own view here).

You need to do comparisons between groups that did introduce a lockdown and groups that did not enforce a lockdown for anything close to a reasonable basis for explaining if it was excessive action or appropriate action. You could state that the lockdown helped keep the number of people in Ireland being killed by bears low also.

Of course the possible response to that statement could be the plea to emotion such as "tell that to those who have lost a family member", but ideally we stay away from such tactics. That's not to say that a prudent approach is the wrong move, particularly in the early stages, but at some point we will have enough information about the virus to make a judgment on the original very bleak predictions of death totals.

HeidiHeidi makes a great point (one that I agree with) that international comparisons are almost meaningless for the reasons stated in the post.

There's room for a reasonable conversation on the subject rather than flying to the safety of keeping the level of deaths down as close to zero as possible regardless of the knock-on effects.

HeidiHeidi

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

I have elderly parents whom live in contact with me and believe me I have been very nervous.

I was very worried when a few people went out sick however they are back now and this dose not seem to be spreading in my workplace.

This virus has killed people and it will kill more people however not at the level we feared or so it seems.[/QUOTE]


Because of the precautions and measures taken! How can you not see or acknowledge that?

CinemaGuy45

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

Sweden seems to be getting along ok without the lockdown.

Does it?
In what way do you think?

CinemaGuy45

endainoz wrote: »

It all really depends on what people this is more important, the economy or the lives of vunerable people? America is currently debating that thought itself, it will not end well.

This virus is running rampant in nursing and care homes I agree vulnerable people need to be protected however this does not seem to be working out too well in that regard.

HeidiHeidi

ligerdub wrote: »

You MAY be correct, but it might also be reasonably unimportant (I'm not stating my own view here).

You need to do comparisons between groups that did introduce a lockdown and groups that did not enforce a lockdown for anything close to a reasonable basis for explaining if it was excessive action or appropriate action. You could state that the lockdown helped keep the number of people in Ireland being killed by bears low also.

Of course the possible response to that statement could be the plea to emotion such as "tell that to those who have lost a family member", but ideally we stay away from such tactics. That's not to say that a prudent approach is the wrong move, particularly in the early stages, but at some point we will have enough information about the virus to make a judgment on the original very bleak predictions of death totals.

HeidiHeidi makes a great point (one that I agree with) that international comparisons are almost meaningless for the reasons stated in the post.

There's room for a reasonable conversation on the subject rather than flying to the safety of keeping the level of deaths down as close to zero as possible regardless of the knock-on effects.

I think the primary aim of keeping the level of infections down via the measures taken was to make sure that our (poorly equipped in comparison to most of the rest of Europe) health services weren't overwhelmed, leading to otherwise unnecessary deaths.

Plumbthedepths

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Best laugh of the day was Alan Kelly, yes Mr. Irish Water, a rail line costing €600 per passenger in subvention and diddly squat else, telling Leo Vradkar, a trained doctor, that he thought the NPHET were calling the shots.

“Ultimate decision making cannot be in the hands of a few and elected office cannot be subservient even in this crisis.”

Eh yes they are Alan, and rightly so. This thing has killed 2.6m people and you want a bunch of teachers in charge? Dr. Tony Holohan and his team, as well as the entire health service have done a great job to date, thankfully they making the decisions with the health of our nation at risk, not some idiot from Tipp who has made a career out of being a politician.

Curious where did you get the global (I assume global) death toll from? Because it's bull**** tbh.
Dr Holohan and his team have done a sh*t job when it comes to nursing homes and long term care homes as these two settings are where the vast majority of the deaths occurred todate.

sullivlo

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

I have elderly parents whom live in contact with me and believe me I have been very nervous.

I was very worried when a few people went out sick however they are back now and this dose not seem to be spreading in my workplace.

This virus has killed people and it will kill more people however not at the level we feared or so it seems.

It’s not spreading because they are recovered. It’s not spreading because they isolated

Many young people are asymptomatic. Meaning they can have the infection and not know. You’re great at washing your hands and not touching your face. Have you ever tried that with a person with dementia? Or a teenage girl? People were spreading this infection without realising it.

This is why lockdown was needed. Is it a pain? Yes. But it is saving countless lives.

CinemaGuy45

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

I have elderly parents whom live in contact with me and believe me I have been very nervous.

I was very worried when a few people went out sick however they are back now and this dose not seem to be spreading in my workplace.

This virus has killed people and it will kill more people however not at the level we feared or so it seems.[/QUOTE]


Because of the precautions and measures taken! How can you not see or acknowledge that?

The restrictions that have been put into place I have followed to the letter.
I also believe everybody should be doing the same.

I am posting my opinion here based on what I am seeing asking questions and offering and opinion is what a free an open society is all about.

ixoy

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Eh yes they are Alan, and rightly so. This thing has killed 2.6m people and you want a bunch of teachers in charge?

It has not killed 2.6 million people! That's the total number of cases of which 186,000 have died. Still a very high number but not 2.6 million.

HeidiHeidi

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

The restrictions that have been put into place I have followed to the letter.
I also believe everybody should be doing the same.

I am posting my opinion here based on what I am seeing asking questions and offering and opinion is what a free an open society is all about.

And I am questioning and rebutting (some of) those opinions.

CinemaGuy45

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Curious where did you get the global (I assume global) death toll from? Because it's bull**** tbh.
Dr Holohan and his team have done a sh*t job when it comes to nursing homes and long term care homes as these two settings are where the vast majority of the deaths occurred todate.

Exactly my point.

smeal

As someone who is really hoping that certain restrictions, especially the abolishment of the 2k limit, will be lifted next week I still think that it was 100% worth it.

I’m also a very social person and miss being out and about but I will still be happy to comply with social distancing systems in public going forward and am in agreement with large scale events being cancelled for the foreseeable to avoid potential mass reinfections. I would hate to think that what we’ve sacrificed so far would go to waste for the sake of people being able to get p*ssed up at a Cheltenham sized event. I think the public will be able to keep up the willpower to keep up prevention measures if certain restrictions are eased come the 5th May such as being allowed to travel further to visit family or friends even it means seeing them from a distance. Otherwise I fear we’ll become very fatigued.

There is no knowing exactly how many cases and deaths we have prevented but as other posters have said if anything like the Italy situation was a potential risk then I’m glad we’ve done what we did especially in city areas. Also very glad that countries have pulled together to essentially stop global travel as I know of several young healthy people who picked it up in major EU cities or airports at least before lockdown.

CinemaGuy45

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

And I am questioning and rebutting (some of) those opinions.

I am not rebutting anything life is complicated and non of us are ever 100% right.

I am reading all those opinions and weighing them up in my mind.

People shift their opinion in gradual steps this is a discussion not a courtroom.

polesheep

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

This virus is running rampant in nursing and care homes I agree vulnerable people need to be protected however this does not seem to be working out too well in that regard.

I agree with everything in you first post, except that I would add the vulnerable and elderly in the community to the nursing homes in terms of those who needed protection. What happened in Italy caused an overreaction. However, despite what some posters claim, Italy does not have an amazing health care system. They are stretched to their limits every flu season. They also made the decision early on to put everyone who required it onto a ventilator, whether they were able for it or not. This led to all the stories of triaging for ventilation. Do I blame our government for overreacting? No, I am much happier that they overreacted rather than fail to react. Do I believe they should now change tack? Yes. And I would like to think that they would react differently to a Covid-20.

endainoz

polesheep wrote: »

I agree with everything in you first post, except that I would add the vulnerable and elderly in the community to the nursing homes in terms of those who needed protection. What happened in Italy caused an overreaction. However, despite what some posters claim, Italy does not have an amazing health care system. They are stretched to their limits every flu season. They also made the decision early on to put everyone who required it onto a ventilator, whether they were able for it or not. This led to all the stories of triaging for ventilation. Do I blame our government for overreacting? No, I am much happier that they overreacted rather than fail to react. Do I believe they should now change tack? Yes. And I would like to think that they would react differently to a Covid-20.

So you'd have no issue if our health system collapsed completely with people dying on trolleys? Because that's exactly what would have happened if no precautions were taken.

CinemaGuy45

endainoz wrote: »

So you'd have no issue if our health system collapsed completely with people dying on trolleys? Because that's exactly what would have happened if no precautions were taken.

Those people who died in nursing home most were never brought to the hospitals anyway.

endainoz

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

Those people who died in nursing home most were never brought to the hospitals anyway.

Rubbish, of course they were.

polesheep

endainoz wrote: »

So you'd have no issue if our health system collapsed completely with people dying on trolleys? Because that's exactly what would have happened if no precautions were taken.

That's your opinion. I believe that if the CORRECT precautions had been taken i.e. protect the vulnerable, then our health system would have coped fine.

polesheep

endainoz wrote: »

Rubbish, of course they were.

But they should never have been exposed to it in the first place. We should have protected the vulnerable.

endainoz

polesheep wrote: »

That's your opinion. I believe that if the CORRECT precautions had been taken i.e. protect the vulnerable, then our health system would have coped fine.

Christ, that was exactly the point of restrictions and social distancing, to protect the vunerable.

CinemaGuy45

endainoz wrote: »

Christ, that was exactly the point of restrictions and social distancing, to protect the vunerable.

And at the start I agreed this has not worked out very well however.

Charles Babbage

cian68 wrote: »

That is precisely BECAUSE of the precautions taken

marklazarcovic

It's killed nearly 200k people in 4 months, it's killed nearly 1000 in Ireland,in that time I've not heard of a single death by 'flu' ..nor have I ever tbh, but anyway,it's only on the go 4 months,it could mutate to something far far worse yet once it's really gotten hold around the globe.

endainoz

polesheep wrote: »

But they should never have been exposed to it in the first place. We should have protected the vulnerable.

Oh god, are you actually listening to yourself? Let's take a simple example: Health care worker works in a care home, they have a teenage kid in school. Kid gets exposed to virus in school before they get shut down and shows no symptoms. Kid passes it on to their parent, and despite their best efforts, they bring the virus to the care home.

100s of health care workers got exposed to it, even though they took every precaution. The efforts of people of the main population have an obvious knock on effect on the vunerable people.

Plumbthedepths

Charles Babbage wrote: »

An incredibly stupid analogy tbh . Which I have seen on other threads and greeted with the same disdain I have for it.

Cockadoodledoo

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

I am openly asking questions we are allowed to do that still.

Children do not seem to really get hit by this thing but the schools are closed to stop the spread and protect the elderly?

The elderly in the care homes are being hit hard by this thing the very group this was suppose to protect.

In response to your first sentence, I responded honestly as someone who works in the health sector. I’m not sure why you are getting defensive? It wasn’t my intention for it to be an attack.

It isn’t practical to expect staff to stay in a unit for a long period of time. Mental health and exhaustion comes into play and their ability to provide quality care is then greatly reduced putting people at great risk. I would much prefer to see somebody who has been home, refreshed and following the guidelines coming in.

It’s important to remember that it is not in every nursing home so why is that?. The virus is spread due to people not following the guidelines, not washing/sanitising their hands correctly which may be due to lack of training, incorrect use of PPE, inadequate supply of PPE or just simply implementing procedures when it was too late.

spurious

CinemaGuy45 wrote: »

So it's 100 times less because of the lockdown?

Sweden seems to be getting along ok without the lockdown.

Sweden has twice our population and 3 times our number of deaths.
Something isn't working for them.

HeidiHeidi

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

An incredibly stupid analogy tbh . Which I have seen on other threads and greeted with the same disdain I have for it.

I think it's a great analogy.

CinemaGuy45

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Sleeper12

CinemaGuy45 wrote:

However under 1'000 dead we got warnings of upwards of 100'000 dead I think it is pretty safe to say that number now looks way over the top.

Just to put the above in perspective 200 to 500 people die in Ireland from the flu. We are taking about 2 to 5 times to annual flu rate in a little over a month. This doesn't take into account deaths from covid 19 in patients that haven't been tested.

We've only managed to keep the figures this low because of the lock down. No lock down & we could be in the 10s of thousands by now.

spurious

spurious wrote: »

Sweden has twice our population and 3 times our number of deaths.
Something isn't working for them.

You can’t say that yet. Maybe they will have a big single peak and we have multiple smaller peaks and they end up better in the long run (with less economic fallout). We will only know when this is over and the analysis done in a couple of years