Relaxation of Restrictions, Part VIII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

Silentcorner

Arghus wrote: »

Apart from the disease incidence dropping each time as a result of being in level five.

No suggestion? What are you talking about? There's firm evidence. Are you denying that level five reduces the incidence of the disease?

Because if you are that's absolute nonsense and the exact opposite of what has happened and - on more than one occasion. Level 5 brings the numbers down. Fact.



The numbers did begin to climb again once we left lockdown in May/June, but because we were coming off a very, very low base it took a while for them to start to climb again at pace.

I would dispute that we didn't see any meaningful change in ICU or hospital admission numbers during the October/Nov period. Hospital numbers were doubling, albeit coming off low totals, roughly every two weeks by September, rates of admissions and average numbers in ICU were all increasing during the month of October.

You seem to think that because we avoided the worst outcome that was predicted if we did nothing, that somehow invalidates the decisions we made to avoid that worst outcome. That's completely nonsensical, flat out illogical. Lockdown was put in place to avoid that outcome.



I disagree.

There's more to this than hysterical media coverage. It's a highly infectious disease that grows exponentially and if left unchecked becomes impossible to control and inevitably would result in a collapsed health system and suffering and death on an enormous scale.

As you would say yourself...do you always have to be spoon fed?



I'm not advocating constant level 5 btw. That's unsustainable, but, unfortunately there are times where it's necessary. In a perfect world I'd hope that level 3 would be a more sustainable proposition, but we're currently nowhere near where you'd want to be to realistically consider it and to suggest that it was the right approach for January, with thousands of cases and hospitals rapidly filling up is entirely silly.

Have you noticed how emotionally attached you are to your opinions....calm down, I am just disagreeing with you!!!...your language is hysterical I don't know if you can see that!!!

Disease incidence rate is misleading for a start...we do not have an accurate number on how many are infected at any time because

1 In many cases there are no symptoms, these people will not present for testing and are therefore not included in any figures.

2 Many that do get tested do not or will not show any symptoms either which in my view should dis qualify them from case number, a case number should be someone who be actually sick in my view.

3 There are people who may have a symptom who don't get tested

4 During our two surges we only test people who display at least one symptom (or two as in last March) therefore we miss all the others.

The only reliable rate is our ICU and hospitalization rate...and to differentiate between who caught it in hospital and who were put in hospital because of covid.

In the case of the latter, there was very little movement of ICU occupancy and all through our level 5 in Oct/Nov, very little changed between Sept and the start of Dec actually...case numbers were rising, as you would expect going into the winter months.

If you aren't advocating for level 5 all the time then what are you advocating for...because we were getting a Covid surge this winter no matter what we did...we either go into level 5 for the entire 5/6 months or we don't.

We didn't get a surge during the summer months because our collective immune systems are at their strongest, during the winter they are at their weakest.

Boggles

AlekSmart wrote: »

Normal human interaction with some recognition from The State that we citizens have had our self-confidence and belief structures demolished,is an absolute requirement.

We have to be shepherded back out into the meadow,as if we remain locked up in the haggard we will starve !

Early cans?

Arghus

Ginger n Lemon wrote: »

I think Ive asked you before and you didnt answer, there are 4 different posters here and actually my mothers partner also who works in a hospital, all saying that hospitals are pretty quiet, within last 2 weeks.

Are you talking about ICUs or do you know which hospitals are filling up quickly?



In level 3 we have 15% unemployment. When you say sustainable you mean sustainable to handle the cases only right? Or do you think 15% unemployment is also sustainable?

Well I've anecdotal stories too about people I know who say they've never been busier. A friend of mine, whose mother worked in my local hospital just summarily quit this week because she felt she couldn't handle what was going on there at the moment.

But it's okay if you don't believe me. Thankfully there are objective statistics we can look at it. Spookwoman in the main thread posts the publicly available data each night that shows the amount of patients, beds, ICU capacity etc for each hospital in the country. I think last night it was 14 ICU's had no beds, so I don't think we can argue that things are a piece of piss in the hospital system at the moment.

To the second part of your question. I wouldn't suggest that level 3 permanently forever is unsustainable. There's an argument that it might keep numbers relatively steady if they are at a low enough level and we have a travel policy worth a fck and a tracing system able to handle the job and hopefully that'll see us over the line until we have enough people vaccinated to start loosening things up. I can not see level 2 or lower realistically being on the cards until that happens.

AlekSmart

Silentcorner wrote: »

Have you noticed how emotionally attached you are to your opinions....calm down, I am just disagreeing with you!!!...your language is hysterical I don't know if you can see that!!!

Disease incidence rate is misleading for a start...we do not have an accurate number on how many are infected at any time because

1 In many cases there are no symptoms, these people will not present for testing and are therefore not included in any figures.

2 Many that do get tested do not or will not show any symptoms either which in my view should dis qualify them from case number, a case number should be someone who be actually sick in my view.

3 There are people who may have a symptom who don't get tested

4 During our two surges we only test people who display at least one symptom (or two as in last March) therefore we miss all the others.

The only reliable rate is our ICU and hospitalization rate...and to differentiate between who caught it in hospital and who were put in hospital because of covid.

In the case of the latter, there was very little movement of ICU occupancy and all through our level 5 in Oct/Nov, very little changed between Sept and the start of Dec actually...case numbers were rising, as you would expect going into the winter months.

If you aren't advocating for level 5 all the time then what are you advocating for...because we were getting a Covid surge this winter no matter what we did...we either go into level 5 for the entire 5/6 months or we don't.

We didn't get a surge during the summer months because our collective immune systems are at their strongest, during the winter they are at their weakest.

I find it difficult to comprehend much of the current strategy.

As you point out,the fixation with Incidence Rate has been a significant contributory factor in reducing our confidence rates in both our own natural defences,and the ability of our health systems to cope when required.

I am asymptomatic as I am not sick...with still a level of debate as to the entire Asymptomatic Transmission issue,I'm happy to remain off the case number list.

Currently,as per the Dashboard...

https://covid19ireland-geohive.hub.arcgis.com/pages/hospitals-icu--testing

Confirmed Cases in Hospital
1,552

Admissions to Hospital
110
in last 24 Hours

Discharges from Hospital
108
in last 24 Hours

AlekSmart

Boggles wrote: »

Early cans?

Teatotal (Lyons)

Arghus

Silentcorner wrote: »

Have you noticed how emotionally attached you are to your opinions....calm down, I am just disagreeing with you!!!...your language is hysterical I don't know if you can see that!!!

Disease incidence rate is misleading for a start...we do not have an accurate number on how many are infected at any time because

1 In many cases there are no symptoms, these people will not present for testing and are therefore not included in any figures.

2 Many that do get tested do not or will not show any symptoms either which in my view should dis qualify them from case number, a case number should be someone who be actually sick in my view.

3 There are people who may have a symptom who don't get tested

4 During our two surges we only test people who display at least one symptom (or two as in last March) therefore we miss all the others.

The only reliable rate is our ICU and hospitalization rate...and to differentiate between who caught it in hospital and who were put in hospital because of covid.

In the case of the latter, there was very little movement of ICU occupancy and all through our level 5 in Oct/Nov, very little changed between Sept and the start of Dec actually...case numbers were rising, as you would expect going into the winter months.

If you aren't advocating for level 5 all the time then what are you advocating for...because we were getting a Covid surge this winter no matter what we did...we either go into level 5 for the entire 5/6 months or we don't.

We didn't get a surge during the summer months because our collective immune systems are at their strongest, during the winter they are at their weakest.

Rather than waste either of our time any further, I'm just going to say I disagree with all of that, because to pick apart all of that would take far too long.

Silentcorner

Arghus wrote: »

Rather than waste either of our time any further, I'm just going to say I disagree with all of that, because to pick apart all of that would take far too long.

Fair enough.

Can you at least outline how long we should have subjected ourselves to level 5?
We are in level 5 now since the 20th of Oct and now possibly ending in 5th March...with a break of 3 weeks or so...what would you have suggested we do?

johnboy1298

froog wrote: »

to sum up the views held by the regular posters in this thread;

1. covid is no worse than the flu

It is worse than the flu for old people and for those classified as vulnerable. For roughly 3/4 of society it is the same as a bad flu or better if you happen to be asymtomatic.

2. no one actually dies from covid, all deaths are from something else

Of course people die from Covid, but the percentage of cases where covid is the only factor is lower than the number who died with Covid.

3. lockdowns haven't saved a single life

I would think that based on other countries/jurisdictions who have lower restriction levels and produced similar infection curves that the cost to benefit is not good.

4. no sympathy for nurses, they have jobs don't they?

I have sympathy for nurses but no more than I did when C19 didn't exist. The issues faced by the nurses are the fault of the mismanagement of Health Services for a long long time. People don't go to hospital because they are healthy so its never going to be the sort of job where every day is an easy day at work. Maybe if NPHET or the HSE could manage the health service properly it wouldn't creak every year.

5. ireland has been in hard level 7 lockdown since march

Michael Martin acknowledged we had the longest and harshest restrictions in the EU.

6. old people need to step up and lock themselves away so we can get back to our lives

Thats probably harsh of you, but people are responsible for their own safety. If other people less affected than you choose not to hide behind the couch I'd probably advise you take on responsibility for yourself and social distance from them, wear a mask and sanitise your hands regularly. If you're not capable or willing to do that and change your lifestyle for your own benefit that's up to you. Sorry if that hurts but its true.

7. tony holohan wants to rule ireland with absolute power and stop drinking for good

Tony Holohan is there to think about Coronavirus and that alone and has been given too much power because the government aren't capable of coming up with any critical thinking of their own. If a person took the same approach with any other aspect of life then that would also be out of balance. If you got a pretty bad cut from a knife would you wear a full suit of armor every time you used it from then on?

please tell me if i'm way off here.

You are way off.

Windmill100000

4 hospitals with 0 beds available.

13 hospitals with no critical care beds available.

Stats taken from main covid thread for Jan 29.

Boggles

AlekSmart wrote: »

Teatotal (Lyons)

That's worse.

Arghus

Silentcorner wrote: »

Fair enough.

Can you at least outline how long we should have subjected ourselves to level 5?
We are in level 5 now since the 20th of Oct and now possibly ending in 5th March...with a break of 3 weeks or so...what would you have suggested we do?

I think we should have stayed in it for at least another two weeks further into December than we did to try to bring that incidence level to as close as possible to 100 a day or less.

We should have never opened hospitality to indoor eating and drinking. That was a bad mistake.

And their should have been a coherent policy that was properly implemented to minimise the risks from overseas travel. That should have been put in place months ago.

We may have ended up again back in a level five once more in January in either case. But there's a big difference between going to level 5 with 1300 cases and going there with at least 6000. Another lockdown was probably inevitable during the early parts of this year, but this period is many gradients worse and will be more prolonged than it had to be and more people have died than necessary who would otherwise be alive.

But, being honest, you'd probably be in level 5 for a great deal of the Winter one way or the other.

AlekSmart

Boggles wrote: »

That's worse.

No it's not...I could have added...RC....GSOH....IM....;)

FintanMcluskey

Arghus wrote: »

We should have never opened hospitality to indoor eating and drinking. That was a bad mistake.

Why?

How many cases were linked to those places?

I thought it was the home where transmission was occuring

Arghus

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Why?

How many were linked to those places?

I thought it was the home where transmission was occuring

Homes are where the majority of cases are linked too because the vagaries of the contact tracing system don't go back further than 48 hours and the fact that most people live in homes.

Are you arguing that Covid just spontaneously generates in people's houses?

FintanMcluskey

Arghus wrote: »

Homes are where the majority of cases are linked too because the vagaries of the contact tracing system don't go back further than 48 hours and the fact that most people live in homes.

Contract tracing is a useless exercise then

Boggles

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Why?

How many cases were linked to those places?

I thought it was the home where transmission was occuring

We back to pretending the airborne virus doesn't spread in the one place indoors where you don't have to wear masks in public?

It comes down the chimney of the home?

Beasty

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Why?

How many were linked to those places?

I thought it was the home where transmission was occuring

It's clearly going to be anywhere where people are in close proximity. And even if in the home, it had to get there somehow. People taking their masks off in a restaurant was always going to be a relatively high risk scenario

Having said that, I don't think anyone could really have anticipated the impact of the UK variant on transmissibility - certainly not when restrictions were eased in December. I have little doubt that played a major part in the upsurge when everyone suddenly felt they had a bit of freedom to head out Christmas shopping and meeting up with people in various environments

Silentcorner

Arghus wrote: »

I'm not advocating constant level 5 btw. That's unsustainable, but, unfortunately there are times where it's necessary. In a perfect world I'd hope that level 3 would be a more sustainable proposition, but we're currently nowhere near where you'd want to be to realistically consider it and to suggest that it was the right approach for January, with thousands of cases and hospitals rapidly filling up is entirely silly.

Arghus wrote: »

I think we should have stayed in it for at least another two weeks further into December than we did to try to bring that incidence level to as close as possible to 100 a day or less.

We should have never opened hospitality to indoor eating and drinking. That was a bad mistake.

And their should have been a coherent policy that was properly implemented to minimise the risks from overseas travel. That should have been put in place months ago.

We may have ended up again back in a level five once more in January in either case. But there's a big difference between going to level 5 with 1300 cases and going there with at least 6000. Another lockdown was probably inevitable during the early parts of this year, but this period is many gradients worse and will be more prolonged than it had to be and more people have died than necessary who would otherwise be alive.

But, being honest, you'd probably be in level 5 for a great deal of the Winter one way or the other.

Well which is it?

We were only out of level 5 for three weeks or so...are you suggesting we stay in level 5 from mid Oct until what the end of Jan, mid Feb?

Boggles

Silentcorner wrote: »

We were only out of level 5 for three weeks or so...are you suggesting we stay in level 5 from mid Oct until what the end of Jan, mid Feb?

The restrictions in October are not the same as the restrictions now.

But you know that.

Beasty

FintanMcluskey wrote: »

Contract tracing is a useless exercise then

Of course not. Even if it catches only 20% of "contacts" that should reduce transmission by that 20%. If it's 50% then all the better

Lundstram

Why is no one talking about the fact that just over one third of all cases were contracted in hospital?

Why aren't the HSE being held to account like pubs, restaurants, barbers etc are? They have had theor livelihoods destroyed. Why hasn't the incompetent Paul Reid been sacked or even interrogated? He's a great man for the populist nonsense and nice cosy interviews with Ryan Tubridy but when asked what are they doing to stop this high level of transmission in hospitals, he was clueless.

He's the type of person people should be taking out their anger on, not a lone man walking on a beach or a lad going for a drive outside his 5km.

Arghus

Boggles wrote: »

We back to pretending the airborne virus doesn't spread in the one place indoors where you don't have to wear masks in public?

It comes down the chimney of the home?

Yeah you can pick up the virus on buses, in shops, schools, cars, on the street, in work, cinemas, park - just about anywhere really.

But, absolutely no way could you pick it up in an enclosed space with poor ventilation, no masks, shared bathroom facilties, people in close proximity and lots talking and shouting over other.

That's clearly as safe as it gets.

Arghus

Arghus wrote: »

I think we should have stayed in it for at least another two weeks further into December than we did to try to bring that incidence level to as close as possible to 100 a day or less.

We should have never opened hospitality to indoor eating and drinking. That was a bad mistake.

And their should have been a coherent policy that was properly implemented to minimise the risks from overseas travel. That should have been put in place months ago.

We may have ended up again back in a level five once more in January in either case. But there's a big difference between going to level 5 with 1300 cases and going there with at least 6000. Another lockdown was probably inevitable during the early parts of this year, but this period is many gradients worse and will be more prolonged than it had to be and more people have died than necessary who would otherwise be alive.

But, being honest, you'd probably be in level 5 for a great deal of the Winter one way or the other.

I think even if we had stayed in level 5, cases would have increased a lot over December as they did elsewhere in Europe. Maybe not to the same level though. But without Christmas, people would be very miserable as we would now be 3.5 months in lockdown with no end in sight.

In some ways I wish we had of, just to show that lockdown doesn’t work. I think we were already seeing evidence that cases were increasing or at the very least not dropping any further under level 5.

Boggles

Lundstram wrote: »

Why is no one talking about the fact that just one third of all cases were contracted in hospital?

Because it isn't true would be one reason I suppose.

Arghus

Silentcorner wrote: »

Well which is it?

We were only out of level 5 for three weeks or so...are you suggesting we stay in level 5 from mid Oct until what the end of Jan, mid Feb?

It depends on the circumstances. If case numbers are too high then you remain there, simply put. You would hope they don't remain constantly high.

pottokblue

smokers dont tend to social distance when they're having their smokes in the hospitals so they contribute to the spread along with doctors, nurses, porters, kitchenstaff etc.... C19 is not the first hospital acquired infection to come into existence. All the HSE can do is reduce the risk of chains of tranmission they can not eliminate it that needs to come from the community

Beasty

5 in our household. My wife contracted it 3 weeks ago. She had been in close contact with the rest of us extensively. We were not tested, and none of us showed any symptoms. We had to stay at home for 2 weeks, and I suspect 1, 2, maybe all 4 of us could have had it but were asymptomatic. Alternatively we all must have some kind of protective shield as based on everything we hear about this we should probably all have got it.

As close contacts we ended up staying at home for a week longer than my wife (as she was "freed" 10 days after her symptoms started) - if we did have it we had virtually no chance of spreading it further within those 2 weeks

Kunta Kinte

johnboy1298 wrote: »

You are way off.

No he isn`t. Anti restrictions posters have made those comments at various times on this and previous versions of this thread some of them almost word for word.

froog

Lundstram wrote: »

Why is no one talking about the fact that just one third of all cases were contracted in hospital?

Why aren't the HSE being held to account like pubs, restaurants, barbers etc are? They have had theor livelihoods destroyed. Why hasn't the incompetent Paul Reid been sacked or even interrogated? He's a great man for the populist nonsense and nice cosy interviews with Ryan Tubridy but when asked what are they doing to stop this high level of transmission in hospitals, he was clueless.

He's the type of person people should be taking out their anger on, not a lone man walking on a beach or a lad going for a drive outside his 5km.

because it's not true. a third of covid patients in hospital got it while in hospital.

that's about 600 out of the 100,000 ish total cases since christmas.

https://www.thejournal.ie/third-contracting-covid-in-hospital-varadkar-5331491-Jan2021/

FintanMcluskey

froog wrote: »

because it's not true. a third of covid patients in hospital got it while in hospital.

that's about 600 out of the 100,000 ish total cases since christmas.

https://www.thejournal.ie/third-contracting-covid-in-hospital-varadkar-5331491-Jan2021/

That’s some serious gymnastic right there.

The community cases vs hospital acquired cases is an irrelevant metric.

The most relevant information is hospital cases source of infection. Community or hospital acquired.

After all, isn’t this about protecting hospitals?