How would you rate the governments performance tackling Covid so far

doublejobbing 2

FR85 wrote: »

Shambolic, we are an island, it was imported. We saw Italy and Spain falling long before we did but yet ports, airports and borders were left wide open.

Leo was at the helm at the time, hes a trained doctor and surely during his training "contagious diseases and viruses" were covered in the course, he should have taken is political hat off and put his doctors hat on and closed it up tight.

He is the biggest failure this country has seen in a long time. I hate the sight of Mehole Martin, his attitude and arrogance is one thing but Varadkar's handling of it in the early days was just criminal.

Leo's initial handling was a disaster, but at least we had the thing all but beaten by June, we were down to under 10 cases a day for a while.

Whatever initial mistakes were made with travel, then was the time to close the borders.

But we didn't. Virus began to seep back in, first from Irish holiday makers contracting it in Spain, likely from Brits, with a bigger surge happening circa August as E European meat plant workers brought it back (places like Romania did OK in the first surge here, had theirs later in the summer).

As staggeringly incompetent as that was, we still had one last chance to stop our ex pats returning at Christmas.

Instead, we asked them politely.

We would currently have upwards of 95% less cases per day had we done so. Had we closed the borders at Christmas we would currently be open to a level the UK is aiming for, vaccinated as they are, by May or so.

First Up

robbiezero wrote: »

Who are they and how many cases per day are they causing?

The people who are passing the virus to each other, either directly or indirectly. That's the only way it spreads and stays alive.

If people took the precautions that have been repeatedly set out in black and white, transmission would stop. The reason the virus is still alive is that people are not doing that.

doublejobbing 2

A list of FG FF communications in the last year. Probably missing some.

Last week- MM announces we will likely be in lockdown until May. Leo says we might not be.

February 10th or so- MM promises a plan will be unveiled by mid February, seemingly forgetting that mid Feb is Feb 14th, or 3 or 4 days after his statement. MM then releases a plan on Feb 23rd that tells us less than nothing by the looks of it.

January- Donnelly. We will have all vulnerable people vaccinated by June. This was then rolled back. Now they seem to have rolled it forward again claiming 1 million individuals per month by April. I've no idea any more.

Early January- Foley. Schools will definitely be re opening this week

Late December- Darragh O'Brien. Lockdown or no lockdown, building sites will be exempt and will be re opening in January

Early December- MM. If there is a lockdown in January, non essential retail will be staying open regardless

Earlier in December- MM. We shouldn't assume pubs necessarily will have to close again at the end of the Christmas period

August- Leo proclaims that we will never see another national lockdown. At worst we will see short, regional ones as the need arises.

August- Leo claims we will be opening nightclubs, let alone wet pubs, 48 hours before he knocks the pair of them on the head

Spring 2020- the leaving will go ahead, no matter what

Spring 2020- Simon Harris uses a lifestyle profile behind a paywall in the Sunday Indo to claim that pubs may never re open until a vaccine is found. At the time most projections had a vaccine several years away, if ever, yet Harris cared so little that he thought there was nothing wrong with such an off the cuff remark. A defining marker in the attitude some of our rulers had to the restoration of our social freedoms.

March- Leo. Once we flatten the curve, we will live along side the virus

Alf Veedersane

SheepsClothing wrote: »

Voted "not great".

The Good:
- Initially set a good tone and got good buy in from the public.
- Through fairly rugged means, they have managed to prevent excess deaths for the year.
- So far, the vaccination program has been ran efficiently on Ireland's side.

The Bad:
- Were initially a couple of weeks too slow off the mark on going into lockdown and taking measures to prevent mass infection.
- Never put in place travel restrictions, or hotel quarantine, preventing us from ever eliminating the virus and wasting our island advantage.
- Never put in place a real contact trace and isolate system. Only ever tracing contacts 2 days back, for a virus with a 14 day incubation period is brain dead stuff.
- Communication has been very bad, especially since the new alphabet soup government took charge.

It's not that they haven't put it in place, per se. Public health has been chronically underfunded by the DoE/HSE and they only have the resources to go back 48 hours rather than to actually try to identify the source.

beauf

robbiezero wrote: »

I have no idea. But then I am not ranting and raving about them spreading the virus when there is absolutely no evidence that is the case.

You kinda are since you're asking for the perfect detail of the impossible.

There is absolutely evidence of super spreader events. Thats the whole point of contact tracing.

First Up

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

A list of FG FF communications in the last year. Probably missing some.

Last week- MM announces we will likely be in lockdown until May. Leo says we might not be.

February 10th or so- MM promises a plan will be unveiled by mid February, seemingly forgetting that mid Feb is Feb 14th, or 3 or 4 days after his statement. MM then releases a plan on Feb 23rd that tells us less than nothing by the looks of it.

January- Donnelly. We will have all vulnerable people vaccinated by June. This was then rolled back. Now they seem to have rolled it forward again claiming 1 million individuals per month by April. I've no idea any more.

Early January- Foley. Schools will definitely be re opening this week

Late December- Darragh O'Brien. Lockdown or no lockdown, building sites will be exempt and will be re opening in January

Early December- MM. If there is a lockdown in January, non essential retail will be staying open regardless

Earlier in December- MM. We shouldn't assume pubs necessarily will have to close again at the end of the Christmas period

August- Leo proclaims that we will never see another national lockdown. At worst we will see short, regional ones as the need arises.

August- Leo claims we will be opening nightclubs, let alone wet pubs, 48 hours before he knocks the pair of them on the head

Spring 2020- the leaving will go ahead, no matter what

Spring 2020- Simon Harris uses a lifestyle profile behind a paywall in the Sunday Indo to claim that pubs may never re open until a vaccine is found. At the time most projections had a vaccine several years away, if ever, yet Harris cared so little that he thought there was nothing wrong with such an off the cuff remark. A defining marker in the attitude some of our rulers had to the restoration of our social freedoms.

March- Leo. Once we flatten the curve, we will live along side the virus

Yes, its hard to paint a moving picture. Meanwhile people keep spreading the virus.

beauf

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

It's not that they haven't put it in place, per se. Public health has been chronically underfunded by the DoE/HSE and they only have the resources to go back 48 hours rather than to actually try to identify the source.

They were overwhelmed with the volume at times anyway. People ignore the restrictions then complain when the system can't cope. You reap what you sow.

Samsonsmasher

SAMTALK wrote: »

[/B]


Ah sure that's all that matters, never mind the horrific death rate in the UK, as long as pubs are open and holidays back on again

I couldn't give a sh*t. I want my freedom back.

Alf Veedersane

beauf wrote: »

They were overwhelmed with the volume at times anyway. People ignore the restrictions then complain when the system can't cope. You reap what you sow.

They've had too few resources to do the degree of contact tracing they want to do and should be doing even when the case numbers weren't exceptionally high.


There would never be enough resources in place to deal with the numbers when they were beyond the levels they've been beyond at times but they should be provided with the capacity to do a lot more than they have been.

SheepsClothing

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

I couldn't give a sh*t. I want my freedom back.

That much is clear.

Red Silurian

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

A list of FG FF communications in the last year. Probably missing some.

Last week- MM announces we will likely be in lockdown until May. Leo says we might not be.

February 10th or so- MM promises a plan will be unveiled by mid February, seemingly forgetting that mid Feb is Feb 14th, or 3 or 4 days after his statement. MM then releases a plan on Feb 23rd that tells us less than nothing by the looks of it.

January- Donnelly. We will have all vulnerable people vaccinated by June. This was then rolled back. Now they seem to have rolled it forward again claiming 1 million individuals per month by April. I've no idea any more.

Early January- Foley. Schools will definitely be re opening this week

Late December- Darragh O'Brien. Lockdown or no lockdown, building sites will be exempt and will be re opening in January

Early December- MM. If there is a lockdown in January, non essential retail will be staying open regardless

Earlier in December- MM. We shouldn't assume pubs necessarily will have to close again at the end of the Christmas period

August- Leo proclaims that we will never see another national lockdown. At worst we will see short, regional ones as the need arises.

August- Leo claims we will be opening nightclubs, let alone wet pubs, 48 hours before he knocks the pair of them on the head

Spring 2020- the leaving will go ahead, no matter what

Spring 2020- Simon Harris uses a lifestyle profile behind a paywall in the Sunday Indo to claim that pubs may never re open until a vaccine is found. At the time most projections had a vaccine several years away, if ever, yet Harris cared so little that he thought there was nothing wrong with such an off the cuff remark. A defining marker in the attitude some of our rulers had to the restoration of our social freedoms.

March- Leo. Once we flatten the curve, we will live along side the virus

Yes I remember all that

Another important miscommunication that created more questions than answers

15th September Ireland will have 5 levels in the living with covid plan, entire country on lv2 except Dublin which gets 'level 2 plus' Leo Varadkar compares the move to how New Zealand had a level 2.5 for about a week when they were coming out of a lockdown (imagine being compared to New Zealand)

Early December - entire country gets moved to 'level 3 minus'

Late December - entire country gets moved to 'level 5 plus'

So do we have 5 or 8 levels?

micks_address

beauf wrote: »

You mean provisional dates. As they are highly likely to move. If people are locked into absolute dates they will lose their minds if they don't happen.

Any date given now or in April will be provisional.

doublejobbing 2

Red Silurian wrote: »

Yes I remember all that

Another important miscommunication that created more questions than answers

15th September Ireland will have 5 levels in the living with covid plan, entire country on lv2 except Dublin which gets 'level 2 plus' Leo Varadkar compares the move to how New Zealand had a level 2.5 for about a week when they were coming out of a lockdown (imagine being compared to New Zealand)

Early December - entire country gets moved to 'level 3 minus'

Late December - entire country gets moved to 'level 5 plus'

So do we have 5 or 8 levels?

Yes. The levels were brought in to bring nailed down clarity, two or so days later it's announced that when it comes to Dublin pubs we will make it up as we go along.

Absolutely shambolic.

doublejobbing 2

First Up wrote: »

Yes, its hard to paint a moving picture. Meanwhile people keep spreading the virus.

If MM had shut the UK borders pre Christmas we would have 95% plus less cases.

But he wants to blame the pubs.

Moving picture my hole.

neris

lack of communication and clarification from the govt with all these kite flying leaks to gauge the reaction of the nation plus the unelected nphet pulling the strings in the background

SAMTALK

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

I couldn't give a sh*t. I want my freedom back.

As do we all

Red Silurian

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

If MM had shut the UK borders pre Christmas we would have 95% plus less cases.

But he wants to blame the pubs.

Moving picture my hole.

They closed the border with the mainland but couldn't convince their buddies in stormont to do the same, they also left 13 hours between the announcement and the closure, messing aer Lingus put on extra flights... It should have been a 2-3 hour window at a maximum realistically

Frozen Veg

A new party is needed with no connections to the current establishments.

Fianna fail ran the country to the ground and they are following a similar pattern this time.

Fianna Gael are much of the same. Have delivered mediocrity time and time again. Just didn't reach the catastrophes of Fianna Fail.

Sinn Fein. God knows. Wouldn't have faith in their ability to do any better. Could set the country back decades in other regards.

Labour. Offer nothing more than above.

Fresh thinking and blood is needed. Would be great to see young people getting into politics not joining the establishments above but looking to create fresh thinking and a new approach.

Red Silurian

Frozen Veg wrote: »

A new party is needed with no connections to the current establishments.

Fianna fail ran the country to the ground and they are following a similar pattern this time.

Fianna Gael are much of the same. Have delivered mediocrity time and time again. Just didn't reach the catastrophes of Fianna Fail.

Sinn Fein. God knows. Wouldn't have faith in their ability to do any better. Could set the country back decades in other regards.

Labour. Offer nothing more than above.

Fresh thinking and blood is needed. Would be great to see young people getting into politics not joining the establishments above but looking to create fresh thinking and a new approach.

Your comments about SF and Labour are based on what exactly?

It's been an arse-covering exercise by the HSE since day one. Total ****show

doublejobbing 2

Red Silurian wrote: »

They closed the border with the mainland but couldn't convince their buddies in stormont to do the same, they also left 13 hours between the announcement and the closure, messing aer Lingus put on extra flights... It should have been a 2-3 hour window at a maximum realistically

They closed it too late.

The North was irrelevant.

If we had Gardai seal the NI border it would have just been too much effort for somebody from Kerry to go from London to Belfast and have someone pick them up and drive to Kerry, risking arrest on the way. It would have ruled out 98% of them.

Instead, we asked politely.

robbiezero

beauf wrote: »

You kinda are since you're asking for the perfect detail of the impossible.

There is absolutely evidence of super spreader events. Thats the whole point of contact tracing.

I am wondering how the poster knows that the virus is just being spread by people not following restrictions.

Red Silurian

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

They closed it too late.

The North was irrelevant.

If we had Gardai seal the NI border it would have just been too much effort for somebody from Kerry to go from London to Belfast and have someone pick them up and drive to Kerry, risking arrest on the way. It would have ruled out 98% of them.

Instead, we asked politely.

The North was relevant because most people were coming into Dublin anyway

They also left it too late, on what would usually be a sleepy Sunday at Heathrow the number of flights to Ireland doubled

muddypuppy

Not great. Good stuff:
- Good message at the beginning
- We could exit our houses back in March/April for a walk, and that was so nice compared to the situation in Italy where they literally had drones follow runners for breaching rules on live TV.
- The vaccination campaign is going OK now, beside the delay in publishing data. I'm not going to blame the vaccine shortage on the government, and they're mostly putting all the doses we get in arms

Then there is the bad stuff:
- Too slow opening during the summer. Other countries had >50 people outdoor gathering, pubs/disco opens etc... and we were stuck with the 9 euros essential meals.
- The idiotic green list, that they forgot to update for months.
- Level 3 to Level 5 two days after it was said that Level 3 was enough.
- The idiotic Level system where we never really followed the levels.
- The 3 weeks break in December was nice, but the effect was obvious in retrospective. It was a much needed breath of fresh air, but could have been handled much better.

And then the very bad:
- The message right now. Really? Everyone says different things every day and there is absolutely no coesive message coming from the government.
- Completely failing to protect nursing homes and hospital in both the first and the third wave. The third one is especially terrible, since we now know Covid better and the vast majority of deaths are coming there.
- The constant back and forth between NPHET and the government. A lot of the times it feels that the government is not really making the decision, and if they go their own way NPHET will shame them by publishing their letters or leaking stuff to the media.

What I'm worried about is that I would expect things to get better as it goes on, instead we were getting a clearer message last April than we get now.

robbiezero

First Up wrote: »

The people who are passing the virus to each other, either directly or indirectly. That's the only way it spreads and stays alive.

If people took the precautions that have been repeatedly set out in black and white, transmission would stop. The reason the virus is still alive is that people are not doing that.

Can you link the research behind that statement?

Red Silurian

robbiezero wrote: »

Can you link the research behind that statement?

The main precaution quoted by the who is to keep 2m away from others

http://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0525/1140396-social-distancing-reduction/

If people did that our numbers would be zero after the 2 week incubation period, they are still not zero after almost a year

Melanchthon

Cameron326 wrote: »

I voted "Disastrous" ... BUT I would put at least half the countries in Western Europe in that same category. We all failed abysmally compared to many Asian nations. Partly due to our failure to learn from their experiences with SARS etc (they certainly did), partly due to their more collectivist attitudes and greater willingness to make personal sacrifice in the early days, partly due to better government preparedness and implementation of technology (go back to point 1).

My biggest criticism of us would be never at any point restricting foreign travel - or at least applying strong and enforceable quarantine measures - eg enforced "hotel" quarantine. That was unforgivable - particularly for an island nation (and that goes for the UK obviously).

On top of that a minority of people just didn't take it seriously for far too long - its not all on the government. The fact that people here and in the UK were still happily walking around in shops and busy supermarkets maskless in June/July still amazes me. People in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore etc thought we were all off our nuts.

I would add to this, the message from the early stages of the pandemic should be that the WHO should not be listened too as it has been captured by political concerns. The Asian countries that have kept a lid on the pandemic did so because they ignored WHO statements, as you say because of SARS and MERS, SARS which the WHO officials are on tape saying China also didn't share information fast enough.

beauf

robbiezero wrote: »

I am wondering how the poster knows that the virus is just being spread by people not following restrictions.

That's not what was said. So it's an bogus question.

Cluedo Monopoly

Frozen Veg wrote: »

A new party is needed with no connections to the current establishments.

Fianna fail ran the country to the ground and they are following a similar pattern this time.

Fianna Gael are much of the same. Have delivered mediocrity time and time again. Just didn't reach the catastrophes of Fianna Fail.

Sinn Fein. God knows. Wouldn't have faith in their ability to do any better. Could set the country back decades in other regards.

Labour. Offer nothing more than above.

Fresh thinking and blood is needed. Would be great to see young people getting into politics not joining the establishments above but looking to create fresh thinking and a new approach.

I personally think the 6 TDs from the Social Democrats have been superb.

Tenzor07

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Current handling is shambolic.
Level 5 from December through to April, at least, is a damning indictment of their intelligence and handling of the situation.Furious and frustrated at this point. Just hating life.

Level 5 on and and off since last April you mean... Flicking off the level 5 switch since then.. the longest and most conservative lockdown in Europe...

National policy being dictated by an overly visible and vocal Doctor in the shape of Pope Holohan... weak political leadership by FFFG ... a weak politcal opposition in the form of Sinn Fein..

...the court of public outrage and shaming led by RTE and other mainstream news outlets...also dictating the response...

Tenzor07

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

I personally think the 6 TDs from the Social Democrats have been superb.

Who?

Samsonsmasher

SheepsClothing wrote: »

That much is clear.

Good

Red Silurian

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

I personally think the 6 TDs from the Social Democrats have been superb.

Looking around the world at the few countries that managed to control the virus they all have one thing in common politically

Taiwan - Democratic socialist party
Vietnam - Single Party Socialist Republic
New Zealand - Labour
Australia - Labour

Now let's look at the heaviest death counts

USA - Republicans (until the recent change)
Britain - Tories
Brazil - Bolsonaro is technically independent and good friends with Trump

muddypuppy

muddypuppy wrote: »

Not great. Good stuff:
- Good message at the beginning
- We could exit our houses back in March/April for a walk, and that was so nice compared to the situation in Italy where they literally had drones follow runners for breaching rules on live TV.
- The vaccination campaign is going OK now, beside the delay in publishing data. I'm not going to blame the vaccine shortage on the government, and they're mostly putting all the doses we get in arms

Then there is the bad stuff:
- Too slow opening during the summer. Other countries had >50 people outdoor gathering, pubs/disco opens etc... and we were stuck with the 9 euros essential meals.
- The idiotic green list, that they forgot to update for months.
- Level 3 to Level 5 two days after it was said that Level 3 was enough.
- The idiotic Level system where we never really followed the levels.
- The 3 weeks break in December was nice, but the effect was obvious in retrospective. It was a much needed breath of fresh air, but could have been handled much better.

And then the very bad:
- The message right now. Really? Everyone says different things every day and there is absolutely no coesive message coming from the government.
- Completely failing to protect nursing homes and hospital in both the first and the third wave. The third one is especially terrible, since we now know Covid better and the vast majority of deaths are coming there.
- The constant back and forth between NPHET and the government. A lot of the times it feels that the government is not really making the decision, and if they go their own way NPHET will shame them by publishing their letters or leaking stuff to the media.

What I'm worried about is that I would expect things to get better as it goes on, instead we were getting a clearer message last April than we get now.

I think thats a fair rundown tbh

Christmas onwards has been terrible but the boys playing amateur politics last week is by far the low point (the other low points were at least things you could say are only easily dealt with in retrospect)

Cluedo Monopoly

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

I personally think the 6 TDs from the Social Democrats have been superb.

Examples of this superbness, please.

What a pity that they’d decided to be hurlers on the ditch rather than active participants on the field of play b

First Up

robbiezero wrote:

Can you link the research behind that statement?

2 meters, wear a mask, wash your hands.

Does any of that ring a bell?

beauf

robbiezero wrote: »

Can you link the research behind that statement?

It's obvious from the lock down stats.

doublejobbing 2

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Why are people so obsessed with foreign travel and house parties??

Don't understand it.

.

95% plus of our cases originate from London (mostly) based Irish people who should not have been allowed into the country in December.

How can people not understand this? If we had closed the border in early December we would have somewhere between 24 to 40 cases per day.

If we had closed it in June we would have effectively next to no cases, probably a dozen or two per week.

Macy0161

I think they've done "OK".

Locking down borders/ mandatory quarantine is all well and good, but ignores the political realities of the island. And our main opposition are a key factor in a lack of trust in the North which makes an all island approach (which would be needed) not a realistic option. SF would make hay on an all island approach, scaring off the Unionists; and they'd also make hay at any attempt to lock the border.

They made an obvious mistake around Christmas, but the UK variant has clearly been a factor in the fall out. And would the population really have stuck to no household visits, if that was the rules? I'd have my doubts tbh.

Biggest failings have been general enforcement and contact tracing for me. Too slow to give the Gardai the powers, and insist on enforcement. Contact Tracing should've been ramped up over the summer.

ShineOn7

From here

The words of a Cork cafe owner

A few, carefully chosen words to our Taoiseach.

We have now been closed for about 9 months of the last year.

There are 480,000 people unemployed because of this pandemic, 150,000 of those, in hospitality.

We understand that we are closed to keep our fellow citizens safe, (we closed before we were directed to last year.)

We understand the seriousness of this pandemic.

We understand the terrible cost to so many.

We understand.

We don’t understand why 5,600 people flew into Ireland from countries on Covid warning lists last month.

We don’t understand why you still haven’t worked out a quarantine plan.

We don’t understand the communication shambles.

We don’t understand the contempt that you show to half a million people.
All we ask of you, is leadership, We don’t expect dynamism, just leadership.
Do not offfer a pay rise of €82k to a senior health manager, the same week as you tell a senior hospitality manager that you are taxing her €350 a week pandemic payment.

Do not allow our managers, chefs and floor staff to find out through leaks and whispers to journalists, that they are now part of the long term unemployed.

Do not pretend to understand our pain, when your salary still lands each month and your pension is still paid by the tax on our pandemic payment.
Do not pretend to understand what it’s like to find that the business you built, the career that you chose, the future that you planned, are worthless in the eyes of our government.

Do not pretend, lead.

Get your ministers and advisors together, form a cogent plan, go on national television, look us in the eye and tell us what it is and why we are doing it.
This morning, nearly half a million retail workers, musicians, hotel managers and former taxpayers are waiting, waiting for you to lead.
Waiting for you to tell us that there is a plan.


Waiting, at home, with the last vestiges of hope as company.


Yours sincerely


Richard Jacob


Idaho

PintOfView

robbiezero wrote: »

I am wondering how the poster knows that the virus is just being spread by people not following restrictions.

I'm wondering how you think it's spreading?
Is it being spread by people who do follow restrictions?

First Up

Macy0161 wrote: »

I think they've done "OK".

Locking down borders/ mandatory quarantine is all well and good, but ignores the political realities of the island. And our main opposition are a key factor in a lack of trust in the North which makes an all island approach (which would be needed) not a realistic option. SF would make hay on an all island approach, scaring off the Unionists; and they'd also make hay at any attempt to lock the border.

They made an obvious mistake around Christmas, but the UK variant has clearly been a factor in the fall out. And would the population really have stuck to no household visits, if that was the rules? I'd have my doubts tbh.

Biggest failings have been general enforcement and contact tracing for me. Too slow to give the Gardai the powers, and insist on enforcement. Contact Tracing should've been ramped up over the summer.

You would need a lot less enforcement if you had a lot more compliance. People are giving the virus to each other because they are not doing what they have been asked to do.

beauf

PintOfView wrote: »

I'm wondering how you think it's spreading?
Is it being spread by people who do follow restrictions?

It will be spread by everyone. Just less often by people following the restrictions and precautions.

Royale with Cheese

I would say quite bad up until 2021, then absolutely abysmal. That picture of Mícheál Martin posing with the Mirror journalist complete with shít eating grin on his face, as he's just used a tabloid rag to tell the population our Level 5 lockdown will be extended into a fifth month. Unforgivable, couldn't actually face the population.

SnuggyBear

Top performance, simply brilliant.

beauf

ShineOn7 wrote: »

From here

The words of a Cork cafe owner

A lot of valid points there. Though it doesn't justify reopening just that they shouldn't allow so much travel.

You could argue that if we'd had tighter borders we build have been less restrictive internally. But that ship sailed a long time ago.

Scott Tenorman

The current FF/FG government has been a disaster.

Their communication, from kite flying, to leaking, to mixed messages coming from different ministers, has been simply awful.

The "Living with Covid" plan :rolleyes: lasted about one day before they ignored it and just made it up as they went along. It is now "Hiding Under The Bed From Covid"

Worst of all though, that nobody seems to mention, is despite the publics incredible effort and sacrifice for nearly a year at this stage to stop the hospitals being overwhelmed they have made no effort to increase hospital capacity and contact tracing has been a joke. The two things that they could do from their end to make our efforts worthwhile and they haven't done them.

Regarding contact tracing when Philip Nolan described it as an "academic exercise" that was the light bulb moment for me when I realised they are all full of s**t. What an extraordinary thing to say about probably THE most important tool to keep this from spreading.

Allowing travel into the country- disaster. Still not sorted even now.
Despite an earlier poster claiming this only makes up a small percentage of cases that is wrong: every single case has on this island has directly or indirectly been caused by inward travel. Every single one.

doublejobbing 2

The problem regarding opposition to this is that it was hijacked. By allowing Ben Gilroy, John Waters, Jim Corr, Gemma O'Doherty and whatever you're having yourself, be the first opposition with their rants about Bill Gates, microchip vaccines and 5G networks, it allowed the lunatics to run the narrative. Perfectly rational figures who came after, who questioned the criteria for correlating deaths and numbers et al were never given an option.

There are seemingly no moderates representing the regular people's concerns be it in the media, the medical community or the Dail aside from TD Michael McNamara (one man in a 160 odd seat Dail). Those in the medical community are given little to no media coverage.

robbiezero

PintOfView wrote: »

I'm wondering how you think it's spreading?
Is it being spread by people who do follow restrictions?

Very likely I'd imagine.

jimmycrackcorm

Samsonsmasher wrote: »

Abysmal

The UK NHS has vaccinated millions of Britons while we have barely 250000 out of a population of 5 million.

The UK looks set to open up without restrictions or masks months - at least - before we do.
They will be back to work commuting and enjoying pubs restaurants cinemas theatres concerts and foreign holidays before the year is out.

We will be languishing in lockdowns still waiting for our injections - if we keep rolling over that is!

Anyone who still has faith in this government or nphet has lost the plot

This spring and summer the public especially the young will ignore the restrictions and carry on with normal life.

It's gone beyond a joke

Our economy is on its knees and our people are fed up to their back teeth.

I'd be willing to bet that if there was an equivalent poll in the UK, that we'd see over 50% would also class the UK approach as disastrous.

YouGov UK polls currently show only 43% think that the government is handling it ok or better.

The old adage is true: “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”