Covid 19 Part XXXIV-249,437 ROI(4,906 deaths) 120,195 NI (2,145 deaths)(01/05)Read OP

pauldry

A bit weary that we are opening too early. But I suppose people were going daft but there will be throngs of people everywhere. I think the last place I want to go now is a poxy restuarant sitting outside in temperatures of 8c for the next few weeks.

Good we can travel intercounty though.

RebelButtMunch

plodder wrote: »

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens Covid wise after the tragedy last night in Israel with up to 100,000 people at a religious festival.

Nothing. Ultra orthodox stuff going on

Pandiculation

kleiner feigling wrote: »

This cannot be stressed enough.
Was in a small cafe yesterday with very "strict" covid measures.... but every window closed and the place was like a sauna. People will mask up etc, but a draught is too much to suffer apparently

Yeah I saw that a lot during the earlier phases of the pandemic. I was in one of the big chains and they’d the doors shut and the air con in full recirculating mode. You could smell the cold, stale air.

BrianD3

Pandiculation wrote: »

Seems the main focus needs to be ventilation, ventilation and ventilation. We got very caught up on the surface cleaning and that appears to be very much secondary to the main risk that was always enclosed spaces with poor air changes.

We got far too caught up on it, I remember watching a YT video at the very start where an infectious disease expert estimated that fomite transmission might account for 10% of cases at most. That was cue for me to buy a pile of FFP2 and FFP3 masks in the local hardware shops. Now it seems that even that 10% estimate was much too high..

Admittedly, for the first few weeks of this when I didn't have much hand sanitiser but did have hundreds of disposable nitrile gloves, I wore gloves to the supermarket and took them on and off carefully, single use etc. Haven't done that for a long time though.

I well remember at the time various "experts" from Martin Cormican to Kim Roberts advising against mask wearing, it was all about sanitising and washing your hands.

No surprise that some of the general public lost the plot e.g. people wasting alcohol sanitiser by spraying it on the OUTSIDE of their car after they returned from the supermarket in case somebody had rubbed off it in the car park

Even when it was starting to become widely accepted that ventilation etc. was a far more important factor than hand sanitising, we had public sector employers ordering staff back into (poorly ventilated) offices and instructing them to sanitise their hand before and after touching a document/file/letter - every time. There was also talk of placing objects in UV sanitiser cabinets and microwaves.

pauldry

pauldry wrote: »

A bit weary that we are opening too early. But I suppose people were going daft but there will be throngs of people everywhere. I think the last place I want to go now is a poxy restuarant sitting outside in temperatures of 8c for the next few weeks.

Good we can travel intercounty though.

Speak only for yourself, I can finally contemplate a return to employment after months of misery. I wonder if the "too early" cohort are snugly working from home and scrimping on travel expenses.

The beauty of personal choice is that no one is coercing you to sit outside a restaurant. I'll be grabbing the opportunity with both hands, with a feed of pints to go along with it.

Throngs of people everywhere, that's goddamn right. Also known as "living", when one has hit the pause button for over a year they're fully entitled to let the hair down and enjoy themselves.

Carpe diem.

Loafing Oaf

BrianD3 wrote: »

There was also talk of placing objects in UV sanitiser cabinets and microwaves.

I serioously thought about getting one of those UV 'wands' to sanitise the shopping:o

Turtwig

I don't get this people going daft thing or the government losing them. By and large all the data and cases of infections showed people were massively compliant. The data simply didn't show mass disobedience that people here seem to be implying. There'll always be the minority taking exception with the guidances. The vast majority were clearly keeping with the spirit of them.

gozunda

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Its not at all the same, and also if you have a load of under 40s running around in a park, that makes the ocer 70s a lot less lilely to take a stroll etc.

My parents in their 70s use the gym and cant wait to get back to it.

Gyms, on top of all the equipment, provide assistance ans motivation to the people who need it most i.e. the people who struggle to find that motivation.



So the decision was made on what will please the most amount of people, not on what is good for peoples health?

More things which were never said :pac:

But yes gyms are a minority with regard to participation in exercise so those 40s who are running in the park are probably there already.

And as said probably everyone needs a decent haircut at this stage. Regardless both will be open within a short timeframe

Walking, running, cycling, workouts at home etc may 'not be the same" but they are all exercise. And perhaos more importantly easy for most people to participate in.

Pandiculation

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I serioously thought about getting one of those UV 'wands' to sanitise the shopping:o

UVC bulbs, if used incorrectly, are extremely dangerous to your eyes and skin and in short exposures like a wand, they’re unlikely to have much impact on anything.

You could end up with a skin cancer risk and cataracts and have had no impact on the coronavirus at all.

Where they are used properly in systems that are well designed they’re probably effective but, you’re seeing stuff like UVC germicidal lamps being sold online with very little likelihood of them being used safely.

Higher energy UVC rays are ionising radiation. They’re not safe to even look at briefly.

arccosh

queue a load of anti vaxxers waving UVC wands around "this won't effect us, sure the sun gives us UV rays which we need for vitamin D processing"

kleiner feigling

Turtwig wrote: »

I don't get this people going daft thing or the government losing them. By and large all the data and cases of infections showed people were massively compliant. The data simply didn't show mass disobedience that people here seem to be implying. There'll always be the minority taking exception with the guidances. The vast majority were clearly keeping with the spirit of them.

Non-compliance and lower case numbers can, and do, co-exist.

Myself and quite a few friends broke the rules consistently, but that does not mean we were reckless or impacting case numbers or creating risk.
I visited a few relatives around the country and did some trips to the beach etc. We took the correct precaution of ONLY meeting OUTSIDE.

The reason people broke the guidelines is because they are nonsensical, unscientific, and have no public health benefit (eg. 2/5 km limits, outdoor gatherings etc.)

FishOnABike

AdamD wrote: »

Ah yes, a completely arbitray rule to determine who loses their livelihoods and who doesn't, which actually pushed people towards a smaller number of premises making them busier and thus riskier. A policy so successful its been scrapped.

But yeah, we just didn't understand.

The rule pre dated CoViD / NPHET. Pre existing legislation had set €9 as being the threshold as to what constituted a substantial meal.

The initial intent was that public houses would be closed but restaurants would remain open with restrictions ( pre booking, all seated, no. of people per table, contact information, social distancing, time limit, etc... ). Restaurants and public houses will usually have different types of licence or certificate allowing a distinction to be made.

Public houses successfully argued that there was no difference between having a drink with your meal and having a meal with your drink, provided all the other relevant restrictions were observed.

The pre existing definition of a substantial meal in our licencing legislation was then used to make the distinction between food and non-food businesses.

There was nothing arbitrary about it. It was based on pre existing legislation and recognised that some public houses operated substantially as restaurants and could continue to do so.

As the number of people allowed on a premises, people per table, spacing between tables, etc... were all limited it would have resulted in fewer people being able to go for a meal + drink rather than pushing the same number of people into fewer premises.

Pandiculation

arccosh wrote: »

queue a load of anti vaxxers waving UVC wands around "this won't effect us, sure the sun gives us UV rays which we need for vitamin D processing"

Yeah there’s all sorts of quackery going on. It’s worth noting that no UVC rays from the sun get though the atmosphere. UVA and UVB cause skin tanning responses in humans, are used by plants to photosynthesise and so on, but nothing on the planet is happy being exposed to UVC, which is why it’s so deadly to bacteria and some viruses and anything living.

Given they or produce potentially ionising forms of UV, perhaps if they were called Chernobyl Bulbs people woke be less laid back about their use.

A lot of the surface cleaning can be done with just detergents as the virus is a lipid enclosed particle and tends to be very effectively broken up or at least captured by your typical decent detergent.

It’s not very hardy. Some bacteria are more problematic so if you’re trying to remove say MSRA or C. Diff in a hospital context you need strong stuff. They have cell walls and can survive for a long time on surfaces.

A virus needs hosts and quite quickly. Fragile but deadly little ******ers!

Hand hygiene and being aware of high contact surfaces like public door handles, hand rails and buttons is still important though.

Definitely using the hand sanitiser is likely helping a lot and seems to also have had an enormous impact on flu transmission too.

pauldry

pauldry wrote: »

A bit weary that we are opening too early. But I suppose people were going daft but there will be throngs of people everywhere. I think the last place I want to go now is a poxy restuarant sitting outside in temperatures of 8c for the next few weeks. .

Almost 30pc of adults have received at least one dose - and one dose is what confers the majority of protection after a 2-3 week period.

Most of the vulnerable are within that 30pc.

Furthermore, by the time middle of May comes around, a further 8% of the population will be vaccinated.

We're not opening too early at all. If anything, it's about right.

AdamD

Turtwig wrote: »

I don't get this people going daft thing or the government losing them. By and large all the data and cases of infections showed people were massively compliant. The data simply didn't show mass disobedience that people here seem to be implying. There'll always be the minority taking exception with the guidances. The vast majority were clearly keeping with the spirit of them.

Anyone who took a stroll down the Grand Canal and up into Stephen's Green on any of the last 3 or 4 weekends could see thousands of people had moved on, though doing so outdoors at least.

People also seem to think they're more compliant than they actually are.

Pandiculation

To be fair, people were very complaint or, at least very careful and pragmatic, as otherwise we wouldn’t have reduced transmission so dramatically and rapidly.

We should be taking advantage of the fact that we are mostly a very low density country with a lot of fresh air.

The climate here from now until almost October is very benign. It’s not the Mediterranean, but it’s not very hot or cold. Other than it can be showery, it’s very compatible with being outdoors and 100% comptable with easy, natural ventilation. You don’t need tons of air conditioning.

CruelSummer

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/behind-the-scenes-how-dr-tony-holohan-gained-the-confidence-for-surprising-reopening-decision-40372356.html

Very interesting article giving a background on nphet’s advice this week.

Great to see Míchéal Martin giving a positive speech yesterday, long may it continue! As we vaccinate more, things will settle further again.

“ However, chief medical officer Tony Holohan, who recently returned to work, looked at the data on the virus and decided that, while cases are spiking, most of the other metrics used to measure transmission are going in the right direction. Hospitalisations and admissions to intensive-care units are down. New cases among people aged over 70 and those with serious medical conditions have reduced significantly.”

kleiner feigling

CruelSummer wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/behind-the-scenes-how-dr-tony-holohan-gained-the-confidence-for-surprising-reopening-decision-40372356.html

Very interesting article giving a background on nphet’s advice this week.

Great to see Míchéal Martin giving a positive speech yesterday, long may it continue! As we vaccinate more, things will settle further again.

“ However, chief medical officer Tony Holohan, who recently returned to work, looked at the data on the virus and decided that, while cases are spiking, most of the other metrics used to measure transmission are going in the right direction. Hospitalisations and admissions to intensive-care units are down. New cases among people aged over 70 and those with serious medical conditions have reduced significantly.”

The PCR tests results are unreliable at best. The results cannot be assumed to be legitimate "cases".

"The PCR technology used in tests to detect viruses cannot distinguish between viruses capable of infecting cells and viruses that have been neutralized by the immune system and therefore these tests cannot be used to determine whether someone is contagious or not. RNA from viruses can often be detected for weeks (sometimes months) after the illness but does not mean that you are still contagious." From the Swedish Public Health Agency

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/v/vagledning-om-kriterier-for-bedomning-av-smittfrihet-vid-covid-19/

seamus

Early numbers today; 658 positive swabs in 22,296.

2.95%

Not terrible, but a deviation from the decent performance over the last couple of days, and a very large swab number. I wonder are there some specific outbreaks *cough* intel *cough* bumping it up.

kleiner feigling

seamus wrote: »

Early numbers today; 658 positive swabs in 22,296.

2.95%

Not terrible, but a deviation from the decent performance over the last couple of days, and a very large swab number. I wonder are there some specific outbreaks *cough* intel *cough* bumping it up.

Swabs = meaningless
Lets focus on accurate, verifiable data.

FishOnABike

kleiner feigling wrote: »

The PCR tests results are unreliable at best. The results cannot be assumed to be legitimate "cases".

"The PCR technology used in tests to detect viruses cannot distinguish between viruses capable of infecting cells and viruses that have been neutralized by the immune system and therefore these tests cannot be used to determine whether someone is contagious or not. RNA from viruses can often be detected for weeks (sometimes months) after the illness but does not mean that you are still contagious."

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/v/vagledning-om-kriterier-for-bedomning-av-smittfrihet-vid-covid-19/

I don't see how that implies that PCR results are unreliable.

It does indicate that the technology can be mis-applied and/or the results mis-interpreted to imply something they do not. This does not mean the technology or the results themselves are unreliable.

stephenjmcd

seamus wrote: »

Early numbers today; 658 positive swabs in 22,296.

2.95%

Not terrible, but a deviation from the decent performance over the last couple of days, and a very large swab number. I wonder are there some specific outbreaks *cough* intel *cough* bumping it up.

Press conference at 2pm as well. Everyone shutting up shop early for the bank holiday.

That's some amount of tests for 24hrs

TheDoctor

22k tests!!!

kleiner feigling

FishOnABike wrote: »

I don't see how that implies that PCR technology is unreliable.

It does indicate that it can be mis-applied and/or the results mis-interpreted to imply something they do not. This does not mean the technology or the results themselves are unreliable.

It can detect virus, but in many cases the virus is already dead or may be a remnant from previous weeks/months - therefore posing absolutely no risk of infection. This limitation is important.

stephenjmcd

TheDoctor wrote: »

22k tests!!!

Absolutely mass testing there. My guess is Intel. Had heard everyone there was being tested earlier this week

seamus

kleiner feigling wrote: »

Lets focus on accurate, verifiable data.

What about swabs is not accurate or verifiable?

It's actually another very useful metric in the context of vaccines.

We've now seen about a month of stability in the number of positive swabs, averaging 400-500 a day, ~2.7% and yet the numbers in hospital or ICU have continued to decline. There was a point last year where an average of 300/day was giving us cause to sh1t ourselves.

ginoginelli

Pandiculation wrote: »

Seems the main focus needs to be ventilation, ventilation and ventilation. We got very caught up on the surface cleaning and that appears to be very much secondary to the main risk that was always enclosed spaces with poor air changes.

The better summer weather needs to be used to it maximum to get outdoor and semi outdoor stuff happening.

Also much better advice on ventilation needs to br publicly available and communicated well.

By the time the weather turns cooler in September, we should be very thoroughly vaccinated with 2 doses. So it’ll be much easier.

I'm worryingly hearing pubs and cafe owners taking about how covid compliant they were in the past and plan to be in future. Many of them and other indoor businesses are still talking about 1 metre distance and putting hand sanatizers on every table etc.

The cynic in me doesnt think this is just a poorly educated stance, many of these business simply cant afford or are not able to ventilate their businesses properly and are deliberately playing dumb.

Its super importantly that the goverment spell the updated message out to these people and sanction them if they dont comply.

Also antigen tests and vaccine bonus perks should be utilized anywhere where there is increased risk.

kleiner feigling

seamus wrote: »

What about swabs is not accurate or verifiable?

It's actually another very useful metric in the context of vaccines.

We've now seen about a month of stability in the number of positive swabs, averaging 400-500 a day, ~2.7% and yet the numbers in hospital or ICU have continued to decline. There was a point last year where an average of 300/day was giving us cause to sh1t ourselves.

#1 - Correlation is not causation.
#2 - As mentioned, PCR can detect virus, but it detects dead and inactive virus, which has no bearing on infectivity (ie. Covid negative)

mohawk

Pandiculation wrote: »

To be fair, people were very complaint or, at least very careful and pragmatic, as otherwise we wouldn’t have reduced transmission so dramatically and rapidly.

We should be taking advantage of the fact that we are mostly a very low density country with a lot of fresh air.

The climate here from now until almost October is very benign. It’s not the Mediterranean, but it’s not very hot or cold. Other than it can be showery, it’s very compatible with being outdoors and 100% comptable with easy, natural ventilation. You don’t need tons of air conditioning.

Message from government needs to be turn off the air con and open doors and windows. They have known importance of ventilation for many months at this stage and they aren’t pushing that message to businesses.

bennyl10

seamus wrote: »

Early numbers today; 658 positive swabs in 22,296.

2.95%

Not terrible, but a deviation from the decent performance over the last couple of days, and a very large swab number. I wonder are there some specific outbreaks *cough* intel *cough* bumping it up.

Surely with only a 3% positive this is a good thing?

Yes it’s a ‘high positive number’

But the percentage is fantastic