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

Bit cynical

gozunda wrote: »

Ireland like every other country in the EU have added debt due to the global pandemic. Luckily for us Ireland was the only EU economy to grow in 2020

But yeah it's all mehole & leo fault ...

And absolutely nothing to do with the fact we've managed to bring down the rate of infection whilst rolling out the biggest vaccination programme in the states history.

I would say a lot of it is to do with the fact that a lot of Irish GDP is multinationals largely unaffected by the pandemic. Our domestic economy has actually been badly effected by restrictions.

gozunda

ArthurDayne wrote: »

Yes, it would be fairly stupid to say that something cannot be both minimised and manageable. It would be equally stupid to say they are incompatible. Thankfully however, that is not what I said or suggested at all — whether you are just misinterpreting or deliberately just misrepresenting it.How you are contriving to see this as being “tied up in knots” is beyond me. It’s quite simple, the government did not pursue a strategy of minimising Covid infections. You only have to look at the strategy and by any objective measure this would be obvious — there would be a strict lockdown followed by a period of reopening. You don’t have to be epidemiologist to understand that when you reopen things, in a context where the virus is already endemic, there is likely to be a rise in infection. So if that’s a policy of minimising Covid infection outright, then I’m Harry Potter.
I don’t understand how this isn’t clear by just looking at the pattern of how the approach unfolded: cases rise > lockdown > cases drop > reopen > cases inevitably rise from reopening > lockdown > repeat. Saying that this is a policy of minimising infections outright is like saying that piano means fish. It was a policy aimed at controlling the level of infection to thresholds where the health service would be able to cope.

Hi Mr Potter

Thanks for the very long answer. But you're tying yourself in knots there again.

And this is exactly what you posted in reply to the other poster

ArthurDayne wrote:

...
saying that lockdown was not based on just minimising infection but on minimising it to the extent hospitals could cope. Now, here you are, talking about cases being "manageable" rather than simply just being minimised

If the strategy was about minimising Covid and saving as many lives as possible then we would not be reopening anything at all right now. Do you really not see the utter contradiction here between what you are saying now and what you were saying ..well...less than an hour ago?!

And pls don't try and weasel out of that one by going on another long soliquay

Pandiculation

Bit cynical wrote: »

I would say a lot of it is to do with the fact that a lot of Irish GDP is multinationals largely unaffected by the pandemic. Our domestic economy has actually been badly effected by restrictions.

That could also shut us out of EU stimulus packages, as we look on paper in a lot better shape than we are.

I suspect we’re looking at a tale of two economies here over the next few years. Hopefully the economic impact of the presence of MNCs and jobs from those revenue streams both in those companies and in Irish companies with less dependence on the domestic market drives economic activity.

A lot is also very dependent on how our key trading partners are doing and for us that’s basically the US, the other 26 EU members and U.K.

It could end up being more optimistic though if they ride out of this on stimulus and pent up consumer spending coming back.

The problem is it’s extremely hard to predict as there’s no history of anything quite like this.

I’m concerned that in Europe in particular, and Ireland included, there’s less vision beyond cheque book balancing type approaches to fiscal policy.

The US could well steam ahead with New Deal 2.0 while Europe debates fiscal rectitude.

Stormyteacup

Graham wrote: »

FYP

Well yes that works too. The point remains the same. It was known that cases would rise, and restrictions were lifted anyway.

castletownman

Heard on the 1PM news there that there are some cabinet ministers "concerned" about the speed of re-opening ahead of the announcement tonight (that they are opening too fast).

They should be named and shamed because they clearly don't have the best interests of their constituents in mind.

Pandiculation

There’ll always be concerns. Seems cabinet collectivity went out the window decades ago here though! As usual, cabinet ministers briefing against government policies that they’ve agreed upon as a cabinet and government.

billyhead

castletownman wrote: »

Heard on the 1PM news there that there are some cabinet ministers "concerned" about the speed of re-opening ahead of the announcement tonight (that they are opening too fast).

They should be named and shamed because they clearly don't have the best interests of their constituents in mind.

You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't. Can't have it both ways.

Graham

Stormyteacup wrote: »

Well yes that works too. The point remains the same. It was known that cases would rise, and restrictions were lifted anyway.

Something we've spent almost the entire first quarter paying the price for.

gozunda

Stormyteacup wrote: »

Precisely. A prime example of this was Christmas and the easing of restrictions that were sanctioned, in full acknowledgement of an expected rise in cases that would translate to hospitalisations and deaths.

The judgment was that the health services would be able to cope with these increases. The extent of the rise in cases was under-predicted, but if the overall goal was to minimise deaths and hospitalisations without consideration for capicity, then there would have been no sanctioned lifting of restrictions during the Christmas period.

Well no. We clearly do have a policy of minimising and attempting to manage the rate of infection.

And restrictions were lifted when infection rates were low. Like last summer when rates stayed down for an extended period.

When numbers did increase - restrictions levels were increased to reduce/ help keep down / minimise the rate of infection.

The main issue in all that was the mistake made to drop restrictions due to popular demand at Christmas. A change interestingly enough which was enabled by a policy of increasing restrictions prior to that.

Unfortunately a combination of factors including increased socialisation beyond recommendations (which many attributed to "pent up demand"), inward bound travel and a new more transmissible variant meant that those restrictions had to be brought back in sooner than anticipated to help bring down the rapid rise of infections and increased hospitalisations Which they did thankfully

So yes to date we've used a policy of minimising the rate of infection and overall our health services have been able to cope. Thankfully

Stormyteacup

gozunda wrote: »

Hi Mr Potter

Thanks for the very long answer. But you're tying yourself in knots there again.

And this is exactly what you posted in reply to the other poster



And pls don't try and weasel out of that one by going on another long soliquay

This is illogical nonsense and doesn’t reinforce you point the way you seem to think it does.

Poster’s position is that cases can be both minimised and manageable. But there is evidence that government have made decisions based on manageability over minimalising of cases.

Another poster was called out for vacillating between one and the other. They are not mutually exclusive, but if our course was to minimise hospitalisations and deaths without regard to capacity of health services then we should have been in level five for the last thirteen months.

Pitch n Putt

Klonker wrote: »

There has definitely been a shift. Earlier in the week we were being given leaks that the government wanted to ease inter county travel in late June and NPHET wanted early July and low and behold now its easing 10th May! That is a huge change.

Its funny though there are posters here who earlier in the week were happy with the expected easing leaks and we needed to be that cautious and now they are also happy with the new expected easing and think that's appropriate also. It just shows they actually don't have an opinion apart from just agreeing with whatever NPHET tell them. At least the people texting into Pat Kenny complaining it's too quick and we'll have another surge seem to have an opinion on the situation no matter how much I disagree with them!

Back to my point, there has been a big shift the last 36 hours but it seems to be coming from NPHET rather than government. I get it hard to believe the government grow a backbone all of a sudden. They all seemed giddy yesterday like when your teacher allowed you to go out and play outside for the rest of your class! Why NPHETs stance changed would be just guessing until maybe be get told a bit more information. My guess would be more international data on vaccines, particularly from Israel and the UK, less worry about variants dispute RTEs best efforts and also the fact a lot of people had moved on and were following their own rules anyway (meeting up outside etc) so the official rules need to catch up to stay credible.

From the governments perspective they have to sign up to the green cert in June/July so they need to allign this with more closely with out internal restrictions. It wouldn't go down well with tourists flying in and out and us still under county restrictions. Also no doubt Northern Irelands reopening would be part of the government mind too.

I would think the big shift may have come in the form of a phone call from the EU bosses.

Something along the lines of

“Hello Mr Martin

You and you’re NPHET teams policies and fears of this virus are ridiculous. You telling me you have the whole nation locked down with 150 peoples in hospital from a population of 4.9million. Insane Mr Martin and by the way the money’s run out for Ireland. “

Goodbye “

Que the complete turnaround thank god.

Had to happen eventually.

Now let’s carry on with life.

Stormyteacup

Graham wrote: »

Something we've spent almost the entire first quarter paying the price for.

That’s not in dispute. The point is if government held a position of minimising deaths and hospitalisations there would have been no reopening in December. They don’t, so there was.

Pandiculation

There’s a risk in this. That’s a given. However, it’s clearly a calculated risk. We know that the most vulnerable are vaccinated at this stage and that isn’t just the elderly, but also front line health workers who were at enormous risk.

As the next few weeks go on we will likely be into the 40s and 50s age groups, so it will be getting safer and safer very rapidly as the mid summer arrives.

There are obviously outlying risks like variants, but so far they haven’t been game changing and the EU has more than 2 billion doses on order, which this time include updates to mRNA vaccines should they need arise. Is very unlikely we’re going to see the teething problems with vaccines that we saw in January-March.

The key thing we need to do is ensure we don’t completely stand down the vaccine delivery infrastructure this autumn, both in Ireland and the wider EU. We need to keep it for another 6 to 12 months, in a situation where it can at least be rolled out quickly again should the need arise

We’re also going to just have to be a lot more careful of screening at the border and I think tbh that’s something the EU is going to have to do at external borders too as we can’t really afford another wave.

It also doesn’t need to be a hugely burdensome thing of the technology and protocols at borders are right.

The vaccine production capacity also needs to be ramped up and kept up to get those vaccines out globally to restore normality. I wouldn’t like to see Europe or anywhere that has the capacity to do that take the foot off the accelerator as soon as it’s dealt with domestically. It needs to be global. It’s the only way we can ultimately end or at least control this permanently.

Graham

Pitch n Putt wrote: »

I would think the big shift may have come in the form of a phone call from the EU bosses.

That one sentence alone demonstrates quite clearly you don't quite understand the role of the EU.

Graham

Stormyteacup wrote: »

That’s not in dispute. The point is if government held a position of minimising deaths and hospitalisations there would have been no reopening in December. They don’t, so there was.

If that were entirely accurate there would have been no restrictions this year. There was, so it isn't.

Cool game, a refreshing change from playing 'things people never said'

Pitch n Putt

Graham wrote: »

That one sentence alone demonstrates quite clearly you don't quite understand the role of the EerU.

Well we ain’t funding the sh1tshow we have here for the last year on our own.
If I remember correctly our great leaders signed us up for the free money now program with the promise of huge payback to the Eu in the future.

Stormyteacup

gozunda wrote: »

Well no. We clearly do have a policy of minimising and attempting to manage the rate of infection.

And restrictions were lifted when infection rates were low. Like last summer when rates stayed down for an extended period.

When numbers did increase - restrictions levels were increased to reduce/ help keep down / minimise the rate of infection.

The main issue in all that was the mistake made to drop restrictions due to popular demand at Christmas. A change interestingly enough which was enabled by a policy of increasing restrictions prior to that.

Unfortunately a combination of factors including increased socialisation beyond recommendations (which many attributed to "pent up demand"), inward bound travel and a new more transmissible variant meant that those restrictions had to be brought back in sooner than anticipated to help bring down the rapid rise of infections and increased hospitalisations Which they did thankfully

So yes to date we've used a policy of minimising the rate of infection and overall our health services have been able to cope. Thankfully

You’re still conflating minimising cases with ability of healthcare services to cope. If government were concerned predominantly with minimising cases, heavy restrictions would continue.

Cases may now rise with easing of restrictions - and translate to hospitalisations and deaths, especially with all the behaviour that surround safe outdoor activities, but that’s okay as health services will be able to cope.

gozunda

Bit cynical wrote: »

I would say a lot of it is to do with the fact that a lot of Irish GDP is multinationals largely unaffected by the pandemic. Our domestic economy has actually been badly effected by restrictions.

So what you're saying is that we're lucky to have these multinationals who provide employment and income to many here?

I don't doubt the domestic economy has been badly effected. Even Sweden with its up down up down approach to the Pandemic has taken a big hit as have many other countries including ourselves.

That said once the pandemic is truely under control I would see a massive bounce back for all economies.

Stormyteacup

Graham wrote: »

If that were entirely accurate there would have been no restrictions this year. There was, so it isn't.

Cool game, a refreshing change from playing 'things people never said'

Well there would have been - to protect the health services?

ArthurDayne

gozunda wrote: »

Hi Mr Potter

Thanks for the very long answer. But you're tying yourself in knots there again.

And this is exactly what you posted in reply to the other poster



And pls don't try and weasel out of that one by going on another long soliquay

Well, I applaud the fact that you have given up on the exercise of rewriting the government’s strategy to suit your own narrative — but maybe you want to read that sentence again, with the important bit written in bold:

“Now, here you are, talking about cases being "manageable" rather than simply just being minimised“.

Do you understand the significance of me saying “simply just” there? If you took away the bit in bold and changed it to “instead of” then you would have a point ....but I didn’t say that....so you don’t. There’s no weaseling required, you just didn’t read it right.

Graham

Pitch n Putt wrote: »

Well we ain’t funding the sh1tshow we have here for the last year on our own.
If I remember correctly our great leaders signed us up for the free money now program with the promise of huge payback to the Eu in the future.

Not seeing the connection PnP.

Graham

Stormyteacup wrote: »

Well there would have been - to protect the health services?

and this would have been achieved by......

Wait for it......

Stormyteacup wrote: »

minimising deaths and hospitalisations

gozunda

Stormyteacup wrote: »

You’re still conflating minimising cases with ability of healthcare services to cope. If government were concerned predominantly with minimising cases, heavy restrictions would continue.

Cases may now rise with easing of restrictions - and translate to hospitalisations and deaths, especially with all the behaviour that surround safe outdoor activities, but that’s okay as health services will be able to cope.

Nope. By minimising the rate of infection - you allow health services to cope. Lifting restrictions periodically when infection rates are low doesn't change that.

The current rate of infection is down as it was last summer and when restrictions were gradually lowered. Call it dynamic control if you will but the policy has meant that our health services have coped even with the rise in the rate of infection which we saw at Christmas

We now have vaccinations which are a game changer. Let's hope we have enough people vaccinated so that we don't have to use restrictions again to bring down/ minimise the rate of infection again.

head82

Just heard on RTE news a comment from some minister (didn't catch his name) that it's expected upto 200,000 people could resume work by the end of July as a result of the easing of restrictions.
I could have sworn I heard Paschal say a week or two ago that he expects 70,000 to return to the workforce by the end of the year! As if that figure was something to be championed.

It's a rather extreme change of tone. As surprising as the recent announcement/leak regarding the earlier than expected .. albeit partial.. opening of the economy.
I can't help but feel this earlier than expected.. but very welcomed.. relaxation is motivated by financial reasons as opposed to vaccine rollout success or NPHET advice.

With the Covid supports, PUP etc. planned to come to an end in June, a justification will be required and this earlier opening will provide that.

CalamariFritti

eggy81 wrote: »

This thread is amazing.

It really is. Trying to stay away from the petty to-ing and fro-ing for a while now (its not going anywhere) but it does give an amazing insight into the psyche of the boards nation.

Always_Running

First it was July 7th for supporters to return to outdoor sport matches and now Mr Martin suggesting August?

I don't see the sense to not allow small numbers back in for June especially when a number of indoor activities will be open that month.

gozunda

Stormyteacup wrote: »

This is illogical nonsense and doesn’t reinforce you point the way you seem to think it does.
Poster’s position is that cases can be both minimised and manageable. But there is evidence that government have made decisions based on manageability over minimalising of cases.Another poster was called out for vacillating between one and the other. They are not mutually exclusive, but if our course was to minimise hospitalisations and deaths without regard to capacity of health services then we should have been in level five for the last thirteen months.

Again incorrect. I see no evidence as you suggest that "that government have made decisions based on manageability over minimalising of cases."

They have clearly achieved both together. The other poster didn't "vacillate" - he said the same.

And thats the thing the aim was to minimise the rate of infection to ensure that our health services could cope. Health services which were put through an intensive programme of adaption to be be able to handle covid patient care and treatment and which coped even when the **** hit the fan.

And we clearly didn't need to be in "level 5 for 13 months" to achieve that. We achieved it. Ireland has thankfully had a low death rate and infection rate compared to many other countries. Lets keep it that way.

Stormyteacup

Graham wrote: »

and this would have been achieved by......

Wait for it......

Ok to try and spell it out..

There is a difference between minimising cases so health services can cope, and minimising cases to keep deaths and hospitalisations to a minimum.

Example - 400 cases a day may reduce hospitalisations, and 1,000 cases a day will be within limits of health services being able to cope. The latter will lead to more deaths, but was considered an acceptable level of infections.

Stormyteacup

gozunda wrote: »

Again incorrect. I see no evidence as you suggest that "that government have made decisions based on manageability over minimalising of cases."

They have clearly done both. The other poster didn't "vacillate" - he said the same.

And thats the thing the aim was to minimise the rate of infection to ensure that our health services could cope. Health services which were put through an intensive programme of adaption to be be able to handle covid patient care and treatment and which coped even when the **** hit the fan.

And we clearly didn't need to be in "level 5 for 13 months" to achieve that. We achieved it. Ireland has thankfully had a low death rate and infection rate compared to many other countries. Lets keep it that way.

I see, so we’ve done both. In equal parts or? We have a low rate of death thankfully, but you can’t argue that it wouldn’t have been lower if we’d remained in level 5 for 13 months.

Graham

head82 wrote: »

Just heard on RTE news a comment from some minister (didn't catch his name) that it's expected upto 200,000 people could resume work by the end of July as a result of the easing of restrictions.
I could have sworn I heard Paschal say a week or two ago that he expects 70,000 to return to the workforce by the end of the year! As if that figure was something to be championed.

It's a rather extreme change of tone.

I suspect one figure refers to the number of people who's place of work is currently closed, the other refers to the number returning to the workforce from unemployment.