Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

Martina1991

Peter Flynt wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/nphet-sidelined-as-governmentset-to-defy-advice-and-press-on-withrapid-antigen-tests-40600533.html

This is a huge turning point.

NPHET's advice is effectively to be ignored on antigen testing with outside international expertise brought in to advise.

So Donnolly is setting up a new group because he didn't like the results of the first study.

The Expert Rapid Test Group will be tasked with progressing the use of rapid tests in a number of settings, including schools and colleges.

The group will also examine IF they can be used to facilitate indoor dining in pubs and restaurants.

Theres no guarantee they will be used for hospitality.
Another evaluation will take months, meanwhile another million or so vaccines will be given.

I don't think people realise how big of a task it is to set up a completely new testing service from scratch. All for a cohort of unvaccinated people that is only diminishing with the roll out.

Messi19

Imagine going back 12 months ago that with no sign of a vaccine on the horizon at the time and someone saying we'd be in a far far worse situation, if NPHET are to be believed, in 12 month's time despite having most of the adult population vaccinated. You'd probably laugh

rm212

Ger Roe wrote: »

Was it a first year journo student that wrote that clickbait headline? - "CMO threatens to take indoor dining off the menu until October"

The CMO gives his opinion on the health matters that he is asked to monitor and he advises Government who then take a collective decision to agree with him, or not. The headline on that article is a blatant misrepresentation of the CMO role, designed to create clicks. Tony Holohan can't take anything 'off the menu'. That's the role of our highly paid elected reps.

I would not like to have Tony Holohan's job, particularly when bad journalism like that encourages inaccurate personification of his role.

And yet that's exactly what he did. The leader of the country said they will look into testing to introduce indoor dining, and the CMO, asked later, after that comment, said that it could not happen.

is_that_so

Martina1991 wrote: »

So Donnolly is setting up a new group because he didn't like the results of the first study.



Theres no guarantee they will be used for hospitality.
Another evaluation will take months, meanwhile another million or so vaccines will be given.

I don't think people realise how big of a task it is to set up a completely new testing service from scratch. All for a cohort of unvaccinated people that is only diminishing with the roll out.

He's looking at other options, options other countries use and that NPHET are not prepared to countenance. They freely admit that the digital cert was a compromise to their own proposal of "beyond September". This is not the main issue, despite the outrage, it's how policy would be affected after July 19 with the wacky predictions we've been given. That affects all of us.

iamwhoiam

lemmno wrote: »

Personally I think postponing indoor dining for a while longer is fine, or allowing it only for the fully vaccinated. I haven’t had any vaccine yet myself, I’m waiting for my turn like many others. It wouldn’t bother me one bit if all my vaccinated family and friends could enjoy a meal or a pint indoors without me. I feel very sorry for all businesses involved of course but I personally think Nphet should be listened to for now. We all remember what happened when people started shouting about how we all deserved to have a good Christmas. It’s easy to say that’s life or people were always going to die etc but nobody wants it at their own door.

What they haven’t factored in is what actually happens now if indoor dining doesn’t open . In my opinion it will push young people indoors into houses and they will gather in groups with no control or restrictions . As a young girls on the news said most young people don’t have the luxary of a big garden to have a BBQ. They live in bedsits and shared homes and let it rain for a week and they wont be sitting along the canals they will be crowded into small flats .

The less venues open for people the more the huddle in crowds elsewhere
The very same thing happened in Dublin with a 5kms limit . The less room we had to spread the fuller the parks got . It got to a stage when parks were jam packed with crowds on top of each other
As soon as they lifted that restrictions the crowds spread out .

Ger Roe

rm212 wrote: »

And yet that's exactly what he did. The leader of the country said they will look into testing to introduce indoor dining, and the CMO, asked later, after that comment, said that it could not happen.

He can't say that it can't happen, so I would wonder about how his statements are being reported - from the Indo today :

"Yesterday, Dr Holohan also ruled out the use of negative tests for Covid-19, including rapid antigen tests, to allow people to access indoor hospitality.

How exactly did he 'rule it out' ? - when he can't actually do that. He may have expressed an opinion that it will be ineffective and ill advised, but the Government will decided on what is ruled out ... or in.

"He also warned Nphet would recommend keeping pubs and restaurants closed for indoor dining until the “end of September or beyond” if a so-called vaccine and immunisation pass was not introduced for indoor dining."

Unfortunately, the media are implying that he has more power and responsibility than he actually has and it is becoming quite personal. It would be more accurate to report that the CMO still stands by or reiterates his previous opinion.

The people who should be taken to task for the actual management of our situation are the Government that we have elected to make decisions on our behalf ..... they can listen to, or ignore whoever they want, but they have to take the responsibility for their actions (or inaction) in the end.

NoLuckLarry

lemmno wrote: »

Personally I think postponing indoor dining for a while longer is fine, or allowing it only for the fully vaccinated. I haven’t had any vaccine yet myself, I’m waiting for my turn like many others. It wouldn’t bother me one bit if all my vaccinated family and friends could enjoy a meal or a pint indoors without me. I feel very sorry for all businesses involved of course but I personally think Nphet should be listened to for now. We all remember what happened when people started shouting about how we all deserved to have a good Christmas. It’s easy to say that’s life or people were always going to die etc but nobody wants it at their own door.

Absolutely not, not after their display this week of absolute nonsense projections and lies. I'm fine if the government want an extra week or 2 to monitor the situation in other countries but that should be the end of it, if they continue to listen to Tony and Co we will never get these restrictions lifted and the summer will be gone before we know it.

We've done 15 months of this now, the vulnerable are vaccinated and the whole "protect your granny" thing is gone. There has to be an acceptable level of deaths established now, this idea of "even one death is too much" is absolute bollix and has been since day 1 of this.

seamus

Ger Roe wrote: »

Unfortunately, the media are implying that he has more power and responsibility than he actually has and it is becoming quite personal. It would be more accurate to report that the CMO still stands by or reiterates his previous opinion.

This. Regardless of how popular it is to claim that Holohan is in charge, the reality is that he is still just an advisor, it is the government who makes the decisions.

The fact that they won't differ from NPHET's advice, is still a decision that the elected officials have made, and it's worth remembering that when it comes to pointing fingers.

I expect the revelation yesterday that the NPHET models were redundant before they were even presented to the cabinet, is going to shake things up a bit over the next ten days anyway. The decision to stick with NPHET advice no matter what will look ever more and more like a dogmatic position and not a pragmatic one.

HildaOgdenx

iamwhoiam wrote: »

What they haven’t factored in is what actually happens now if indoor dining doesn’t open . In my opinion it will push young people indoors into houses and they will gather in groups with no control or restrictions . As a young girls on the news said most young people don’t have the luxary of a big garden to have a BBQ. They live in bedsits and shared homes and let it rain for a week and they wont be sitting along the canals they will be crowded into small flats .

The less venues open for people the more the huddle in crowds elsewhere
The very same thing happened in Dublin with a 5kms limit . The less room we had to spread the fuller the parks got . It got to a stage when parks were jam packed with crowds on top of each other
As soon as they lifted that restrictions the crowds spread out .

Agreed.

Indoor dining now is being portrayed as a big bogeyman, waiting to infect us all. Restaurants and pubs have measures in place to ensure social distancing. We were able to dine indoors at various times in 2020 when nobody was vaccinated. :rolleyes:

As for the idea of a 'pass', no, I don't agree with that, whatsoever.
I'm vaccinated so I can have a social life, but the younger people working in the restaurant I am in, cannot.
That's a dangerous path to go down, imo.

The government needs to cop on, and take back the power they have handed lock stock and barrel to NPHET and especially to Tony Holohan. NPHET's brief is public health, the government should be looking at the bigger picture, the harm that is being done to many people, to businesses that may never reopen, and to the economy, overall.

I, like many others, have done everything asked of me throughout all of this, I know there are people in much worse situations than I am.
But enough is enough.

lemmno

NoLuckLarry wrote: »

Absolutely not, not after their display this week of absolute nonsense projections and lies. I'm fine if the government want an extra week or 2 to monitor the situation in other countries but that should be the end of it, if they continue to listen to Tony and Co we will never get these restrictions lifted and the summer will be gone before we know it.

We've done 15 months of this now, the vulnerable are vaccinated and the whole "protect your granny" thing is gone. There has to be an acceptable level of deaths established now, this idea of "even one death is too much" is absolute bollix and has been since day 1 of this.

I agree with you that the protect your granny element is now gone for sure. I’d be more worried about the person in a car accident who can’t get an ICU bed because it’s full of covid patients. The fact is our hospitals can’t take much, so while life absolutely has to go on and we’ve put up with a lot, we also have to be realistic about how understaffed and under equipped we are should delta take off. If more people were vaccinated I’d be fully with you but too many aren’t, in my opinion.

bloopy

lemmno wrote: »

I agree with you that the protect your granny element is now gone for sure. I’d be more worried about the person in a car accident who can’t get an ICU bed because it’s full of covid patients. The fact is our hospitals can’t take much, so while life absolutely has to go on and we’ve put up with a lot, we also have to be realistic about how understaffed and under equipped we are should delta take off. If more people were vaccinated I’d be fully with you but too many aren’t, in my opinion.

This is a shifting of the metrics again.
Each time we get close to reopening, the talking points move on to something else.

CruelSummer

The Claire Byrne texters to her show must surely be the most pro NPHET, pro restrictions, pro keep everything closed group of listeners in the country?

It’s not like they’re handpicking those particular texts or anything…

funnydoggy

CruelSummer wrote: »

The Claire Byrne texters to her show must surely be the most pro NPHET, pro restrictions, pro keep everything closed group of listeners in the country?

I can imagine the amount of people texting in who are as angry as many of us, but get glossed over or dismissed as "conspiracy" rubbish. RTE deserves to die a quick death.

Sweet.Science

lemmno wrote: »

I agree with you that the protect your granny element is now gone for sure. I’d be more worried about the person in a car accident who can’t get an ICU bed because it’s full of covid patients. The fact is our hospitals can’t take much, so while life absolutely has to go on and we’ve put up with a lot, we also have to be realistic about how understaffed and under equipped we are should delta take off. If more people were vaccinated I’d be fully with you but too many aren’t, in my opinion.

When will you stop worrying ? If there are 39 people in a country of over 5 million in hospital and you are worrying about capacity I don't think that will ever go away for you

What about flu season when there was no room in hospitals ? Elderly on trolleys . Did you worry then ? Did you want hospitality shut ?

fm

CruelSummer wrote: »

The Claire Byrne texters to her show must surely be the most pro NPHET, pro restrictions, pro keep everything closed group of listeners in the country?

It’s not like they’re handpicking those particular texts or anything…

You can be sure the texts read out are very carefully chosen by RTE

Peter Flynt

rm212 wrote: »

Yes, he has. The 25,000 PEOPLE being vulnerable figure is just blatantly wrong and reeks to me of manipulating the stats to try to add a human element, making it appear that there are 25,000 vulnerable individuals right now, whereas that's not at all what 95% efficacy means. There is no single vulnerable individual who is fully vaccinated, all fully vaccinated people now each have only a very small amount of vulnerability remaining.

Donnelly was just interviewed by Pat Kenny and he stated that Prof Nolan has told him that for every 1000 people in the UK who contracts the delta variant he expects 3 to die.

Therefore if Nolan is claiming there are 25,000 vulnerable people if the vaccines are to be 95% effective then this would equate to 75 deaths in Ireland.

rm212

Peter Flynt wrote: »

Donnelly was just interviewed by Pat Kenny and he stated that Prof Nolan has told him that for every 1000 people in the UK who contracts the delta variant he expects 3 to die.

Therefore if Nolan is claiming there are 25,000 vulnerable people if the vaccines are to be 95% effective then this would equate to 75 deaths in Ireland.

And yet their modelling said that up to 2000 deaths by September were possible? The numbers and stated facts from Nolan are not adding up at all...

Turtwig

Sweet.Science wrote: »

When will you stop worrying ? If there are 39 people in a country of over 5 million in hospital and you are worrying about capacity I don't think that will ever go away for you

What about flu season when there was no room in hospitals ? Elderly on trolleys . Did you worry then ? Did you want hospitality shut ?

Has influenza put 200+ people in ICU in a matter of weeks?Comparing this virus to influenza is unhelpful and extremely misinformed.

Further more the situation with covid is a dynamic one. Picking a static high or low number is unhelpful. You could pick the beginning of any previous wave and go "look numbers are low what's the problem?"
What matters is whether the number is growing or falling. Thankfully they're remaining flat. Whether this will remain to be the case is anyone's guess. Thankfully the UK is ahead of us in the spread of this thing. In six weeks we should have a clearer picture on what hospital impacts to expect.

lemmno

Sweet.Science wrote: »

When will you stop worrying ? If there are 39 people in a country of over 5 million in hospital and you are worrying about capacity I don't think that will ever go away for you

What about flu season when there was no room in hospitals ? Elderly on trolleys . Did you worry then ? Did you want hospitality shut ?

I’m not currently worried, actually. I worry about the rush to open things, a la December 2020, when we may not be ready for them. I am not trained in this field, I just tend to listen to those who are. And I don’t want hospitality shut. Ideally, I’d want it open outdoors for all and indoors for the vaccinated, just for another month or two until more people have their jabs. This is not to say that I think the unvaccinated should be kept out forever, (right to choose and all that) just long enough until everyone who actually wants the jab has it. Each to their own then and see what happens.
My opinion shouldn’t worry you though, I’m not Tony or Micheal or anyone else with any actual power. Just a regular boardsie like yourself expressing an opinion.

Ger Roe

Peter Flynt wrote: »

Donnelly was just interviewed by Pat Kenny and he stated that Prof Nolan has told him that for every 1000 people in the UK who contracts the delta variant he expects 3 to die.

Therefore if Nolan is claiming there are 25,000 vulnerable people if the vaccines are to be 95% effective then this would equate to 75 deaths in Ireland.

There are more vulnerable people than than than. People with only one of the two vaccine shots are also far more vulnerable to the delta variant. Sky news reporter Enda Brady was just interviewed on Claire Byrne (RTE Radio 1)- he had one shot, is a regular marathon runner and is now floored by delta covid. He also says he was extremely careful, taking all precautions and he still caught it. He says he was doing marathon training all last week and is now out of breath walking to the bathroom.

His interview is worth a listen back.

seamus

Not sure about the severity, but in case anyone was wondering whether Delta was actually that transmissible, since last week the UK has had more daily cases than the entire EU combined;

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-06-02..latest&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=total_cases&hideControls=true&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=false&Align+outbreaks=false&country=GBR~European+Union

Hospital admissions in the UK are up 66% in two weeks, but one good indicator is that hospital occupancy is has only grown slowly. This suggests that the length of stay in hospital for a covid patient is considerably shorter; which would indicate a much reduced severity.

The UK of course, opened up indoor dining & boozing six weeks ago with no passport/testing requirements when they had barely 50% of the population with a first dose.

So what you're seeing now in the UK is the result of that. While we're in a better place vaccine-wise, we're far from fully covered, and it's likely that if we were to open indoors for all on the 5th, then by the end of August we too would be in a poor position, case-wise.

The vaccine rollout would flatten case numbers more considerably than in the UK, but there's certainly valid cause for alarm when you see their situation. Opening indoors right now without any kind of cert or test, is just not a reasonable solution.

KrustyUCC

Peter Flynt wrote: »

Donnelly was just interviewed by Pat Kenny and he stated that Prof Nolan has told him that for every 1000 people in the UK who contracts the delta variant he expects 3 to die.

Therefore if Nolan is claiming there are 25,000 vulnerable people if the vaccines are to be 95% effective then this would equate to 75 deaths in Ireland.

Even the worse case scenario is 682,000 cases

Going on that should be 2046 deaths instead of 2170 he modelled

Peter Flynt

The UK is at about 50% full vaccination. I believe Ireland is at 20%.

The UK will fully reopen on July 19th (possibly without masks) and we will do the same when we have reached that level of vaccination. One would imagine this would be sometime at the end of summer or early Autumn when the schools reopen.

gipi

pc7 wrote: »

Is there any indication of when we will get proper vaccine data again along with the testing results etc?

Vaccine data now available from HSE

https://twitter.com/FergalBowers/status/1410541471397302274?s=19

stephenjmcd

Peter Flynt wrote: »

The UK is at about 50% full vaccination. I believe Ireland is at 20%.

The UK will fully reopen on July 19th (possibly without masks) and we will do the same when we have reached that level of vaccination. One would imagine this would be sometime at the end of summer or early Autumn when the schools reopen.

44% of Adults fully vaccinated as below

https://twitter.com/paulreiddublin/status/1410135021244108803?s=20

zackory

seamus wrote: »

Not sure about the severity, but in case anyone was wondering whether Delta was actually that transmissible, since last week the UK has had more daily cases than the entire EU combined;

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-06-02..latest&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=total_cases&hideControls=true&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=false&Align+outbreaks=false&country=GBR~European+Union

Hospital admissions in the UK are up 66% in two weeks, but one good indicator is that hospital occupancy is has only grown slowly. This suggests that the length of stay in hospital for a covid patient is considerably shorter; which would indicate a much reduced severity.

The UK of course, opened up indoor dining & boozing six weeks ago with no passport/testing requirements when they had barely 50% of the population with a first dose.

So what you're seeing now in the UK is the result of that. While we're in a better place vaccine-wise, we're far from fully covered, and it's likely that if we were to open indoors for all on the 5th, then by the end of August we too would be in a poor position, case-wise.

The vaccine rollout would flatten case numbers more considerably than in the UK, but there's certainly valid cause for alarm when you see their situation. Opening indoors right now without any kind of cert or test, is just not a reasonable solution.

They are nowhere near close to closing indoor hospitality though, from what I have seen.

Stheno

Peter Flynt wrote: »

The UK is at about 50% full vaccination. I believe Ireland is at 20%.

The UK will fully reopen on July 19th (possibly without masks) and we will do the same when we have reached that level of vaccination. One would imagine this would be sometime at the end of summer or early Autumn when the schools reopen.

Think your numbers are a little off

https://twitter.com/IrelandVaccine/status/1410546593149902850?s=20

OwenM

Peter Flynt wrote: »

The UK is at about 50% full vaccination. I believe Ireland is at 20%.

The UK will fully reopen on July 19th (possibly without masks) and we will do the same when we have reached that level of vaccination. One would imagine this would be sometime at the end of summer or early Autumn when the schools reopen.

43%

duffman13

duffman13 wrote: »

So I read his 36 tweets

Tweet 23 speculates on hospital admissions and deaths

This is based on a policy document in September of last year to plan for surges. The modelling plugged in is based on R numbers for cases which is probably still relevant.

It states planning for a hospitalisation rate of 2.6% of cases, current hospitalisation rate is below 1% here and is around 1% in the UK. So you've already got a huge variance on project hospital numbers.

Of these cases that are hospitalised 10.8% require ICU treatment. The ECDC have it currently 3.9%. We have vaccinations and a number of treatments which should bring this down further hopefully.

Two key indicators, hospitalisation and ICU cases appear to be using very much outdated inputs. Am i missing something?

If not we are over egging hospitalistions in all scenarios by a factor of nearly 3 and ICU by a lot lot more than that

After looking through projections above it annoyed me so I decided to try and use their own modelling for hospitalisations, ICU and Deaths and apply current actual hospitalisation rates within the EU and UK. I have placed NPHET projections first, then modelling based on actual current rates for each scenario.

So this is NPHETs modelling taking their own case number projections and applying a 1.1% hospitalisation rate (Its currently below this and at 1% in the UK). NPHETs hospitalisation rate is working at close to 2%. 3.9% ICU rate of those hospitalisations (Current EU rate), NPHETs rate is above 10%. I couldnt find the death rate but it averages out at 1.25 times the ICU numbers (From NPHET modelling) so I used that.

No Delta Actual Optimistic Actual Central 1 Actual Central 2 Actual Pessimistic Actual
Cases 21000 21000 81000 81000 187000 187000 408000 408000 681900 681900
Hospitalisations 405 231 1530 891 3490 2057 7690 4488 12985 7501
ICU 55 9 195 35 450 80 985 175 1685 293
Death 80 11 165 43 545 100 1230 219 2170 366


The case numbers are not the issue. Its the over indexing of hospitalisation/ICU/death rates that create the panic. Cases could boom but they are basing their modelling on rates double the current rates of hospitalisation, ICU and death. Why? Surely as the vaccination levels increase the the rate of those should continue to fall further

seamus

Peter Flynt wrote: »

The UK is at about 50% full vaccination. I believe Ireland is at 20%.

The UK will fully reopen on July 19th (possibly without masks) and we will do the same when we have reached that level of vaccination. One would imagine this would be sometime at the end of summer or early Autumn when the schools reopen.

We're at 34% fully vaccinated compared to the UK's ~50%. The UK's programme has slowed considerably though, they're doing the equivalent of 16k doses a day where we're doing 40-50k.

Nevertheless, 50% is way below what's needed to lift all restrictions.