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

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118815284#Comment_118815284

What are your symptoms? Are they debilitating? Genuinely interested, as every single person I know who contacted Covid was perfectly fine after it. Admittedly, that's a small sample size, but long Covid seems to be greatly exaggerated in my opinion.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816878#Comment_118816878

Fúcked up taste and smell. Knackered all the time.

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816970#Comment_118816970

Far from ideal so, hopefully there will be some treatments available for these conditions in the not too distant future.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118816970#Comment_118816970

Cough & fatigue took almost a year to fully clear up for me.

But then, I have had bog-standard post-viral syndrome before. Just like an awful lot of other people.

_Kaiser_

The Indo getting in on the panicky scaremongering :

A sharp decline in the wearing of face masks has emerged as Covid-19 is resurging with 63,954 new infections reported over the St Patrick’s festivities.

Hospitals are under extreme pressure with 1,308 patients positive for Covid-19 of whom 49 are seriously ill in intensive care, the highest in almost a year.

It has led to many further cancellations of procedures for waiting list patients due to infection control measures in hospitals in Limerick, Donegal, Kerry and Dublin.

As the Government and health officials ruled out any return to restrictions for now, the ESRI tracker survey – which has been measuring our behaviour for over a year – revealed how swift people were to ditch face masks after they were no longer compulsory from February 28.

It showed a steep drop in the reported wearing of face masks on public transport and in shops in the week after the mask mandate was lifted.

Almost all close contact meet-ups are conducted without a face mask and this is particularly driven by colleagues in the workplace.

The ESRI survey found just two-thirds of shoppers and public transport users were wearing a mask despite the strong public health advice to continue to use them in these settings.

Oh noes! To read all that you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was 2020 all over again! I love how the fact of only 49 in ICU is buried among the doomsday waffling.

But wait, surprisingly there is a bit of positive news :

It showed that wellbeing rose for the first time this year and was at its highest since last summer. This was seen in all age groups but was strongest in people aged under 40.

More people are going out for a walk, run or cycle.

A majority of people judged their mental health as being the same or better compared to before the pandemic and fewer regard it as worse.

Over half of people say their social life is the same or better than it was before the pandemic. The survey found for young people the link between wellbeing and social life is particularly strong.

The extent to which people felt lonely fell significantly

That last sentence in particular really jumps out to me as I've been saying for ages that the effect of the coverage and restrictions has had a very real and damaging impact on people's mental and other health so it's fantastic to read that people are finally starting to come back from this. This to me should be the headline, not more kneejerk articles trying to scare people and finger wagging at the "irresponsible" people getting on with their lives.

But, then the Indo knows that we do love misery and playing one part of society off another so it's understandable I suppose - albeit in the usual twisted way!

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/sharp-decline-in-use-of-face-masks-as-covid-cases-surge-41472401.html

Don't Chute!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817382#Comment_118817382

This wasn’t funny the first time and is even less so now, oh and it’s STILL not compulsory to read this thread.

Beechwoodspark

Just anecdotally talking to my customers yesterday lot of talk about

“the virus is spreading like wildfire after paddy’s day” and

“the government were too quick to lift restrictions that will come back to bite them” and

“there will be another lockdown the way things are gone”.

Don't Chute!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817418#Comment_118817418

Your customers sound like complete morons.

Beechwoodspark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817430#Comment_118817430

Eh sorry now but that’s uncalled for dont chute.

Whoa. Patronising much??

They are convenience store managers and staff, and the general public who shop at those stores. far from “morons”.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817430#Comment_118817430

No, just people with different opinions and anxieties than you. We all have many such opinions.

bear1

Now another call for the mask to be reintroduced.

This is getting ridiculous now, just can't let it go.

Leo himself yesterday said the numbers in intensive care are much lower than in January, half of those in hospital were there for something else entirely and therefore knock 50% of the numbers we are seeing, yet people are still panicking about the mask.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2022/0322/1287724-ireland-covid/

Far more important things going on in the world than the fuckin mask.

seamus

Unions like making noise. It makes them feel relevant.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said there were 570 people on trolleys around the country yesterday, which she described as extraordinary and the equivalent of one full acute hospital.

Well, no Phil, it's not. By your own organisation's data, 570 people on trolleys on the 2nd last Monday in March is bang on business as usual.

2017: 531 on trollies

2018: 500

2019: 557

(2020 & 2021 don't count for obvious reasons)

Of course, "we have loads of people on trollies" isn't enough of a complaint to get yourself a full news article. It's not news.

"We need to reintroduce masks". Now there's something to get Claire Byrne and Pat Kenny riled up about.

pc7

They can't help themselves, its sad some people really want to go back to lockdown. Don't think they realise all of this has to be paid for! With everything going up now cause of the war too, there isn't a snowballs hope of another lockdown (unless a new seriously bad varient emerges).

I'm waiting on the noise from the 'housing the ukranians' should be housing our own type to start, its the ukranians bringing it in.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817236#Comment_118817236

So let's not mention it then?

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817361#Comment_118817361

"I love how the fact of only 49 in ICU is buried among the doomsday waffling."

Buried? They've actually stated that that's the highest figure in almost a year. "Only"?

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817719#Comment_118817719

49 isn't even the highest it's been this month, never mind a year.

It's the indo, so it's terribly written. What they mean to say is that 1,308 in hospital is the highest it's been in over a year. But they're bad journalists, so accuracy isn't important.

Stormyteacup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817719#Comment_118817719

49 in ICU is not the highest in almost a year, there were over 100 in ICU in December. The figure hospitalised is the highest in almost a year but half are incidental.

If infection control measures are causing procedures to be cancelled then perhaps it’s time those infection control measures in hospitals were revisited. Isolation times for Omicron are too long in majority of cases.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817651#Comment_118817651

Exactly - People need to realise now the problem isn't covid - the healthcare system is the problem. No way can we go into another lockdown purely because of pressure in hospitals. Government need to invest in the healthcare system asap to get over these issues.

amlinopta

Claire Byrne must be revelling in the increased numbers, due to interview Luke O'Neill shortly

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817719#Comment_118817719

As Seamus says, that's not even accurate this quarter, never mind this year.

But yes... only 49. 49 in ICU out of a population of 5 million people is a tiny number. Let's not forget that nearly half of those in hospital "with Covid" are people who presented for treatment for something else, but then incidentally tested positive for Covid, or perhaps caught it while in hospital.

Maybe if we stopped testing people who aren't sick with Covid symptoms, we wouldn't have some quarters claiming the sky is falling!

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817777#Comment_118817777

Ah! Cheers for the clarification.

Penfailed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817813#Comment_118817813

There ye are now. I haven't been following the figures so I don't know what's 'good' or 'bad'. I took the article at face value when it said it was the highest figure in almost a year.

is_that_so

It's the automatic conflation of the sensationalist 60k+ cases in 5 DAYS with numbers supposedly going badly south in hospital. Articles on this are just a simple jigsaw and could have been written by a ten year old.

Penfailed

Reassuring public response to that poll ^^^

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817868#Comment_118817868

The problem is that in our clickbait, don't-read-beyond-the-headlines, kneejerk society, the call with be for the Government to DO SOMETHING (it's already started!) and potentially lead to us going backwards in terms of the restrictions.

Thankfully (and surprisingly) the message from Leo and others seems to be that while they're monitoring the situation, they don't see a reason to reimpose restrictions at this time, but considering how many average Joe's and Mary's have been complaining about the "reckless non-maskers" for weeks now, it's an Oireachtas bill away from that position changing.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817908#Comment_118817908

Just did a quick scan of media sources and the main culprits here are the Indo and platform based media. Sure, that typical INMO rambling has been mentioned everywhere but that's extent of it for the IT and Examiner.

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817668#Comment_118817668

Why are people even mentioning lockdown on this thread? We are a million miles away from ever going there again. Strange.

dominatinMC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817418#Comment_118817418

Ya, I'd have to agree with another poster and say that those customers sound like idiots. Probably drive around in their car alone with a mask on too.

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118817971#Comment_118817971

Why were we there in the first instance?

And second instance?