Most Comical/Hysterical COVID News Stories of the past few years

PTH2009

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/i-will-be-forever-sorry-miriam-ocallaghan-apologises-for-not-leading-by-example-after-rte-gathering/39775851.html

Remember the RTE ppresenters who had to apologise on air because they took a few pictures at a party with a colleague in the canteen but were not social distancing

fun loving criminal

The whole response to covid is quite laughable (I don't know what word to use).

Saying Ireland was low risk at the beginning and other countries had temperature checks at the airports and ourselves with flyers with symptoms at the airport.

Couldn't get a test with symptoms at the beginning unless you met certain criteria.

Closing clothes shops because clothes wasn't essential items.

Mandating masks in shops and on public transport but if you worked in an office and were deemed essential and couldn't work from home, no masks for you.

Wouldn't even consider looking at N95 or KN95 masks as a means for protection.

Mandatory hotel isolation because travellers were apparently more at risk of catching covid but after isolation off you go to the pub around the corner and catch covid there.

People fighting over who should get the vaccine but now you don't see the same people wearing a mask at all.

I'm sure I can add more to this list but absolutely nothing anymore. There's advice on HSE to stay at home with symptoms but nobody bats an eye with sick people going out mingling. Not even sensible advice to wear a mask with anything you might have ie cold, flu or chest infections.

Cheddar Bob

Dya remember about November 2021 we re opened "everything".

Sort of.

Nightclubs were re opened- with the caveat that masks were to be worn at the bar and en route to the toilet, but not anywhere else. Martin implying that "everything that has always went on in a nightclub will still go on" so at least you didn't have to wear a Hazmat suit when you're dropping the paw.

And you couldn't just rock up, a ticket had to be bought online in advance.

Oh, and masking was still required at all times in indoor music venues.

So if I was to see Carl Cox in the Point I would have to remain masked and seated- but if he played the Academy I could rave out on the dance floor and put on the mask when going for a drink. Or a slash.

There were literally dozens of examples of the sheer stupidity and lack of coherent logic in that era, but all of the above so late in the day truly seemed like the last hurrah.

Then the numbers went up again and we shut the clubs and instituted 9pm closing for pubs. I think the above lasted one weekend, two at most.

All of this 4 or 5 months after the complete reopening of English society. After Euro 2021 saw full stadiums.

An international embarrassment.

Then the science changed so that all of a sudden Covid pass travel laws didn't apply because FG's hotel pals needed to fill their rooms with thousands of people from Europe's most vaccine hesitant country.

Add to that how two men having cans by the canal were basically plotting genocide but 5000 BLM marchers were allowed to converge on Ballsbridge with nothing more than a "careful now" from the likes of Harris and Hoolohan. You literally has loons from PBP and the like who were generally terrified of their own shadow (Paul Murphy STILL wears a Covid mask in the Dail, nearly 4 years later) coming out with stuff like "racism doesn't take a day off even during a pandemic".

Paul outdone himself circa August 2021 when the pubs were gradually re opening by demanding it be put on hold because so many young pub staff hadn't received their vaccine invite.

Of course that brought us to the dichotomy whereby a member of the pub staff who hadn't got a vaccine pass would be tasked with checking the passes of customers and refusing access to those who didn't have a pass on the grounds that they were dangerous to others, but unvaccinated staff seemingly were not.

Absolutely bizarre times. The world has permanently changed in favour of emotion and pseudoscience. And frankly I have zero sympathy for anybody under 60 who went along with it and is now crippled with the related inflation or find themselves locked out of the housing market. You play stupid games you win stupid prizes.

Cheddar Bob

To add to the OP- now, not in Ireland, but I seem to recall in Australia when they had one of their several minor outbreaks before it fully arrived same as it did everywhere else, the local news broadcast CCTV showing Patient Zero in a supermarket brushing past people who we all know now were highly unlikely to get more than the sniffles off him. I could be wrong but I think they even added blue coloured graphics showing the theoretical distance reach of the virus emanating from his body.

And an awful lot of people today like to pretend that the only news outlets that reported on dead bodies lying on the streets of Wuhan were The Sun and their ilk, when it was carried by, at the very least, AP and The Guardian (I'd imagine Sky News etc showed the footage at the time and have since scrubbed it)

The fact that nobody seems to care regarding who made these clips, and to what end, is particularly galling.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121691509#Comment_121691509

Nothing comical or hysterical about it.

Merely from an image it is not possible to say what killed someone. But the image captures the reaction to the event.

It is well established that covid can cause heart attacks and strokes as a secondary impact. Yes it could have killed someone in the street.

You have provided zero evidence the below isnt genuine / actual images from China.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/a-man-lies-dead-in-the-street-the-image-that-captures-the-wuhan-coronavirus-crisis

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121691956#Comment_121691956

The implication was it was killing people dead on their feet.

Similarly, what about the firebrand Chinese scientist who tried to warn the public and himself died of the virus in detention age 27 or something?

Consider how few 27 year olds died, yet the first fatality of a named person happened to be a young man- meaning the world thought it could kill anybody, when the reality was you were about as likely to be killed by a meteorite if you were an averagely healthy 27 year old.

However he died, if he even existed, it was not from Covid. I remember when the first tranch of footballers were reported to have tested positive and wondering if they would ever return to the top level again, such was the hysterical nonsense that even a non fatal brush with the virus could lead to permanent long effects.

odyssey06

Yep and theres the self discrediting conspiracy theory. Its like 2020 all over.

PTH2009

Looking back we were too cautious in large parts of 2021 felt it was more or so to do with weak leadership and the biased media. That shite in place for Christmas/NY was shambolic. They really lost the plot

It was scary how fast everything was 'shut down' and then one Friday evening it was suddenly 'All over'

CalamariFritti

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121691956#Comment_121691956

I mean I'm taking you with a grain of salt for a long time now. There is a bit of a zealot there, you may be gone too far to notice. Not judging...theres gotta be all sorts.

But you're taking the piss with this one right? Because if not this will cast a certain light on everything you said before, you realise that?

odyssey06

Nothing comical or hysterical in how the Guardian reported on it.

Covid can kill you in the street by a heart attack or stroke. Medical staff exposed to high viral load treating patients at close contact without PPE could get severe covid.

No reason to doubt the image etc is actually of a dead person. So no laughing matters here.

The Chinese tried to spin covid as more like ebola. But that is off topic for this thread.

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121693194#Comment_121693194

"Covid can kill you in the street"

Scary that lads like this and their ilk were let dictate policy and erode our civil liberties for over 2 years.

Other things that can 'kill you in the street' include cars, lighting bolts and marshmallows if you happen to choke on one while walking to the shops.

odyssey06

So the winner of the most hysterically (or is it most comical) false comparisons with covid, an infectious disease which killed millions and put millions into hospitals is ... marshmallows. That really takes the biscuit (for VAT related purpoes). It's a new one alright.

Last time I checked neither car crashes or lightning bolts are infectious.

People with long covid has an increased risk of mortality from heart attacks, from strokes. This is all well established factual information.

On the one side we have marshmallows.

On the other side we have actual scientists writing: COVID-19 is known to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sars-cov-2-contributes-heart-attacks-strokes#:~:text=COVID%2D19%20is%20known%20to,also%20affects%20blood%20vessels%20directly.

thedeer

I thought this was hilarious.......

https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-40730124.html

prunudo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121693715#Comment_121693715

It really was a crazy time.

darconio

Back on topic

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121696883#Comment_121696883

The glass screens in takeaways are still a permanent reminder of the madness. I suppose they will come down eventually down the years as renovations are done.

Former Former Former

The funniest part of this is that the people who were so against the public health measures are the very ones who can't move on with life, railing against the injustice of it all, two years after all the meaningful restrictions were lifted.

It's almost as though the Covid thing is a sideshow and you're just bitter sad people, who want to moan about everything and anything.

The war is over lads. Time to come out of the jungle.

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121698670#Comment_121698670

Are you actually that monumnentally thick?

Pretty much every social malaise we currently have is a direct result of lockdown, at least partially.

House price surge. House prices had effectively flatlined in Dublin to a somewhat affordable level by late 2019.

Cost of food and basic goods, the surge began in late 2021 but was on fire up until about maybe last Spring- it's now permanently locked where it is.

We have far more premature deaths in the post Covid era than during Covid. Nobody cares to ask why, and we don't get nightly death tolls at 6pm.

You say to move on yet there probably hasn't been a bigger factor in this country regarding the decline of private home ownership than the Covid lockdowns. You might as well tell the Jews to get over the Holocaust.

Am I over lockdown? Mentally, no, I'm not. If you never had a life to begin with it was quite manageable- the rest of us lived with bouts of unemployment, house arrest (may as well have been, there's only so many times you can go hill walking TBH) and scientists given regular airtime to predict that things like gigs, live sport and pubs might never fully return in the format we were used to.

Sam McConkey was allowed a spot to claim a full re opening was five years away, this was in Spring 2021 when the US was already largely fully re opened. And if Omicron never happened he might just have been listened to.

And the sheep in this country would have been more than happy to put up with that.

PTH2009

This ballax, The poor fucker was stuck here and suddenly he was the hero

https://m.independent.ie/news/irelands-lockdown-hero-matt-damon-snapped-filming-in-tipperary/39572441.html

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701064#Comment_121701064

I believe this coincided with certain talentless journalists losing their collective minds because a few pronoun weirdos on Twitter had the journalist think that the Irish public had lost their minds because Paul Mescall had worn a pair of O'Neills shorts on a chick flick TV show aimed at graduates. When in reality "actor wears gah shorts on foreign TV show" isn't all that strange- anybody who has been to Thailand will have been initially dumbstruck to see full moon party bar staff wearing Irish regional sportswear forgotten down the years by departing backpackers.

They really did latch on to the strangest things. "Hollywood actor shops in Supervalu".

Where do you think he would shop when based in SE Dublin while filming at Ardmore?

Wal Mart?

There's probably 4 or 5 Hollywood actors renting in the area as I type, to no fanfare.

Or maybe there isnt. Maybe Damon told them to commute from London because the Irish media will run a 12 page spread on you if you are seen doing something so out of character as eating a Supermacs.

Cheddar Bob

Does anybody recall the dread when we first heard about Omicron, just as they were there promoting one more round of the booosters to finally kick Delta out of the country, the absolute glee on the usual heads to announce that there was a new strain in South Africa, heavily vaccine resistant and more infectious than ever before.

The party started to cool, and infact turn to "don't listen to her" rage in some quarters, when a South African medic kept spoiling things by giving interviews adamantly declaring that while highly infectious, this thing was about as much harm as a boot in the hole from a daddy longlegs, and even raised the probability that mass infection with such a mild virus was a vaccine in itself.

I think the usual suspects here tried to cling on for dear life to the craic they were having (the masks, the restricted pubs, the general malaise)- unfortunately for them quite literally the entire population had caught Omicron by mid January, convincing many of the even most ardent isolators and hold outs that we all catch Covid eventually, that it made them less than sick, and that the madness needed to stop.

Because almost overnight we went from a state of war to announcing that we would be fully re opened by....strangely I can't fully recall the date the shackles largely came off, was it Jan 25th?

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121693278#Comment_121693278

There was no "eroding of civil liberties". We took measures to stop a virus from spreading, just like 1918. Whether or not you agreed with those measures, none were political. That's the most hysterical part of this, people thinking that the "guvment" was taking away their freedoms and all that malarkey.

With 20/20 hindsight I or anyone can nitpick through every measure and criticise certain aspects, however at the time, when faced with a new disease, spreading rapidly, people dying, most countries naturally erred on the side of caution.

deirdremf

For me the funniest thing about the whole covid episode was that as the pandemic was taking hold governments all over Europe were encouraging international travel as if there was no tomorrow.

I remember people all over the world were encouraged to travel home from whatever foreign country they were on holiday in or doing business in - bringing any illness they had picked up there with them. However, the second bit of that sentence was glossed over ...

In Ireland the second funniest thing was the arrival of thousands of Italians who were coming for a rugby match, so important for them to travel despite Italy being the biggest focus of the disease in the whole of Europe at the time.

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701257#Comment_121701257

If you think that NPHET did not have ideas about permanently reforming Ireland's traditional relationship with the pub in their minds when they took their actions I have a bridge to sell you.

Only for there would have been too much legal argument about what is a pub and what is a restaurant we would never have even had them partially re open at any stage before mid 2021 if even that.

As for motivations, we were the only country in Europe to shut down building sites. Any half competent economist would tell you, and without a doubt told the government, that shutting down building sites, coupled with leaving one tranch of prospective homebuyers unemployed while the other remained fully paid with nowhere to spend it (so increased savings) would lead to supply issues and create price hyperinflation.

Houses near me that would go for 230- 250 in early 2020 now go for 330 to 380.

The primary driver in that increase was lockdown.

For all their bluster it is the policy of this government to make home ownership, particularly in large urban areas, a privilidge rather than an achieveable expectation.

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701257#Comment_121701257

No erosion of civil liberties eh?

There was genuine talk of employment restrictions on those who refused to take a vaccine.

One fruitcake in Beaumont was demanding that no surgery be performed on vaccine holdouts. This nutjob.

dr dilly little - Google Search

While the right to assemble and protest was suspended, omissions were granted on two occasions to BLM protestors. Either all large public gatherings were dangerous and these events likely killed people, or they were never dangerous, so the rest of us should have been allowed to gather.

Rules for thee but not for me and ye it would seem.

Running the risk of being refused employment or surgery by way of your vaccine choice is by any definition a denail of ones liberties.

Cheddar Bob

Here's another one which, although not Covid related in itself as it happened in the last days of the Covid era, gives a glimpse into the minds that ruled during it, and what sort of society they would run if they were allowed free rein.

Huge reaction to Prof Sam McConkey's suggestion men may need 'licence' to socialise - SundayWorld.com

But Dohnjoe there says that taking away civil liberties was never on their mind.

Between this and Aodhan O'Riordan on RTE the other week implying it is time to take our car keys from us by force, the Covid era showed a lot of lunatics that anything is possible.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701622#Comment_121701622

If you want to believe there was a secret conspiracy by the health service to attack pub culture, cool, you can. Can add it to the mountain of paranoid hysteria about the pandemic. Nothing to do with cases spiking, ICUs packing up, health professionals exhausted and national health systems under immense pressure, nope a global conspiracy against pubs and, by a remarkable coincidence, other places where people congregate during a pandemic.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701852#Comment_121701852

How come in the early months 'essential staff' had the time to sing and dance, write poems etc

They had a very hard time of it no doubt and deserved the plaudits

We had our 'leaders' over at gigs in the UK in the summer of 2021 while the government they run refused such events with some thanks to 'projected numbers from NPHET'

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701861#Comment_121701861

How come in the early months 'essential staff' had the time to sing and dance, write poems etc

Like any profession some people had some down time. Reading on nursing forums, the majority didn't, more than a few seem embarrassed by that fad.

bucketybuck

There is no story so comical or hysterical that certain people won't try to justify regardless. Its a religion to some.

My favourite continues to be that they stopped children going to cul camps, because kids playing outside would be so dangerous.

The worst continues to be that they stopped people being with their husbands and wives as they died. And stopped men being with their wives when children were born.

The sick **** actually did that.

PTH2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703111#Comment_121703111

Then one prick from NPHET came out berating some poor old women who went to visit her dying brother

I really hope someone from that ladies family had a go at him

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121699380#Comment_121699380

Am I over lockdown? Mentally, no, I'm not.

Yeah, that’s exactly my point. 99.99% of people are over it, you are the outliers here, a tiny minority. If you’re on the level here, you need counselling before you harm yourself or others.

.You might as well tell the Jews to get over the Holocaust.

i appreciate you’re an out and out troll but that’s an outrageous statement and the people who liked that post should be ashamed of themselves. Nothing could illustrate the mentality better, thank you.

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703488#Comment_121703488

99.99 of people are not over it. All of this "far right" swing the media keep going on about, it's a swing to more rational politics.

And yes, immigration might be the catalyst, but it has its roots in lockdown. If you want to blindly believe in it knock yourself out.

How am I a failed person exactly, and what makes you such a proven winner? I mean, if you lost nothing during lockdown you can't have had much going to begin with tbh.

There are now daily cases of restaurants going to the wall, mostly due to the after effects of lockdown

Are formerly thriving businesspeople failures now?

What exactly has you so upset? And why should I let it go?

dalyboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121701226#Comment_121701226

I still remember December 23rd 2021 in a local bar. The government had the instigated the hilarious 8pm closure because of the new omnibus (purposeful misspelling) variant. The collective mentally deranged were desperate to cling to anything negative they could conjure up to support their 22 month dystopian nightmare.

Thankfully I escaped to Spain , Czech Republic & Sweden for 3 holidays over the late summer & autumn of 2021 for a breath of normality.

To follow your post …. It was if my memory serves me correctly the end of February 2022 that the clowns decided we no longer needed masks in shopping centres or general indoor facilities. I’m not trying to sound like a hard man but as soon as the announcement was made I never wore a mask indoors again (about 4-5 weeks before the mandate ended).

Thankfully we are coming to the 2nd anniversary of the end of probably the most intelligence insulting & government/globalisation gas lighting period of my life time.

We are now to suck up that 2 year overreaction and nobody should question it in society. We still hear murmurs of a covid enquiry but then they’re swept under the carpet again.

dalyboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121692330#Comment_121692330

Speaking of Xmas 2021 …. Does anyone remember the hilarity of New Year’s Eve 2021 (leading to 2022) . RTE had 3 guests and a presenter about 6 feet away from each other. It reeked of a pity party and oooooh 2021 was so difficult to deal with good riddance vibe from it.

Meanwhile over on BBC London was rocking. Fireworks display, open air concert with people dancing and socialising and enjoying life.

It always makes me shudder to think about RTE since. I’ve thankfully removed that propaganda mouth-piece lying media from every piece of tech. I don’t want their dribble on my expensive devices.

darconio

6 nations 2021

...few minutes later

15th of june 2021, Budapest

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703539#Comment_121703539

Ah the masks.

In May 2020 or so there was data from Czech Rep indicating mandatory mask wearing resulted in a serious case drop.

NPHET tried to think of a million reasons why we shouldn't wear masks.

By about June/ July further research confirmed masks had done nothing in Czech.

NPHET? Mask up lads.

To actually think that the science dictated that wearing a piece of cloth from a euro shop could make a blind bit of difference.

For the whole time my mask either was worn for shop security then put down to my chin, or on public transport worn walking past the driver then straight off. The only time I'd wear it was if i happened to be sat beside an older person who didn't know better.

The worst part?

The day before the mask mandate ended, I'd say compliance on my train was 90%.

The day the mask mandate ended it went down to about 70%. I'd been in London in July 2021 and compliance there on the tube was about 30%, which proves once and for all the Brits are smarter than we are and know what freedom is- masking in the UK was scrapped because the government conceded too few people were bothering with it so it was impossible to enforce.

So 20% didn't remotely believe in the need for masks, but wore them because the government told them to. The other 70% probably mostly didn't believe either but didn't want others to think bad of them. These figures might be slightly skewed because it was a Dart line, and the Dart serves highly educated neighbourhoods populated by people who don't question the law or government.

I think the term "the fighting irish" was coined ironically by somebody.

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703555#Comment_121703555

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703555#Comment_121703555

In work the safety officer would gather 30 of us to stand around, socially distanced, to hear the latest lecture on the new variant and to keep to the access only egress only staircases, be out of the lunch room in 15 mins, jesus we even had these plastic sticks fitted to the sinks in lieu of using the taps.

30 people at the meeting on how not to spread the virus.

What then? One pen is handed around for 30 men to touch signing their attendance and understanding of the safe work speech.

Virus prevention. 30 men. Hands all on the same pen.

You can only laugh.

PTH2009

Don't forgot NPHETs stance on Antigen tests. Basically saying 'stupid irish won't know how to use them right'

Thinking back it would irritate ya as it felt we were taking for fools. The FAI must of felt foolish with us not been allowed host those Euro 20/21 games because a group of unelected medical experts told us 'no'

I regret some of my thoughts on here at the time and arguing with other posters. Thank **** it's all over and good riddance

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121704254#Comment_121704254

The dishonestly and junk science was just astounding.

Well, we can agree on that.

I can guarantee you one thing, long before 2045, someone will come up with "evidence" that the vaccines were incredibly dangerous. Just like the "evidence" that ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and whatever else were miracle cures for Covid but obviously big pharma etc etc.

Just like the "evidence" that measles vaccines are dangerous, putting us in a situation where a disease that should have been eradicated long ago is making a comeback.

Science is very rarely on the side of the lunatic fringe. Fearmongering, anger, violence and stupidity, yes, you have the market cornered in that, I'll grant you.

facehugger99

In August 2020 I brought the family off on a 2 week holiday to Italy.

At the time in Ireland, we'd locked down 3 countries, including Kildare where I was coming from, over a few COVID cases in some meat processing plants.

It was a real eye opener. Despite going to ground zero of Europe's COVID cases from a few months earlier, life in Italy had broadly returned to normal. The only place we had to wear masks was on public transport and even there compliance was incredibly lax.

Everything else from restaurants, waterparks and tourist attractions was open as per normal. Instead of living in fear, people took sensible precautions and got on with life as normal. If you weren't comfortable with that, you were free to lock yourself away.

It was some contrast coming back to Ireland.

We really showed ourselves up to be a fearful, cowardly and subservient people during COVID.

On the upside, I don't think I'll ever get a better value holiday or a more pleasant airport experience.

darconio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121705398#Comment_121705398

In fairness, the irish government, bought off the mass compliance with the PUP and and all the nanny state measures implemented. When given the option to stay at home, put our feet up, and getting paid for it, the vast majority accepted any compromise, without thinking about the economic disaster that followed. Just as a comparison getting tested in Italy was not free, there was no pup in place, if you owned a business there was no assistance from the state, loads of shops closed down for good and the few that survived, reopened as soon as they were allowed

dalyboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121706542#Comment_121706542

Actually that’s very true.

I noticed it among my own circle of friends. Some of them , myself included , are self-employed , private sector employed or public sector employed. You could tell by profession sector each were in by their support or lack there of when it came to lockdown and its effects.

The PUP €350 per week was not near enough to support mortgage repayments & associated bills and general expenditure for my non-public sector employed friends. Division of opinion ensued & our social structure dynamic fractured and has never recovered to the same extent.

There is a bright side though. We all know where each other’s loyalty lies and who we can trust in the future.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121705398#Comment_121705398

You visited Italy during a lull (Aug 2020), the second wave started around September, there was a lockdown over there in November which lasted until January. It was similar to over here and in many other countries.

Dohnjoe

Reality: Ireland had temp localised lockdowns, some contentious measures/decisions and partial lockdowns like most other countries

This thread: "Ireland was the worst! NPHET wanted to kill pub culture! They wanted to take our freedom! Tyranny! Sheeple! Dancing nurses! Etc"

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121706798#Comment_121706798

It certainly wasn't similar to over here.

But then again, you'd know that if you bothered to travel over there.

dalyboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121706798#Comment_121706798

August 2020 was a “lull” in Ireland too. Our infection / hospitalisation rate was low however NPHET refused to take the foot off the accelerator of covid restrictions here in Ireland.

Contrast that to countless other EU countries that effectively reopened during this period with no real terms consequence. Why was Ireland so afraid & over cautious when our numbers should have facilitated a more similar relaxed stance. ?

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707095#Comment_121707095

November 2020–January 2021: A new lockdown[edit]

"On 4 November 2020, Prime Minister Conte announced a new lockdown, dividing the country into three zones depending on the severity of the pandemic, corresponding to red, orange and yellow zones. Moreover, a national curfew from 10 PM to 5 AM was implemented, as well as compulsory weekend closing for shopping malls, and online education in high schools.[103] Conte described the situation as "particularly critical", asserting that the virus was moving at a "strong and even violent" pace.[104]

• In red zones, lockdown measures were similar to the ones which were implemented from March to May 2020, such as compulsory closing for shops, restaurants and other activities, online education for schools except for kindergartens, elementary schools and sixth-grade classes, and no movements allowed except for working or necessity reasons.
• In orange zones, restrictions included compulsory closing of restaurants and online education for high schools only, while movement within the home-town territory was still allowed.
• In yellow zones, the only restrictions included compulsory closing for restaurant and bar activities at 6 PM, and online education for high schools only.

Starting from 6 November, Lombardy, Piedmont, Aosta Valley and Calabria were classified as red zones. Sicily and Apulia were classified as orange zones, while the rest of the country was declared as yellow zone.[105] On 9 November, the autonomous province of South Tyrol was declared red zone as well.[106] In the following week, Campania and Tuscany were also declared red zones, while other seven regions, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo and Basilicata, became orange zones.[107] On 18 December, Abruzzo was added to the list of red zones.[108]

On 2 December, a further movement restriction was implemented by the government in order to prevent an increase in cases during the Christmas holidays period, forbidding movement between regions from 21 December to 6 January. To prevent people from gathering during Christmas, Saint Stephen's Day and New Year's Day, travel between different comuni was also restricted, and the curfew for New Year's Eve was extended to 7 AM.[109]

As of 13 December, no region was declared red zone anymore. Abruzzo, Campania, Tuscany, the autonomous province of South Tyrol and Aosta Valley were classified as orange zones, and the remaining 16 regions and the autonomous province of Trento were yellow zones.[110]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_Italy

Each country had it's own fluid situation with Covid, it wasn't identical in every situation, nor were the responses. However we weren't dramatically different from most other countries.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707208#Comment_121707208

We had a partial lockdown in 3 counties for 2 weeks that had cases increase.

It's really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121704202#Comment_121704202

Covid spreads chiefly via droplets and aerosols exhaled from your mouth and nose. Masks, even just cloth masks, reduce that spread. Keyword: reduce. So on a population level it was a no-brainer during the pandemic. Most countries had mask mandates or rule because predictably a handful refused to wear them.

The anti-maskers were more hysterical than anyone else. Turning up at protests, screeching about vaccines that weren't out, going on about conspiracies and all that.