The Pandemic is officially over!

DLink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562582#Comment_120562582

Doesn't matter now, it's over 😁

SuperBowserWorld

The pandemic is over ...

Brutal intensive industry meat production, destruction of habitat, and cheap airline travel bringing the next one to you soon !

DLink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562870#Comment_120562870

All hail cheap airline travel, makes it easier to get away from this damp kip every now and then.

The biggest risk is that then the next pandemic comes, public trust of the "professionals" will have already been severely eroded and there will be a far greater number who will revolt the next time.

Covid was not severe enough to warrant such an overreaction, like the one we just witnessed.

If it had been as deadly as the "Spanish Flu", then things would have been very different.

SuperBowserWorld

Agree we went ridiculously cautious for covid. It was only to prevent our very expensive health service which was already at capacity from being overwhelmed.

And even now, the health service is still at capacity and not due to covid.

Investment in healthy eating, alcohol reduction, exercise, mental health would save many more lives. And also the govt. needs to deliver on the billions poured into the health service. And make it possible for those who work in it to afford accommodation and a future in this country.

DLink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562907#Comment_120562907

I'd like to say I agree with you, I know I'll be pushing back if it ever happens again, but I think the great Irish public will just roll over again and hand over the keys to the kingdom.

_Kaiser_

The reality is that the pandemic was "over" as any kind of serious threat to most people after about 4 months when it became clear who was actually at risk of serious illness or death - in general the same people who were already vulnerable to a host of other illnesses. It's those people that our efforts and resources should have been focused on, not asking young and/or healthy people to hide away, maybe losing their jobs and/or dealing with serious stresses in the meantime.

What Covid exposed in this country was the obsessive need of a small minority to control the behaviour of others, the dangers of social media crusading and divisive polarisation, the shocking ease at which freedoms and rights were handed over by many, and the lack of news media that could provide an objective and effective challenge to the politicians and decisions being made - or more accurately abdicated to a group of unelected and unaccountable public servants led by a man who should never have been in charge in the first place.

The fact that there are still some who are worried and attacking others about something that was little more than a mild dose for the overwhelming majority shows the damage that was done by the blanket and excessive one-sided coverage of the event. Just as serious is the financial and mental health consequences of our response, all of which will be with us for a long time to come.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563189#Comment_120563189

You still don't get that it was a highly infectious disease. It spreads from person to person. It was always a numbers game of spread and people needing hospital and ICU care, and that wasn't just confined to those 'vulnerable'. If you add up the number of all those vulnerable by that metric, you get a significant percentage of the adult population. Which makes it all the more absurd to talk about 'focused' protection.

And it was never a small minority. This is a lie you tell yourself because poll after poll showed clear majority support for restrictions in Ireland and you were on the opposite minority.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563247#Comment_120563247

Influenza is a highly infectious disease that can and has killed many elderly and vulnerable people in the past and is still doing so today.

If people like you had their way, we would be having lockdowns every winter there is a "bad flu" doing the rounds!

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563383#Comment_120563383

Covid across all variants both more severe and more infectious than flu. Your post is utterly disingenuous.

Thats why - not people like me - but the experts at every major health authority in the world acted as they did and treated it as a threat on a scale that dwarfs that of a bad flu.

Speaking as someone who had a "bad flu" in the early 1990s, and having Delta in the spring of 2021, I can assure you that the flu was far worse, the doctor tole me it would take at least six weeks to recover from it, he was right.

I was younger back then, but still made severely ill.

So, NO covid was not worse that a bad flu, I speak from experience.

Anyway, with the official end to the "emergency" pandemic, many will now be at a loss as they have finally had the feeling of power they had controlling others taken away.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563405#Comment_120563405

Your experience is dwarfed and outweighed by millions of lived experiences of covid, actual deaths and experts at every health authority in the world.

On a macro scale you dont have a clue what you are talking about. Its up there with the limited narrow view of someone saying smoking doesnt cause lung cancer cos they smoked and didnt get it.

Well, almost 100% of the population actually also caught covid, many had such minor symptoms that they didn't bother even getting tested, my daughter for example caught Delta at the same time as me and had virtually no symptoms, it was only because she needed testing that she found out she had it.

My experience was mirrored by millions of people, as for the smoking reference, you're getting desperate now.

You remind me of the Dukes in "Trading places" at the end of the film - "Turn the machines back on!"

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563532#Comment_120563532

Did 100 percent actually caught covid? You dont know that. Statement without foundation.

And if we tested for flu like we test for covid we could have found similar. Do you test your family for flu? Without symptoms? So again you dont know if they even had flu or not. They could have flu and not know it or have a mild dose they think is a cold.

Across the range of demographics and outcomes and variants, covid is both more infectious and severe than flu. You have produced no real evidence to challenge those facts, just limited narrow anecdotes.

Anyone repeating the justtheflubro canard at this stage demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of scientific evidence and statistics. So yes right up there with the smoking and cancer.

So you dont understand covid or flu for that matter.

https://www.passporthealthusa.com/2022/04/can-the-flu-be-asymptomatic/

Micky 32

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120562897#Comment_120562897

Yeah has to be done. I have flown 7 longhaul return flights and 1 short flight since November 21. A few ferry crossings. . I decided life is for living after covid.

Micky 32

I think we should stop bickering and get on with our lives now . There’s no point arguing over the past. Yesterday’s announcement should be seen as a milestone as to how far we have come from out of the abyss.

As Donnelly said yesterday

“While Covid-19 remains a global health threat

( which is fair enough just like other diseases such as heart disease and strokes)

, we have learned to live with it and returned to normal life.”

Just go out and enjoy your lives 👍

Tomaldo

I read in Phoenix mag that the Irish Times received huge Government advertising revenue from Covid ads. Is it possible that affected their editorial policy, I'd be be surprised if other media outlets didn't get similar amounts.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120564015#Comment_120564015

Doubtful proposition... what was their editorial policy before that happened.

Tomaldo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120564080#Comment_120564080

On Covid, I don't know, that's why I'm asking. They have been accused in the recent past of fueling the property bubble because they received a lot of advertising revenue for their supplements. Although they did publish Morgan Kelly's gloomy predictions, which turned out to be accurate.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120564114#Comment_120564114

I cant see anyone here to be able to answer it though ... similar to the property question its a bit of an unknowable question without an admission from someone involved.

They responded to what they thought people were interested in... which may have led to more interest in it... a reinforcing cycle. Even if hadnt received the ad money and were just reliant on sales... they were selling what there was interest in.

Beasty

DLink threadbanned

Tomaldo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120564140#Comment_120564140

True, it can't be proved, unless former editor Paul O'Neill or someone close to him makes a statement. I have read here and elsewhere that people like Claire Byrne, Pat Kenny and Luke O'Neill were guilty of scaremongering. I was always against covid precautions from the start, although I did get my vaccines and 2 boosters, but maybe I'm biased too.

Sconsey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563383#Comment_120563383

Influenza is less infectious than covid, was easier to protect vulnerable through the existing vaccine...why are you talking about influenza to try to justify your skepticism of the covid response?

AerLingus747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120563405#Comment_120563405

your bad flu was probably a walk in the park to numerous others, your anecdotal evidence means jackshit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120566934#Comment_120566934

This comment says a lot about you and your opinion, but you're wrong, very wrong.

Anecdotal evidence based on personal experience means a lot to me and others who have had similar experiences, your dissmissive attitude is typical of posters who refuse to look at reality.

AerLingus747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120567353#Comment_120567353

Of course it does, I work with facts, not "ah well it didn't hurt me so everyone else must be lying"

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120567353#Comment_120567353

People who dont look beyond their own narrow personal experience arent willing or capable of comprehending reality. Your attitude is anti science which explains the blatant falsehoods and misinformation you have posted on the thread about covid.

Every major health authority in the world treated covid as a more serious threat than flu. This is borne out in across all metrics - infectiousness, hospitalisations, deaths.

You demonstrated your basic ignorance about flu by being unaware it could be asymptomatic or mild like a cold. There is no way you could know this from your own personal experience. This fundamentally highlights the flawed basis for your position. It is exactly the same mistake as those who argued against smokings links to lung cancer cos they knew someone who smoked who didnt get cancer.

Your claims about flu v covid have been repeatedly and thoroughly discredited on this forum. In response you have nothing, no evidence that will convince others - only to shout you are wrong at them. The bluster in your reply is inversely proportional to any real substance.

Hungry Burger

The people who are still living in March 2020 are an interesting case study. Like the Japanese soldiers hiding in the woods still fighting WW2 years after it had finished.

WaterWipes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120567422#Comment_120567422

Blindly following "the science", the same as blindly following the church or a cult, is a very bad idea.

Following "the science", backed by a pliant media, is what caused us to have our personal freedoms taken away, not to mention jobs, health services, etc, etc impacted. Those of us who dared to think outside the box knew that the pandemic wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but of course the science said otherwise and as a result got slapped back into our boxes.

There's lot to be said for gut feelings or as you are very quick to dismiss, personal experience.

If you don't see people dropping all around you, like the science & government said could or would happen, then you've every right to question the science.

And don't even think to credit the lockdowns or masks for preventing that from happening because most of the factories in the country kept running, and they're not set up for social distancing. People were still in close proximity no matter what the restrictions required, and we didn't have waves of mass deaths.

People were glad to embrace the science when it gave them a moral high ground from which to snitch on their neighbours who weren't following the restrictions to the letter, but when the science said "it's OK lads, you can have a life again" they railed against it.

"The science" was weaponised, and personal experience helped people to see the science for what it really was, a massive over reaction, especially when omicron came along and they tried to drag the arse out of the restrictions but couldn't because we could all see that nothing was happening.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120567711#Comment_120567711

Again zero facts zero evidence... I made specific points about covid v flu. Do you agree that covid is more infectious and more severe overall than flu? And on what basis do you do so? What is remotely cult like about that statement?

And you lecture me about blindly following with added nonsense about a cult?

Am happy to discuss masks on the masks thread. As for distancing have you forgotten the outbreaks of cases in meat factories?

The reasons we why had the restrictions were to reduce spread so that the severe cases would be on a scale healthcare could cope with.

Its an infectious disease - the authorities were clear from the outset most cases would be mild but the less vulnerable people with mild symptoms could spread it to those more vulnerable. A significant percentage of adults are in that cohort - look at hospital and ICU stats. Eg the 60 year olds with high blood pressure who pulled through ICU. And even among the other cohorts, smaller risk but many cases sends numbers to hospital needing care.

Every major health authority in the world correctly treated covid as a serious threat for that reason, of a different order to flu.

Dont even think - your words not mine. Explains a lot of what you have written.