Coronavirus Part IV - 19 cases in ROI, 7 in NI (as of 7 March) *Read warnings in OP*

Phoebas wrote: »

It might be a good idea that when you post estimates of 'likely scenarios' you make it clear which estimates are yours, which are the UK Government estimates , and which are yours but based on or inspired by the official UK Government estimates.
Because earlier you were misrepresenting the UK position.

Noted. I will be clearer when I say ”conservative estimate” that it is “MY conservative estimate”. And I only misrepresented the UK figures by underestimating the numbers that get it.

But look , I do get what you mean. There has to be clear difference between what a layman like me estimates and actual public figures. So noted.

No one has given me any comfort that the HSE are planning for reasonable scenarios though, the point of my first post. So I stand by saying you are better off catching this in the next 2 weeks than in the following 2 months.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The Sunday Business Post tomorrow is saying 1.9 million people could get the virus here and half of those within a 3 week period. I think they are quoting dept of health sources but hard to the text on the jpeg front page.

Gloomy stuff. Questions how on earth the health service could cope.

Impossible with even a fraction of those numbers. But it's unlikely to infect that many, that quickly.

Everybody next week.

Discussion here this eve...If someone is at the point of dying in hospital AND is confirmed to have the virus, what are a hospitals stance on letting family visit? With the shortage of protective gear and the need to get close family kitted up, highly contagious etc.. just curious. I know when there's any flu or mrsa, norovirus doing the rounds, all non essential visits are cut out. A close fam member of mine died a few years back in the middle of an mrsa bout and access was severely limited (they didn't have mrsa). They died in hospital and sadly a lot of fam members couldn't see them due to restrictions (understandable but very sad).

We've been talking about the knock on effect of anything like this in terms of delayed funerals due to isolatation for family members, etc.

Sorry if morbid but it's a genuine question.

gabeeg wrote: »

It can't.

We're a week, hopefully two weeks, from shutting all schools etc etc

We just seem to be following the same track other countries in abject crisis took. We really should be doing the hard stuff sooner rather than later. We could delay this thing with a nationwide effort - give us time to build and expand health care capacity.

We're nowhere near that stage. You'd probably be looking at around 400-500 Irish cases before the Govt would consider starting to close everything.

TTLF wrote: »

Does each country give updated figures at a certain time or is it sporadic?

We could make a timetable sheet to know when X country makes a new update,
of course only the bigger countries

Germany
Italy
France
UK
Ireland
China
Iran
S. Korea. (to start off for now)

UK is usually around 2pm to 3pm. Italy 5pm. Ireland were early today but had a trend of 8:30 to 8:45 all last week. China around midnight

France, Germany and South Korea seem to have separate updates a day

tillyfilly wrote: »

the Health Service Executive is nothing but a delegate of big business

As in every other country in the world

RandomName2 wrote: »

All fatalities are minimal if one looks at things like that.

More French people died from heart disease than the Germans during WW2.

Anyway my point wasn't that the death toll from swine flu was particularly staggering (though I find half a million hard to hand wave in all honesty), the point is that containment of it entirely failed. Had swine flu been MERS and not swine flu then you'd be talking a billion deaths.

Here's another to thing ease worries. No matter how bad it gets it won't be the worst disaster to ever happen this country. And it only took us 170 years and counting to get over that.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The Sunday Business Post tomorrow is saying 1.9 million people could get the virus here and half of those within a 3 week period. I think they are quoting dept of health sources but hard to the text on the jpeg front page.

Gloomy stuff. Questions how on earth the health service could cope.

A headline grabbing figure but how likely is it from a base of 19 people over 3 weeks?

Staying calm is the first step in dealing with this crisis.

VinLieger wrote: »

We literally could have by implementing strict quarantine and flight and boat restrictions thanks to being a tiny island, but that would have required our leaders and the HSE chiefs to have balls, instead they are all too afraid of being criticised for making the wrong decision.

Sorry but what are you blaming the HSE for in this regard? Travel retsrictions is a GOvt decision so why slag off the HSE?

Jin luk wrote: »

As i said plenty of times it will be 500+ here within 3 weeks

Whether it reaches 500 or not in a few weeks, your predictions are pulled from the moon

drkpower wrote: »

Ok, so you are trusting people rather than forcibly quarantining them?

Yep, exactly as the HSE does when they tell people to self quarantine. You would do it differently?

drkpower wrote: »

Of course that might have helped to slow down the spread. Though your ‘by a factor of 10’ is clearly just plucked from the sky.

Nope it isn’t. It is based on actually thinking about how it would have worked out and I have explained this earlier on this thread.

The simple fact of refusing entry to non residents and telling residents they should not go to those areas and will be subject to screening upon return would have cut the flow of entries massively. Since flows are broadly balanced in each direction, half of the people coming from those areas are nonresidents so that’s an immediate 50% cut in the flow if you deny them entry. Then if resident are told the government recommends against traveling there and they will be subject to restrictions upon return, it is fairly safe to assume the incoming flow from residents will be cut in half. ie that is a 75% reduction in the total flow.

So just by doing this and before doing any health screening or quarantines you have already eliminated 75% of imported cases.

Our target was to eliminate 90%, so to achieve it the medical screening and quarantine process would just have had to catch a bit over half of the cases though it. Very achievable.

Anyway, at this stage if you still believe I’m just throwing ideas without having thought about them there is nothing more I can add. I have patiently explained all the rationale even though I had already done so early in the thread.